Ask the Mods Important Questions (jk it's politics again)

Joey
Dawnsong - Derpi Supporter
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@Patachu  
Generally we allow a lot of speech, so long as no one is being an asshole, attacking others, posting anything illegal/liable, harassing others, etc.
byte[]
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@Patachu  
What we host on the site is entirely at our discretion. There are no particular freedoms that we grant anyone; we’re not the government. My suggestion is that you follow the rules, and avoid pissing off the mods (by not being a nuisance or a bigot).
Patachu
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@Joey  
Depends what you define as being an asshole. I had to ask because I see more and more “deleted post, rule #n” in the forums now I start paying attention.  
So this forces me to ask this question. “A lot of free speech” what do you consider exactly not allowed ?
 
 
@byte[]  
Why? You think I’m a nuisance or a bigot? Hey, I’m contributing to this community as much as you do, but like I asked and wonder now I kind of care - altough quite late about it- is what is not set by the Rules of the site, as, the opinions of the staff.
 
Every community has political opinions, so the question is, is the staff, like you and others following a specific political correctness? and what do you define what is right, what is wrong in regards of various opinions? Because I’d like to clarify that. Sure, racism, sexism and all that, but what else?
 
What is defined as being an asshole, since this is, in my opinion something very subjective.
Derpy Whooves
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Looking For My Doctor
@Patachu  
For example, your posts calling others “shitheads” because they disagreed with you, and your posts calling for “violent acts of resistance” against right wingers, calling Trump and his supporters terrorists, and calling right wingers “irredeemable assholes” - all of that broke Rule #0.
 
We don’t allow those kinds of statements on the site. It doesn’t matter what your personal politics are, you can’t call others shitheads and promote violent acts here.
 
And your attacks on the people on the right is fine if you do it in art, but not ok if you attack people on the right with comments on fan art. And personal attacks such as you have made here are never ok. Personally attacking others, or calling for violence against others, isn’t permitted here.
 
Are those the things that you mean by “political opinion”? That not allowing people to personally attack others or call for violence against others is somehow a “political opinion”?
 
I had to ask because I see more and more “deleted post, rule #n” in the forums now I start paying attention.
 
Without an example, it’s impossible to speculate what you are talking about. You might be talking about us deleting all the “Fat Trixie” spam. Or you might be talking about us deleting your own posts for Rule #0. If you think a comment’s deletion was inappropriate, you can appeal it via one of the methods listed on the Contacts page, or in the Site & Policy forum.
Patachu
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Toola Roola - For helping others attend the 2019 Community Collab
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@Derpy Whooves  
You’re mentioning a parody/derision alt account I created, but I agree on the idea of moderating a bit comments doing some personal attacks.
 
Also it’s hard to say since moderators are also VERY involved, especially like, in political or soecietal threads. Sure you have the right to have your opinions but moderation-wise, is Derpibooru staff fully neutral and objective?
Derpy Whooves
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Looking For My Doctor
@Patachu  
Those comments were deleted because they personally attacked or insulted others, not because you were posting anonymously. They were not deleted because of the politics you espoused. They were deleted because you were promoting violence and personally attacking others.
 
Asking if this site has a political opinion is like asking if BronyCon has a political opinion.
 
It’s a massive fan-run event with dozens of volunteers and 10 thousand visitors. They don’t care if you’re conservative or liberal, mainstream or alternative, hard or soft. They don’t care what your sexual tastes are or what kind of wine you prefer.
 
They just want you to have fun and not hurt or harass others and to follow the few rules they’ve evolved over the years which help them to keep the convention running with a minimum of legal or personal risk.
 
The volunteers who work at those conventions may also attend things during the convention - they might wear a T-Shirt promoting a cause they believe in.
 
But they don’t get to promote those causes while working for the convention. They put on the Con Volunteer T-Shirt and do the work they volunteered to do.
 
Same thing here.
 
If someone is participating in a thread, they are not allowed to moderate it, unless they are performing tasks that everyone on staff agreed with in advance.
 
So, if one of us in the Tartarus thread and are involved in a conversation, we don’t get to moderate it. We recuse ourselves.
 
And, yes, as individuals we all have personal opinions. Some of them are quite strong. I believe very strongly that the climate is changing. Others on staff completely disagree.
 
But when we’re actually logged in to the mod channels and acting on reports or helping users, we’re wearing our “Con Volunteer T-Shirt”.
 
As a group we work together.
 
is Derpibooru staff fully neutral and objective
 
Here’s an example of why that is an odd question to try to answer.
 
As a group we feel that LGBT artists should be welcome on the site. Many people think that is a biased, and wrong, opinion and is encouraging the extinction of straight people. We allow people who don’t think we should be LGBT artists to be on the site to post their art here and participate as if they were anyone else - their opinions are none of our business.
 
But if they start harassing LGBT artists, or keep vandalizing tags on those fanarts, or promote their political ideas about LGBT fans promoting the extinction of straights - simply by existing and being allowed to use this site with “normal people” - then we delete those comments and ask them to stop. And if they don’t stop we will, usually over the course of a year of talking with them about our rules and why they aren’t allowed to harass artists or vandalize tags and banning them when asking them to stop doesn’t work, eventually ban them permanently from the site.
 
Those people think we are not neutral. They think this site is hugely politically biased and that staff is letting our personal political bias taint everything we do, because we allow LGBT artists to use the site, and won’t allow them to harass those artists and refuse to ban people simply because they’re LGBT.
 
That isn’t a hypothetical. This kind of thing happens a couple times a year. And for those people and their friends we’re completely opinionated and have a very clear political bias.
 
But which political bias we have is entirely dependent on the person you ask.
 
Liberals who aren’t allowed to personally attack conservatives think we’re alt-right, and conservatives who aren’t allowed to personally attack liberals think we’re alt-left.
 
We’re just trying to moderate to our rules. We work as a team so no one is individually making decisions, and staff actions are periodically reviewed by others. But some people believe that all moderation on the site is the result of personal whims or us having opinions about people’s arguments … as if we took the time to actually read the whole argument and form an opinion about it when the simple rule violation is that it’s completely off topic for the artist’s image.
 
We’re a fan site, and we’re not trying to push any political agenda - just like BronyCon. Unless you think that allowing everyone to access the site freely so long as they follow our rules is a “Political Agenda” (and some clearly do).
 
Like a fan conventions, we’re just trying to enjoy the MLP franchise, promote the community of MLP fans, and create a place that is welcoming for artists to preserve their work and allows them to share it with their fans.
 
As has been said enough that it shouldn’t need to be repeated, we’re just trying to create a place where we can store our Trixie art.
 
But that’s just my two cents. I’m just a volunteer here, and when I’m a volunteer I follow the rules for volunteers. If I disagree with your politics I won’t be talking with you about it as staff. I’ll be talking with you about it as another user on the site, and if either of us breaks a rule then I will “Nope” out of it and let the rest of staff handle it.
Derpy Whooves
Preenhub - We all know what you were up to this evening~
Artist -
My Little Pony - 1992 Edition
Artistic Detective - For awesome dedication to sleuthing out and maintaining artist tags and links
Economist -
Not a Llama - Happy April Fools Day!

Looking For My Doctor
@Derpy Whooves  
Something else I should say is that often there is a lot of staff involved in an action, but you’ll only see one or two of us publicly saying anything. After we agree on how to respond to something, taking giving someone a warning for off topic or spamming comments as an example, four or five people might handle the deletions, another will send the person a warning explaining what rule they broke and asking them to not do it again, and yet another might make a public post on the thread or image asking people to get back on topic or to not encourage the spammer.
 
People seem to assume that one public post means that one volunteer was responsible for the whole thing, but usually it’s the whole team and they’re just the one who volunteered to say something publicly.
 
And some times, when I’m the one giving the public face to the action, I might personally prefer to just ban the person rather than warning them. Or I might have preferred to warn them instead of banning them. But we work as a team, and sometimes other team members have better ideas how to respond to something, so I’ll deliver the message we agreed to - not the one that I personally would have preferred.
 
Like I said, it’s like BronyCon.
 
If you want to help the Con as a volunteer, here is your shirt - this is the shirt you wear while you are on duty. When you are done being on duty, take the shirt off and have fun. Wear whatever shirt you want to. But when you’re on duty, you wear the Con Volunteer shirt.
 
Does that help you determine what Derpibooru’s “Political Opinion” is?
Patachu
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@Derpy Whooves  
Ah I wanted to mention that because I have been accused to be “alt-right” by TheSmilingPony earlier. And basically a huge part of the staff. That’s just my point of view and anecdotal of course, and depends also what he meant by that, but I find this quite offensive.
Derpy Whooves
Preenhub - We all know what you were up to this evening~
Artist -
My Little Pony - 1992 Edition
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Not a Llama - Happy April Fools Day!

Looking For My Doctor
@Patachu  
I can’t speak to their opinion of you, it’s none of my business. But you did create an entire personality to troll and in your exchanges with that personality you were strongly promoting what seems to me an alt-right opinion, while appearing to promote the absolutely worse strawman of an alt-left person possible.
 
So, you were intentionally humiliating the alt-left by promoting the worse aspects of the opinions they are accused of having by the alt-right, while promoting the most reasonable alt-right opinions.
 
It was a puppet show. One a caricature of the alt-left, the other a “rational” alt-right caricature.
 
Your alt-left puppet had 5 comments deleted for breaking Rule #0, mostly due to calls for violence, calling other users ‘nazis’, etc.
 
Your alt-right puppet only had 1 comment deleted for Rule #0.
 
So, just from your most recent puppet show, you appear to me to be to be promoting an alt-right viewpoint, to the point of putting on a sockpuppet show to make the alt-left look as bad as possible.
 
But where moderation is concerned I don’t care what your personal politics are. It’s none of my business.
 
I just care what your actions on the site are, and only with regard to what is actionable under our rules.
 
If it’s not actionable, if it’s not happening on this site, it’s none of my or anyone else’s business on staff. People are welcome to all the opinions they want - it’s what they do that matters, not what they think.
 
And, again - your comments weren’t deleted because you “sounded alt-right” or because you “sounded alt-left” - they were deleted because you were insulting people and calling for violence.
Patachu
Patachu - For Patreon supporters
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Toola Roola - For helping others attend the 2019 Community Collab
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@Derpy Whooves  
I never report comments but okay, next time I see things like that I’m gonna report them.
 
Except to me, words never hurts anyone, unless that someone clearly comes up with death threats. Which IIRC I never did.
 
But define precisely what you mean by alt-right, this terms is just overused and has all kind and no meaning. That’s not the first time I talk with Americans about that. An alternative to the “right” means there can be from liberal-right, libertarian to full white supremacist. Do you really assume I am one of these ?
 
Anyways let’s not just center or derail this conversation on me and my past actions. The topic is just on the moderation and about various questions.
Derpy Whooves
Preenhub - We all know what you were up to this evening~
Artist -
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Economist -
Not a Llama - Happy April Fools Day!

Looking For My Doctor
@Patachu  
You’re the one who said ‘alt-right’, not me. That is your term and I was just replying to your question about it.
 
In general, I think that your recent puppet show was intended to make people on the left look as bad as possible.
 
Maybe you’re an equal opportunity troll and next time you’ll do everything to make people on the right look as bad as possible.
 
If you don’t, and instead again attack the left as hard as you can, then maybe you’re on the right. Or maybe you have an idea about “left versus right” that places you on some other scale.
 
Maybe you have a genuine hatred that you were trying to work out. Maybe you were just trying to have fun. It doesn’t matter what your motivations were - it only matters what you did, and what you said.
 
Beyond that, I don’t care what you are or how you define yourself. I just care what you do on the site with regard to our rules, and I hope you’re having fun that doesn’t hurt others.
Patachu
Patachu - For Patreon supporters
Ten years of changes - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of MLP:FiM!
Best Art Program Ever - For artists who were courageous enough to draw something for the April Fools day.
My Little Pony - 1992 Edition
Friendship, Art, and Magic (2020) - Took part in the 2020 Community Collab
The Magic of Friendship Grows - For helping others attend the 2020 Community Collab
Happy Derpy! - For Patreon supporters
Dream Come True! - Participated in the MLP 9th Anniversary Event
Toola Roola - For helping others attend the 2019 Community Collab
A Really Classy Artist - 250+ images under their artist tag

@Derpy Whooves  
by altright I quoted another moderator who called me that way, not you of course. sorry for that confusion. by a lot of standards I would fit in the alt-right but an alt-right guy would disagree and tell me I’m just a liberal or ancap whatever. Also do I even need a label? I don’t like that. You don’t like that either.
 
I’m being honest, since it costs nothing and have no interest into lying or whatever. Of course, that was the goal of creating a troll/alt account. but was not supposed to stay bad or borderline abusive, just change a bit and try to get in the character, the big idea when you make other characters is that at some point you want to make them a bit intresting and discover another approach. Gave it a try on this forum, got caught, meh. Losing is a part of every game too.
 
To relativize, I am nothing but a bunch of text on a computer screen with the image of a subminiature horse from outer space.  
Saying there is even a motivation is broad, but I understand why people are trolling, it’s just gaming, it’s nothing never really serious, and it’s kind of a good antidepressant. Some people prefer to go on a random bar and pick a fight with another guy as a reason to live after work… Meh, to each their own. At least here, it’s clear, we can debate with other gentlemen without hurting eachother. Which, for me, is not the goal - on contrary, the whole point of debate is to destroy safespaces and hugboxes and bring a different, opposite point of view and get tougher.  
I never really been much interested in all that politic stuff before but it is a solid subject, instead of being on a forum where everyone around you nods and agree to the same thing since everyone is agreeing in unison to everything one guy posts. There, it’s different.
 
Oh okay one of the mods a while ago got me in quite some trouble and bullshit accusations for leaking my IP on IRC which 4channers used against me, but now I really don’t have anything against the staff, and still like this place. ( Not sure if that’s reciprocal though. )
Derpy Whooves
Preenhub - We all know what you were up to this evening~
Artist -
My Little Pony - 1992 Edition
Artistic Detective - For awesome dedication to sleuthing out and maintaining artist tags and links
Economist -
Not a Llama - Happy April Fools Day!

Looking For My Doctor
I know I speak for everyone on staff when I say we are sorry that leak happened. The person who made that mistake resigned their position as a moderator immediately, and we’ve made changes to our tools and training to help prevent those kinds of accidents from happening again. But that doesn’t change that it happened, and we absolutely do regret any problems it caused for you.
 
Beyond that, we’re not a “troll culture” site, and people who intentionally troll or antagonize others do end up getting banned if they won’t stop. However artfully you may attempt to troll, or whatever your goals are for trolling others, you’re still trolling others, and that’s not welcome here.
 
But please do note that we differentiate between art that may be used in trolling or that others may perceive as trolling, and people making accounts or comments to troll others. The artwork that you used in your trolling attempt is still up - we’re an artwork site and strive to protect art even if it upsets others.
 
If it’s art and apropos the franchise or the fandom, we try to preserve it.
 
This seems to be becoming more of a personal discussion rather than actual questions about the site, it’s features, or things that we on staff can actually help with.
 
So if you have an example of one of our rules or policies that you believe is politically biased or that should be changed because it is discriminatory to people in a specific group, please let us know.
 
But beyond that, I don’t know that this conversation is still fitting in the intended theme of this thread.
Joey
Dawnsong - Derpi Supporter
Lunar Supporter - Helped forge New Lunar Republic's freedom in the face of the Solar Empire's oppressive tyrannical regime (April Fools 2023).
Flower Trio - Helped others get their OC into the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
Roseluck - Had their OC in the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
A Lovely Nightmare Night - Celebrated the 12th anniversary of MLP:FIM!
Cool Crow - "Caw!" An awesome tagger
Tree of Harmony - Drew someone's OC for the 2022 Community Collab
Elements of Harmony - Had an OC in the 2022 Community Collab
Non-Fungible Trixie -
Verified Pegasus - Show us your gorgeous wings!

PM me your cute OCs
Oh, I’m sorry, I thought this was an “ask the mods” thread, not a “Patachu and Derpy Hooves need to get a room” thread.
Just kiss ya nerds.
 
This, TBH
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@byte[]  
Thanks, but I was meaning if there was a way to look at uploads where it only has you as BGP, since searing “my:uploads” shows results that include pics uploaded with both my username and my as a BGP, sorry if I wasn’t clear about it.
 
Im asking because I remember I uploaded a few things in the past that I accidently uploaded as BGP before reverting, and im asking to see if there is a way I can see my BGP only uploads to see if I missed any
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Lock reason: Devolved into another politics thread