Honestly, when I first discovered MT, and started using it as a resource DB for drawing references, I got quite
frustrated by the huge quantity of ecchi (more or less) pictures in proportion to more common subjects. This is not
'cause i have any problems in seeing ecchi images (c'mon, if you have you shouldn't turn on tv, nor read
any magazine because of advertising... you should neither walk outside home, because of ad billboards and so on). Jeez,
finding a single manga or anime without any ecchi here or there is itself an hard task. Those kind of subjects, poses,
style, are an integrant part of the whole japanese manga art. It was because, not loving it, i had no interest in these
subjects for drawing, and they just got in my way (and you know, sometimes just to load a single page on MT you have to
wait quite a lot).
So, less ecchi images should be desirable for my convenience and tastes. And, maybe, it is, but i see two big issues in
the way its being done.
1 - As I said, a large percentage of pictures posted on MT (scans, walls, doujinshi everything) has more or less ecchi
flavour. Blindly erasing everything would mean both erasing at least 2/3 of pictures with female subjects and probably a
considerable loss of users (not only the ones displeased by an heavy cutting of their galleries, but also many
"common" users). If this is just a sponsor problem, well, imposing this will not be to their advantage,
really.
2 - You may say that these erasings are not "blind" as I stated before. Well, I'm just stating what seems
to be a fact, IMO. There are many "heavy ecchi" pictures around, and i can understand their deletion, but
I've seen also many totally "innocent" pictures die in the censorship void. Here is an example http://digilander.libero.it/Eanur/lucy.jpg
(NOTE : this is NOT the picture removed, it is only the same subject, pose and drawing, i just made a simple google -
funny coincidence isn't it? - search to find this well known picture for the example.
BTW, to not seem unfair, i would like to specify that this was not a removal from my gallery, I never had a removal,
mostly 'cause i just posted a couple of chast doujinshi).
Quote by belmikryyou guys,
echii is still allowed, just not borderline hentai- all we did was remove the really down right raunchy stuff, echii is
still here, we have just redfiened whats echii and what's hentai-
Now, has it anything ecchi? Is there anything that makes this picture potentially "offensive" to anyone? I
find, personally, much more "provoking" that lil' girl on the top left frame of the MT layout, while i
find this Lucy's picture and pose extremely beautiful, artistic, chast and meaningful.
Deleting such images and artworks from MT's database is and will be a major loss to the MT artistic quality
overall. Or, maybe, even the Sistine Chapel and Michelangelo's David are offensive to a not well defined
"sensibility"?
Now, i cannot evade a question that is bothering not only me, I'm sure : why are there these debatable removals? I
can figure that, among the various moderators, there are different sensibilities (and nobody can tell what is
"artistic" and what is not, that's for sure, but i find hard to believe that someone can find that
Lucy's pic offensive in any way), and they cannot debate together (nor with the author) every possible removal,
they have this work to do, but they should at least decide a clear, and hopefully more balanced, criteria in doing it,
alltogether, BEFORE letting every single moderator make his decisions totally (as it seems to be) based on his personal
tastes.
Or, maybe, they should try to do this work more carefully, 'cause it's likely that these anachronistical
removals can be caused also by a lack of attention and care (I'm not blaming anyone, I can imagine how boring this
kind of work can be, and how, in the big mess, many potential errors can happen).
Obviously, there's another eventuality. There can be other reasons behind this massive erasing we are
experimenting. The need to lighten a lot the site. The site is slow, packed with pictures, we have seen recently other
measures to this same aim. It wouldn't be strange the decision of, having also this sponsor issue at hand, seize
the chance to "kill two birds with one stone". Nor it would be a bad decision itself.
If this is the case, and a cleaning is needed 'cause of more contingent factors, then welcome to the cleaning. But,
then, state this clearly : seeing your work removed is not funny, maybe, but you can easily accept it if you know it is
for a reason. Seeing it removed with an anachronistic excuse of it being "offensive" for its contents, when it
is plainly not the case sounds really like a mock. You know, THIS is something that is really offensive.