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I've been noticing a lot of removal of NSFW images recently (past two weeks) which aren't necessarily breaking any rules, including one of my posts.
I haven't seen any new rules being placed on NSFW so I'm guessing that KYM got a new mod for images.

I suppose that some people would be fine with this because "it isn't a porn site." But I don't see why NSFW images are being deleted if there are no rules being broken.

We consider a lot of things when it comes to removal and it does have a subjective element to it. There is also "upload intent" to consider, such as people who only post NSFW fanart and try to dump as much as possible, and people who tag ineffectively, or use booru tags when we prohibit it, or undo mod retagging on an image.

Another bad thing many users do right now, is rather than ask us what content is okay, they leave personal commentary in the notes such as "Hope mods don't delete this lol". There is a clear lack of respect for the site from such users and they haven't considered the impact they are having. If in doubt about an upload, ask us first.

There are also certain users who make a game of trying to push the boundaries and test where the NSFW line is, which locks us into something of an arms race with certain galleries, and also users whom I suspect are just here for the softcore because their parents locked off the actual porn sites.

We understand that there are different levels for different entries (for example, Kill la Kill itself is inherently NSFW in a lot of aspects so we'd probably go a little softer on those uploads), but as soon as we tell users this, some try to abuse it. Just now The Cute Master said to me in modchat that, for example, you can't document furry subculture without talking about yiff content, which is absolutely correct, but there are people who just upload stuff with the intent of using salacious content for upvotes.

Oftentimes there are users who will nitpick at you over how much nipple bulge is too much and how much vulva is too much and it's very hard to not get disillusioned. Users are also too precious about their uploads – remember, what you upload to the site is now the site's content, you don't own it – least of all if it's a piece of art you didn't draw yourself.

In terms of the actual NSFW Guidelines (click to read), they say:

Borderline NC content that may be considered explicitly sensual or provocative in nature or features a bodypaint-like clothing style or tactical censoring.

This is evidently going to be in the eye of the beholder, to an extent.

Also read this additional post to familiarise yourselves with the rules: https://knowyourmeme.com/forums/general/topics/18820-nsfw-guidelines-updated-21717/page/4#forum_post_881934

Alright, well, the Moderation team has decided to change both rules pages, we removed the overly descriptive stuff because it's too embarrassing and from now on we will be way more strict with NSFW content; This means we will start removing extremely porny media from now on to our discretion, and to avoid another "Is this nipple bulge too big?"

See there where it says "to our discretion". Unfortunately that means if a mod thinks it's too lewd, or too gross, it goes.

In closing I would say: KYM is a library of sorts, and users donate "books" to it. We welcome your donations but we are the librarians and we will decide what is appropriate to display, and on which shelf.

↑ More or less what Eglamore said. Feel free to reach out to us about specific images that get removed. Even if you don't have the direct link, galleries and dates are helpful. We have noticed an excess of images being removed recently, and we are reviewing any issues that may have occurred. KYM has a database of about 1.3 million images and reviewing them for rule violations can be difficult. Some times one NSFW image may look like it breaks the rules when you get to going on a spree of removals. We try to do it sparingly, but have to enforce the rules when they are broken.

And what about the entries that used to be considered an acceptable stretch/exception to some NSFW rules, but are now outright locked, like the One-Finger Selfie Challenge entry..? Are exceptions no longer applicable, then..? And what about Diives' entry..? It also got locked, but Sakimichan's entry is not. What is the reasoning behind both..?

This would have never happened if nudity wasn't stigmatized.

@Evil Thing Unfortunately, we live in a society.

@Nedhitis Honestly pretty much everything you say is true. The site is running on dinosaur-level tech. It would be really nice to have some functionality beyond tagging images and entries with the red NSFW label. But even in a scenario where nudity was allowed, moderation would still need to occur. If you allow porn, some people may then try to upload certain illegal kinds of porn. It happened on Reddit. Unfortunately though, we're not a porn site. We don't need a dedicated space" for it. Can't you just go somewhere else if you want that content? Now to wait for someone to bring up Piccolo Dick and we have to explain why that's an exemption all over again.

And yes, Sakimichan should be locked. That artist's work has even been removed from Danbooru due to a takedown request, so we should not be hosting it here out of respect for the artist's wishes more than the NSFW thing.

The Diives thing happened because users were abusing it to push the NSFW line as I mentioned. Bascially we don't lock until something proves to be a headache. Ultimately we're never fully going to be able to reconcile the people who want KYM to be a free-for-all with the people who want it tightly controlled. I know that some of you here are "free for all" types and that's fine, but you're not realistically ever going to get what you want.

Ah, that does make sense in regards to artists. I was not even aware of Sakimichan's work having legal issues to it, but it makes sense.

As for the porn: does that not happen already as it is..? Late-night KYM has always that one weird new account spamming either porn or ads. I still remember the bestiality spam on all trending images one day. That was actually fun to watch, not going to lie.

I am not sure if allowing more or less NSFW would do anything to make those occurences happen more or less often, since I cannot for the love of me detect a pattern on their occurences, or even if they are done by a related group of people with some kind of agenda.

Nedhitis I get that you think "fewer rules, more filtering" is the better way of doing things and I would tend to agree in most circumstances, but we do get a lot of users who think that just because Sites A, B, C and D allow something, we should automatically allow it too.

And yes it does already happen where porn is concerned. All we can do is mod it after the fact. We're not psychic, we can't predict the future and the site is huge, so sometimes it takes us a while to flag up problem images or entries.

I understand the people who want KYM to be what they want and not what administration wants, but it's simply not going to happen. They can go elsewhere for pornographic content – memes like Piccolo Dick aside.

To repeat what I said in my first post. KYM is a library of sorts, and users donate "books" to it. We welcome your donations but we are the librarians and we will decide what is appropriate to display, and on which shelf.

It is not about what any specific person wants, Eglamore. Not everyone with a strong opinion on this subject has a personal ulterior motive. I doubt anyone does, in fact. If anything, the people who are negatively affected the most by the current way things are handled are mods themselves, not the users, since it is mods who have to deal with and clean up the mess of all this. Users can just ignore all of it – most already do – and Staff delegates most responsibilities on that regard to mods as well. This is probably the only site on the whole internet where mods have to do more than just basic, straightforward easy-to-manage maintenance of content and comments (reddit mods and their often tyrannical, self-imposed rules notwhistanding).

Let us also not kid ourselves about the administration: they do things the way they do because of budget and probably unwillingness to act, not because it is what they want. I doubt that getting malware-ridden ads and constant sponsor scoldings on what is likely the smallest known content aggregation website is part of their master plan.

And I am not sure why you repeated the last paragraph since I already addressed that point and why it is irrelevant here. Facebook works in the same fashion and they do not share the same issues, because they actually did something about it.

In the end, I say all of this mostly because I can and less because I care. By all accounts, inaction is hurting the site and its workers – paid and unpaid ones – more than its users, and being in denial about the site's nature to justify it is just supporting a barely functional system for the sake of keeping a status quo that KYM's sponsors do not even acknowledge or care about. We are basically rationalizing the whole thing to make it sound less bad for ourselves, but we know better, and it could be better after over 8 years of the site existing, but we keep pretending everything is fine enough instead. All because of a problem that is almost laughably easy to solve, if not necessarily cheap.

Unfortunately though, we're not a porn site.

You will never live this one down, Egla "I want to see, a KYM filled with NC" more.

And yes, Sakimichan should be locked. That artist's work has even been removed from Danbooru due to a takedown request, so we should not be hosting it here out of respect for the artist's wishes more than the NSFW thing.

C&D thread. This is certainly something we can bring up to staff and, if deemed necessary, have Brad contact Sakimichan.

Nedhitis I get that you think "fewer rules, more filtering" is the better way of doing things"

We actually updated the rules to be more up to "mod judgement". I don't recall where and how, but we did. Should be able to find the updates somewhere, if anyone wants to know. Beforehand the rules were more a checklist of this and that are not fine which only promoted people looking for loopholes. Now it's just our judgement > yours.

^ See, that is my point here. People on other sites do not exploit loopholes because the need of doing so was outright eliminated, so that is never an issue for them (not for NSFW, at least – I can see that still being an issue for politics on Twitter and Facebook since that is a much more complex and sensitive subject).

Loophole exploitation of any system is always a stronger indicator of a system's inherent flaws more than those trying to find them, for any type of system. Curious trivia fact: the Moon itself had a legal owner, all because of a loophole in the law. They did not change existing laws to work "by judgement" because of that incident, expecting it to hopefully solve the issue or future similar events. Hell would break loose if they even entertained the idea. In fact, they could never do something about it: he claimed it on 1954 and kept it until his death. Instead, on July 1st of 1984, an international treaty was put in place in which the Moon officially became "common patrimony of humanity", and as such, nobody can own it again. They took a new measure, which did not alter any existing laws or policed/encouraged any regular land-owning dealings. Nobody complained, naturally, and it did solve the issue 100%, loopholes included.

Proactive actions and measures applied towards a system are less likely to be the subject of loopholes than restrictive ones towards a common userbase of a system. Unless Skynet becomes a thing, a system never rebels, so it is much easier to proof the system than to expect every single user of said system to comply, or deal with each individual case (either out of rebellion, ignorance or misunderstanding) time and time again. Not to mention it would just be a lot less of a pain in the butt for those keeping the system, anyway, and I assume that would be a good thing for mods, no..? Who does not love less/easier work, after all.

Proactive actions and measures applied towards a system are less likely to be the subject of loopholes than restrictive ones towards a common userbase of a system.

Exactly why I argued in favour of those updates back then, which thankfully made it through. Might need some tweaking, but we need something a mod team can work with since different mods have different judgements.

Which gets you to this thread and what OP said, in the rush of image cleaning sometimes things may go a bit overboard and we can hope that sounds reasonable. Anything else has already been pointed out by egla or cute.

Well, as long as it is known that the removals can indeed go overboard, then it is not so bad of an issue, since that at least implies that there is a will to do things better eventually, and that is a start.

I am just concerned that KYM's issues on this regard are seemingly unique to the site, so naturally, replicating other sites' measures where it has worked for 100% of them should, logically speaking, be the obvious next step, since there is no reason to think it would not work here and break the pattern. But again, I realize that such a thing is not easy cost-wise; it would essentially require a remodeling of part of the site, which is ultimately why I believe it will never happen. But hey, let it not be said nobody warned the upper administration about it if things escalate beyond just a few banned users and removed galleries.