Hey there. I’ve been a member of this site for many years, primarily making comics and customs. During that time I’ve encountered a lot of difficulties with photo moderation, especially in the last year or so, to the point where I felt compelled to take a four-month break from posting comics.
I recently returned to posting comics again, and I’ve started running into the same frustrating problems with the way pictures are moderated. Pictures that went through fine a few hours ago vanish en-masse when I edit the project to fix a typo, or quietly disappear days after the project was uploaded. The current rules are very vague, and appear to be applied inconsistently by what I can only assume are different members of the moderation team.
So, I’d like to formally request that the photo guidelines be revised to be more concise, to give clear outlines and examples of what is and isn’t allowed. It’s incredibly frustrating and demoralising to put so much effort into creating content that should past muster, when the standard for what’s okay seems to change literally every few hours.
Areas for improvement
As stated in the introduction, I feel that the current photo guidelines are too vague, leading to confusion from both uploaders and moderators, who have different ideas of what’s okay and what isn’t.
This is the rule that I view as being the most vague and problematic.No graphic violence: Keep it fun. Don’t post any images or content that includes or suggests graphic violence, like blood or gore.
A lot of the themes Mega/MCX creates products for are inherently violent – Halo, Call of Duty, Destiny, Aliens – even older themes like Dragons and Pyrates involve themes of conflict. How far are we actually allowed to go with showing and implying the wars and fights that these themes revolve around?
Some days I can post a picture of two ranks of characters firing at and hitting each other, and the next day a picture of a single character firing at something off-screen gets blocked. Sometimes a picture of someone getting an arm cut or blown off is perfectly fine, and then sometimes a picture of an intact body on the ground obscured by a smoke effect is deemed unacceptable. Sometimes a picture of a character having a blade poked through the hole in their back or gap in their helmet is fine, and then days later a similar photo won’t be allowed through.
There have been many instances where photos I’ve uploaded have been blocked, while past images that could objectively be considered more violent remain visible on the gallery. I’ve had entire comic chapters go through fine, then have half their images mysteriously removed hours later, only for those same pictures to be approved again when I attempt to edit them back in the next day, which leads me to believe that different moderators have different interpretations of the guidelines.
This is another rule that I see being moderated inconsistently.No blood: Please refrain from using materials that look like blood in your images. For example: ketchup, red food coloring, fruit punch, or any other substance that could be mistaken for blood. *Note, red blocks are acceptable.
Sometimes a body with limbs or a head missing and red bricks around it is okay, sometimes having any red bricks at all is unacceptable. Official zombie figures with skin missing and blood on their faces are fine, but customs featuring similar injuries aren’t. Sometimes people can post pictures with graphic blood effects edited in, or with figures wearing blood-soaked bandages, but then sometimes a missing limb with a red block next to it is blocked.
We need clearer ground rules for what constitutes “acceptable” amounts of blood and gore.
This rule is generally pretty well applied, but I had some questions about what constitutes “mature” for the context of this rule. Obviously raunchy and risqué content is a given, but I’ve had issues in the past with other mature themes being suppressed.No mature content: Keep it clean. Don’t post any other kinds of graphic or suggestive images, including content that’s mature or adult in nature.
My comics are primarily set in the Halo universe, in a time of war. Most of my characters are soldiers, and as such they’ve lost people, they’re overprotective, they have PTSD, etc. I try to portray those traits with the seriousness and respect they deserve, but sometimes I find pictures contain dialogue discussing this kind of trauma won’t be allowed through.
Why is having a character brag about killing lots of aliens fine, but not a conversation where a soldier talks to his friend about the mental toll of losing his brothers-in-arms in battle? Why is a conversation with a character talking about wanting revenge on the person who killed her brother okay, while a conversation of a character talking about the time he was forced to kill his own megalomaniac father not? Why is a pic of a villain executing a prisoner in cold blood okay, but not if there’s a speech bubble of the victim begging for their life?
As much as my comics are known for their comedic moments and levity, I also try to treat the horrors of death and war with the seriousness they deserve. But when important bits of dialogue like that are arbitrarily blocked, it makes my characters seem unfeeling, and me as a creator seem insensitive and apathetic.
Examples of common problems
There’s a few other issues I often encounter that don’t specifically seem to relate to any of the rules.
Based on the experiences of myself and other users, it seems like comics that use better editing and effects seem to have more problems. Comics that use basic blobs and dots of colour from MS paint or similar programs for their muzzle flashes, injuries, explosions, etc. generally have far less problems than comics like mine that use flashier effects and more photo-realistic brushes. I truly don’t understand the delineation, it just feels like we’re getting punished for making more quality content.
A related area I have repeated problems with are fire and explosion effects. For some reason, pictures that show any kind of fire or explosion seem far more likely than anything else to be blocked by moderation (in my experience, at least). Sometimes it’s photos where a character is being thrown back by an explosion, or a fire is directly in front of or behind a character, but other times the photos being blocked are of vehicles exploding, or empty buildings on fire.
I don’t understand what specific rule these kinds of photos are actually breaking, and I would very much appreciate some clarification on the topic.
For the community
I’d like to conclude by assuring everyone that I don’t intend this as an attack on the moderation team, or the website, or the company. I love this community, I love the gallery, and I love all of the friends and fellow content creators I’ve encountered along the way.
I have appreciation beyond words for all of the hard work the set designers put into creating the products we all cherish, and for the moderators who spend hours sifting through all of the insanity we come up with.
My only intent here is to express my frustration with the inconsistent standards that I know for a fact have driven some members of this site to stop making comics altogether. What I’d really like is for an open and earnest discussion between staff and users, and the creation of a set of new guidelines that clearly set out what is and isn’t allowed, so that all users and moderators can firmly be on the same page.
To that end, I’d like to invite other users to give examples of issues or inconsistencies they’ve encountered, and offer their own suggestions for the best way we can all move forward.
