Would this background fall under the first category? (Depictions of excessive violence towards humans, human-like characters or animals)

https://osu.ppy.sh/s/243268

(it's some girl holding a gun to her head)

@Poliwrath I'd say that'd fall under the first category, yeah. It's also technically glorification of suicide, which is probably something that we may need to consider covering as well.

• Depictions of obvious sexual innuendo in excess
  • Example: imagery that imitates sexual acts on a phallic-like object, such as a cucumber

So basically you are banning stuff as common as licking lollipops or popsicles? You should define when the act of sucking or licking on a lollipop has "sexual innuendo in excess" because the perception of it changes from person to person.

• Explicit or highly suggestive sexual posturing in any capacity
  • Example: a character in a state of near or partial undress lying atop a bed or another surface with obvious sexual intent/anticipation

Again, you must define properly what is "obvious" sexual intent.

An beatmap background may contain some of the following in limited quantities, subject to common sense and good faith:

• Depictions of swimsuit or 'scant' dress/undress so long as such imagery is not highly excessive or in violation of the posturing & innuendo rules listed above
  Rules are not properly defined yet.

• Good example: A particularly busty anime character enjoying some time on a dock with her seagull companion
• Unacceptable example: Three very busty anime characters wearing similar swimsuits with their breasts poised in obvious presentation, with said imagery occupying more than a third of the image's total scene

"Enjoying some time" is a very biased phrasing when you are using Net0's BG as the "unacceptable example" where they are actually enjoying some time, you can see they smiling and not doing any kind of "sexual" related facial expression or pose.

I want to focus in this particular example because this is very damaging for the community in general, enforcing rules that are subjective and promote male chauvinism as labeling stuff as "provocative" just because of the nature of the female body.

Their breasts are not "obviously presented" since that's how you grab a round float to swim... That's the only comfortable position since you have to put your weight on the contact with your lower torso, having breasts laying on top of the float.

Also, as you can see in this picture saying it occupies more than 1/3 of the image's total scene is a fallacy.
Trying to argument it with "tracing rectangles over them" or other biased method makes no sense since human perception is not rectangle based, such as some virtual mechanics (i.e. hitboxes)

You can't say this kind of double standard isn't morally damaging and a bad example since logical stuff like this concern about a BG which features three fully naked guys, also having a good time, that I showed to Ephemeral and he said "it's just three shirtless dudes"... When applying the destructive picky judgement you applied on net0's map we could say something about the "sexy look" in the face of one of the dudes or the fact he is grabbing a water hose which can also be "phallic". (Obviously I personally think it is as stupid as labeling Net0's BG as inappropriate)

I don't really think making a new ruleset to backup your double standards is going to work at all, since you are judging it really subjectively... Also you mentioned something about trying to match what is PG12 for America and Europe when the picture you rejected matches these standards.

Take a look a at this: Common sense media: What's age appropriate at age 12?

Sexy stuff: Even though preteens think that they're cool enough to handle big sex scenes, it's still not age appropriate for kids this age to watch adult sexual representation. Thus, kissing and boy/girl social dynamics are age appropriate
Where difference of bodies and body feature attractiveness are social dynamics, as long as it isn't strictly related to sexual intercourse, is age appropriate.

[My Kid Needs to Know What? An Age By Age Guide to Sex Education] (https://www.heysigmund.com/kid-needs-know-age-age-guide-sex-education/)

As you can read there, 12 year olds are prepared to experience something as basic as understanding bodies.

Also about "exaggeration of breasts" it's good to start by understanding cartoons are exaggerated depictions of people, and they are there not to necessarily oversexualize the drawing, but they work as a caricature just like the size of their heads (which is not the size of a normal human head at all).

I hope my concerns about how this ruleset affects negatively the moral of the community by forcing small scale male chauvinism in it are clear enough with this comment.

WWWWWW_WWWWWW

@ARGENTINE-DREAM

So basically you are banning stuff as common as licking lollipops or popsicles? You should define when the act of sucking or licking on a lollipop has "sexual innuendo in excess" because the perception of it changes from person to person.

Sucking and licking a lollipop is not imitating a sexual act in most circumstances, so this won't apply. It will apply for the fringe cases where it does, however - such as the infamous To Love Ru gif of one of the devil sisters deepthroating a melting popsicle.

Again, you must define properly what is "obvious" sexual intent.

Obvious sexual intent in this context would be the clear display of either soliciting of or anticipation of an upcoming sexual event. This is doubly reinforced by the 'posturing' element in the earlier clause.

[lots of concerns about examples]

Examples are anecdotal explanations of what would or wouldn't apply in a given situation. Discussing the minute particulars of human perception, using a ring float in a body of water and the particular of breast-to-non-breast pixels in a particular image piece is well beyond the scope of this pull request, and indeed, productive conversation in general.

However, to cite your concerns - the Kimi Iro Smile background would likely have to have its context assessed to ascertain the expression you mentioned. As ridiculous as this sounds, it is probably the only way to really determine the 'safety' of an image that is otherwise outwardly okay.

I can't really relate to your concerns about 'small scale male chauvinism' as I profess, I don't really understand where you're coming from with them. There's no concerted effort on my behalf to discriminate against either gender - this drafting ruleset and indeed, the broader consensus of the GMT in recent years is built on a model of what is generally received well by the community and what isn't - Net0 himself cited two instances of omitted fanart results that were major contest winners due to concerns about their potentially excessively suggestive content.

It is not my intent to create any drafts that discriminates against portrayal of either gender (or any inbetween) - it is my intent to create a draft that allows for as much openness as possible while still keeping the broader concerns of those who take issue with some of the 'artistic excess' that osu! beatmaps have sometimes been historically been known for.

both the rules and conversation here are extremely overkill, imo. is it so hard to just use common sense and not include suggestive graphics at all?

It should be just common sense. Experienced mappers who have ranked maps must know this, while new mappers learn through the process of ranking a map.

Other players just submitting incomplete beatmaps do not apply here as this was placed in the Ranking Criteria.

We could fix this by moving Song Content Rules -> Beatmap Content Rules in its own article? But then again, it is just common sense. Also idk how Pending & WIP beatmaps can be even regulated.

good point. going further than that, tying these rules to only beatmaps seems like an oversight; I can't imagine that content rules would apply differently to beatmaps than to any other content on osu!?

this whole writing seems like a knee-jerk reaction to Net0's situation that doesn't belong here. the entire set of rules can be summed in the word "family-friendly", and the democratic process described at the end is flawed in its purpose because there should only be a single definition/idea of what's allowed on osu! anyway

this whole writing seems like a knee-jerk reaction to Net0's situation that doesn't belong here. the entire set of rules can be summed in the word "family-friendly", and the democratic process described at the end is flawed in its purpose because there should only be a single definition/idea of what's allowed on osu! anyway

This perspective completely ignores the vast differences in perception of what is "family friendly" for different cultures and even individuals. I can't say I see any issue whatsoever with the bg that started this, but many people seem to disagree. And while I can at least understand where they're coming from, there have also been examples linked that are supposedly equally as bad where I don't even see where any sexual interpretation is coming from (also throwback to haitai). Having a clear set of rules for this that doesn't entirely rely on subjective definitions (though some subjectivity is unavoidable in this matter) seems necessary to help avoid situations like this, and it should imo be a compromise between the different cultures mainly involved in this game's community to avoid making large parts of the playerbase feel like their opinions on the matter are getting ignored.

I'm not ignoring the fact that there are differences between cultures/people/groups, I just think it doesn't matter. it's not up to the community to decide what content is allowed on the website, so providing this more in-depth version of the existing rules (which are still very subjective, as Argentine Dream demonstrated above) doesn't really help anybody

if osu! staff say that some piece of content isn't allowed on osu!, then that's the final decision and the discussion is over. there is no reason to give people more material to argue with

also, it's potentially confusing to define these rules clearly after so long, because there are numerous good examples in historical ranked maps (and other site content) that 100% breaks the rules with no question. so, while reality says that osu! staff makes and applies rules as they see fit, the document here says that there are concrete rules to be followed at all times and treated equally as severe in every case, which just isn't true

I think that trying to moderate such aspects of the game would be really complicated, more so if it would to be applied to past ranked beatmaps. As the Japanese PG 12 doesn't explain what is or isn't allowed, why not use the PEGI 12 as reference instead?

PEGI 12
Video games that show violence of a slightly more graphic nature towards fantasy characters or non-realistic violence towards human-like characters would fall in this age category. Sexual innuendo or sexual posturing can be present, while any bad language in this category must be mild. Gambling as it is normally carried out in real life in casinos or gambling halls can also be present (e.g. card games that in real life would be played for money).

https://pegi.info/what-do-the-labels-mean

Even if you block such imagery, things like language present in lots of songs would still be inappropriated. PEGI12 also allows mild bad language, covering the language hole as well.

I'm not ignoring the fact that there are differences between cultures/people/groups, I just think it doesn't matter. it's not up to the community to decide what content is allowed on the website, so providing this more in-depth version of the existing rules (which are still very subjective, as Argentine Dream demonstrated above) doesn't really help anybody

The current rules are vague enough that someone felt singled out by them being applied to only his map and threw away his account over it. I think that's enough reason to at least try doing something about it.

if osu! staff say that some piece of content isn't allowed on osu!, then that's the final decision and the discussion is over. there is no reason to give people more material to argue with

This I agree with, but should be explicitly stated in the rules to avoid people trying to argue in the first place. If something is borderline, and got taken down, then no discussion it's not allowed.

also, it's potentially confusing to define these rules clearly after so long, because there are numerous good examples in historical ranked maps (and other site content) that 100% breaks the rules with no question. so, while reality says that osu! staff makes and applies rules as they see fit, the document here says that there are concrete rules to be followed at all times and treated equally as severe in every case, which just isn't true

That is already the case with the current rules considering many old ranked maps. Changing old maps' BGs also isn't an impossible undertaking, it's just not necessarily worth the effort.

I think that trying to moderate such aspects of the game would be really complicated, more so if it would to be applied to past ranked beatmaps. As the Japanese PG 12 doesn't explain what is or isn't allowed, why not use the PEGI 12 as reference instead?

PEGI 12
Video games that show violence of a slightly more graphic nature towards fantasy characters or non-realistic violence towards human-like characters would fall in this age category. Sexual innuendo or sexual posturing can be present, while any bad language in this category must be mild. Gambling as it is normally carried out in real life in casinos or gambling halls can also be present (e.g. card games that in real life would be played for money).

https://pegi.info/what-do-the-labels-mean

Even if you block such imagery, things like language present in lots of songs would still be inappropriated. PEGI12 also allows mild bad language, covering the language hole as well.

I do like that, and include the PEGI16 one to clearly define when the sexual innuendo or posturing becomes too much.

I think this is a point where different cultural views might clash though, as PEGI is european and I'm not sure if the PEGI12 guideline seems fitting for most americans, though I can't know that as I'm from Germany myself. While I think that either fully allowing or disallowing "sexual innuendo and sexual posturing" would be the clearest, based on past incidents with BGs that I can think about, disallowing sexual posturing while allowing innuendo (unless extremely blatant, e.g. to love ru popsicle scene) might be a good compromise (and as innuendo can only be understood by those in the know in the first place, it doesn't seem nonsensical to do this to me either). Could add a sentence about images prominently displaying breasts as one of the focus points of the image with little clothing being considered sexual posturing, and it seems about as clear as you can make it unless we take the PEGI12 guideline straight away.

- Good example: Motion-oriented clothing movement that exposes the front or back of the upper thighs, clothing that exposes a reasonable amount of cleavage, shirtless male characters (with or without nipples)
  
- Unacceptable example: Both genders attired in microkini swimsuits, pasties or other stickers, bandages or adhesive material covering genitals 

literally cancels the "unacceptable example"

• Depictions of swimsuit or 'scant' dress/undress so long as such imagery is not highly excessive or in violation of the posturing & innuendo rules listed above

  • Good example: A particularly busty anime character enjoying some time on a dock with her seagull companion

  • Unacceptable example: Three very busty anime characters wearing similar swimsuits with their breasts poised in obvious presentation, with said imagery occupying more than a third of the image's total scene

because a "particularly busty anime character" with "clothing that exposes a reasonable amount of cleavage" are both things you put as acceptable examples. Yet that is what you cite as an unacceptable example in the second instance...

p.s.: might change "both genders" into "any gender" instead to avoid controversy

I think the important part of that last "unacceptable example" is "poised in obvious presentation"

the characters are not the issue cited

I'm reopening this for further consideration as people have proven themselves flagrantly incapable of consistently applying unspoken methodology to these things..

royally fucked this up git side wee