Proposal for Unecessary Censorship site rule addition to section 3.2

[Quarnozian]

Problem: Recently I have noticed several titles where the scanlator has arbitrarily decided to poorly censor the original artwork.

Example:

Spoiler: NSFW

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Proposal: A rule addition for section 3.2 to discourage this behavior. (This is an example. I'm sure it could be worded better)

• The editing of artwork on chapter pages that alter it from the artists original intention is prohibited, with the following exceptions:
  • If an un-edited version of the chapter has been uploaded first, a second version of the chapter may be uploaded. The chapter name must contain a description of what has been changed. Examples: (Uncensored) (Fan Colored)
  • If being uploaded as a separate title from the original work. Title name must contain description of change. (see examples above)

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This is a huge insult to the artist. Imagine if someone decided there was too much nudity in historical art, so they took a chisel to the crotch of the Statue of David and chest of Venus de Milo.

 

[SUPER7X]

This rule will lead to spurious reports on serieses where the censoring was done officially (and then undone for the volume, or maybe not even then), but I still support it.

 

[BraveDude8]

Edge cases to consider;

• Scanlators getting their raws from a third party raw site that has arbitrarily censored the pages themselves, and not realising that they're working off censored raws.
• Titles being published across multiple sources, where there are official releases with both censored and uncensored variants.
• Titles that are censored in their original release and uncensored in their volume release, where the early scanlations will appear to be censored by the scanlator.
• Groups using other group's releases as a raw and unknowingly working off censored raws.
• Groups who think that MD requires censorship, and are trying to do the right thing.

If we're discussing codifying this as a rule, it needs to deal with decensorship as well, the other side of the coin here. That's a bigger issue, as it leads to conflict over content ratings when a group's decensorship leads to people bumping the work up to Pornographic. Tsugumomo has a group of very dedicated horny /a/nons decensoring chapters, and we chose to move their work to a separate page so it can still be accessed on the site without causing issues for the original page.

• Do not intentionally make chapters more or less explicit than the original published chapter, e.g. adding or removing genitals, censoring explicit scenes, etc. MangaDex does not require chapters or covers to be censored, and we would prefer all content on the site to be uncensored wherever possible.
• If you choose to decensor chapters for a non-Pornograhic work, they must be uploaded to a separate series page created with the title format "Series Name (Fan Decensored)" and the Pornographic content rating set.

Terrible phrasing, but you get the idea.

 

[BestBoy]

I think the current rules can be bent enough that this would be considered a combination of:

1.3.5 Joke or troll releases are not allowed, except on April 1st.

3.2.7 All content that isn't strictly part of the original scanlated chapter is considered "extraneous". Examples of this include credits pages, recruitment notices, discussion, fan-colored chapter pages, and other fan art. Extraneous content is generally allowed, but must be placed either at the beginning or the end of the release.

3.2.7.2 Fan-colored pages not in a Fan Colored entry are considered extraneous and must not replace the original non-colored pages.

In my opinion, coloring over a page's art with all white or all black can be considered "fan-colored" and I think the only logical reason to do that would be to troll. I've never uploaded anything before, but I can't see why anyone would think censoring any work would be acceptable, much less required. Unless there's some warning during uploading about pornographic content that I'm unaware of.

If a new rule is out of the question, then I think using any of the above should be an accepted report.

 

[BzzBzz]

Just an illustration of volume vs. magazine "censorship" (this actually happen quite a lot).

Spoiler

Edit: which one should be treated as "insult to the artist"?

 

[BestBoy]

Edit: which one should be treated as "insult to the artist"?

This just looks like unfinished pages not censorship.

 

[Pokari]

Are you also going to ban "de-censoring" while you're at it, when the scanlators 'improve' nipple-less or genital-less artwork with their own shitty drawings?

If this is going to be a rule on the theory that it's defacing the artwork, it seems philosophically inconsistent to make it only apply in the case of censorship.

(Edit: realize now you did mention that in the actual proposed rule chance and that some other people said what I'm saying already. I'm sleepy. You can probably ignore everything I'm saying.)

Anyway. Another edge-case for consideration:
Should it be contingent on whether the change is "major"? If someone changes a small section of one page and it doesn't seem terribly consequential, are they bound to label it appropriately and/or create a new series page? If not, whereabouts is that line?

 

[Beregorn]

This is a huge insult to the artist. Imagine if someone decided there was too much nudity in historical art, so they took a chisel to the crotch of the Statue of David and chest of Venus de Milo.

They have, and they did; not these two specifically, but still.
Michelangelo painted the guy responsible for censoring his work as one of the lowest devils in his Last Judgment.

But yes, ManwhaFreaks can shove an uncensored volume up to their arse...

 

[Beregorn]

Guys, OP was pretty clear, and covered all the "fringe" cases you are objecting to!
It boils down to four major points
- do not change the manga beyhond the cleaning and redrawing needed for scanlation.
-if there are multiple versions (single chapters vs volume), you should indicate which one you are using.
- if you REALLY feel the need to add your personal changes to the manga, you can do so ONLY if there is already a "pristine" version of the manga AND you have to clearly indicate what you changed.
-if your additions radically change the manga (full recolor, change the rating, decensoring, replace all the faces with Waluigi's, etc...), it should be uploaded as a different manga; again, the nature of the changes should be clearly indicated.

As an example, the Time & Stop Brave: you have the "standard" version and the [NIPS VERSION] (from the volume). They should be allowed to remain together, because they are both official content and the addition of nipples don't really change the rating of the manga. If someone were to fully decensor it, THAT would definitely need to be uploaded as a different manga, both for the content (😏) and the fact it is a fan addition.

 

[Quarnozian]

Guys, OP was pretty clear, and covered all the "fringe" cases you are objecting to!
It boils down to four major points
- do not change the manga beyhond the cleaning and redrawing needed for scanlation.
-if there are multiple versions (single chapters vs volume), you should indicate which one you are using.
- if you REALLY feel the need to add your personal changes to the manga, you can do so ONLY if there is already a "pristine" version of the manga AND you have to clearly indicate what you changed.
-if your additions radically change the manga (full recolor, change the rating, decensoring, replace all the faces with Waluigi's, etc...), it should be uploaded as a different manga; again, the nature of the changes should be clearly indicated.

As an example, the Time & Stop Brave: you have the "standard" version and the [NIPS VERSION] (from the volume). They should be allowed to remain together, because they are both official content and the addition of nipples don't really change the rating of the manga. If someone were to fully decensor it, THAT would definitely need to be uploaded as a different manga, both for the content (😏) and the fact it is a fan addition.

Thanks. Though I think some of the edge cases @BraveDude8 mentioned are valid concerns... But that's why I stated that my proposed rules are just an example. I did my best, but I'm not confident enough in my lawyerese to pretend like what I said is already perfect.

replace all the faces with Waluigi's

Waluigi version! Easiest translation ever. Just replace all the speech bubbles and SFX with "WAAAAA!"