Post by Mr. Pooka on Mar 20, 2021 20:05:30 GMT -5
This is a bit of old news but one that comes up on occasion and there is still curiosity around it. I'll explain in two parts, a simple description and than some more detailed fine points and a couple of personal notes.
Very simply one of our costumes for Netjers was deemed to be breaking the rules.
Also a handful of CPs were called out along with the female Netjer Barbarians skirt being to short (which it is not according to PI rules at the time, but that matters little and I'll explain why below).
We were told that we had to change these costumes to make them PI appropriate.
We CAN NOT do that. We sell art and promise to host those images. If you purchase a Sphinx from us you are buying art and while we retain some copywrites we cannot and will not change your art without permission. That's sleazy and more importantly is potentially illegal in most western countries. We'd be breaking a contract and a trust.
In a perfect world we could change costumes going forward and we could bar people from posting these images on PI but unfortunately that does not work according to PI rules. I can quote the specific rules (as they existed at the time at least, I haven't kept up with new changes of course), but essentially PI rules require all linked sites to be PI appropriate, including image hosters. This created an impossible situation where were we were breaking PI rules because of this rule call. (There is one rule that states we could have put a warning about 'naked/partially clothed anthros' but this rule is contradicted in several other rules, creating a bunch of broken rules that only mean something when someone wants them to mean something.)
I really feel there should have been a better option for this situation. At the time this costume had already been around for SEVEN YEARS, displayed on front thread pages, owned and enjoyed by many PI players, including moderators. It was created when there were no adoptable rules and this particular moderator call simply invalidated our whole adoptable on Pony Island by association. The costume itself was inspired from a children's book created to be used by 3rd graders and we never would have felt it broke any of PI's rules as written or interpreted and that never would have been our intention. I feel PI could have many simple and much less destructive methods of dealing with situations like this, perhaps a mod approval section for new costumes or even banning particular images from PI, but unfortunately their rule concerning any website association or linking was the real problem. The intention of the rule of course is good (don't like to offensive sites, duh!) but the restriction that any linked site must also follow all PI rules is extremely limiting and was still routinely broken, as if it was there only as a trap when someone wanted to report you.
We simply had to leave the site and had no recourse because of this situation. I had always followed PI rules and my first job working on Sphinxes was to help navigate the rapidly changing rules concerning adoptables at the time. (In fact I'd consider myself an expert on PI rules and maintained a complete searchable database of every rule, including private rule calls by moderators both from myself and shared by others) and have nothing against PI, or even the moderator who made this rule call... I'm just saddened by it and what it meant for our community.
I also never told anyone on PI we had to leave PI and didn't send out a final mailing list because that, again, was against PI rules. Unfortunately many PI people don't even know we still exist, sadly!
That's the whole thing in a nutshell. Now I can add a little context and a few details.
----------------------
Unfortunately there is some kind of unwritten animosity towards adoptables on PI. There's some murky history here but personally I think it grew out of the uncontrolled chaos that was Lupines. (of course this was with the original (super criminal!) creators and probably has nothing to do with their current caretakers.) Adoptables are always referred to in minor, derogatory ways. Perhaps this official description of adoptables from 'The Great PI Survey 2015' might explain more clearly.
"Adoptables are some images of creatures or humans that are run by users. They serve no purpose other than look pretty."
Here's a link if you like
Personally, I feel this attitude makes for a subtlety toxic environment where some PI mods seem to go out of their way to belittle what others love so much.
Now to be super super clear, there were some wonderful, helpful and friendly mods on PI which I had a good working relationship with. ...but obviously some not so much.
On top of this particular environment there were a lot of inconsistencies and contradictions in the Rules... holdovers from updates, copy/paste mistakes, intentional loops to be enforced whenever? Idk, but the rules were very much a mess. There were also a few rules that were, what I would call, wrong. I mean just factually incorrect. Of course PI can make up whatever rules they want, just like I can here. (PI can make up a rule that says you cannot use their site while wearing a bathrobe that doesn't cover your knees. It doesn't change any law in your country, but it is a rule they can add you'd be expected to follow, that's their prerogative.) To be clear, I call these rules wrong for various reasons, some of them encourage copywrite infringement and some would make you fail your art school test if you used them as real world rules. A few are just contradictory making them functionally broken. The rules as they are written contain so many contradictions they always felt like they were built as casual traps so that virtually anything could be against the rules if someone wanted to use them. There were also a pile of unwritten rules. Rule calls made up by mods or perhaps something that was in the rules but didn't make the next copy paste update. Let me give you a good example...
I was running a Sphinx forum game where people had to post images, as I do, (-8. The winner of the game hotlinked an image instead of using their own image hosting and the person in second place (who happened to be a moderator) complained that the person in first place cheated and broke the no hotlinking rules. I simply asked in the thread if the user could please add a link or give direction to where the 'no hotlinking' rule was for everyone's benefit and to educate them on the topic... of course knowing that there was no such rule anywhere in the rules (as mentioned above, I maintained a complete rules database). I was messaged that I should simply obey the mod's calls as they knew the rules and also mentioned that I could make my own rule call on who won the contest. Which was actually kind of wrong twice! Besides the mod being unaware of the rules they were actually supposed to be enforcing, Adoptable threads were also subject to all PI rules so if someone was cheating they should have been disqualified. ...ah well.
Enforcement of PI rules was also always fairly half hazard, in our threads at least. I can't speak to other spots around PI. It again, always felt like some mods who watched our threads would just pick and choose what rules to follow whenever. For years and years I absolutely monitored our threads and ensured that everything was always appropriate and followed PI rules, asking players to remove inappropriate images or reporting things if I could not/did not get a response. This was the PI rule for adoptable owners and worked hard at it. ...except in our very last Heb Thread when I knew we were probably done with PI and I was in a bit of a mood to be honest. It lead to all sorts of crazy things that should have been dealt with but wasn't. Here's one more example of random rule enforcement.
Wowza PI mods hate Tinkerbell. So, I was running another image posting game (do I do those to much? I hope not, I like them!) and I forget the rules exactly but I think it was something like posting strong female role models. Someone posted a classic (and super G rated) Tinkerbell image which was removed for 'inappropriate content' reasons. Just one or two posts above was an image of Wonder Women literally stomping on someone's head which was left and never mentioned. Her costume obviously broke PI's rules and there was both blood and violence in the image... but the mod in this case just seemed on autopilot and wasn't actually looking at the images just making sure you guys were not corrupted by Tinkerbells short skirt. Poor little fairy.
So rules were just enforced when someone wanted to enforce them... and the are written in such a way that you can break contradicting rules all the time without knowing you are breaking them!
I won't really go into to many details here, perhaps the rules have grown and evolved and I truly hope they get better for anyone involved with PI but it's not really my thing anymore.
------------------------
and a sort of FAQ of questions I get about this.
Why didn't I fight this.
That's both an easy and difficult question. I didn't fight this for you, who is reading this right now and cares about playing on PI.
In the past PI has often had a very harsh, scorched earth reaction to any sort of questioning of their rules. I can refer you to several artists and (now non-existent) adoptable owners if you can track them down because you won't find them anywhere near PI. I didn't personally care what happened to me or my account but I was desperately and passionately concerned with the surrounding fallout. I didn't want to see people get banned for sharing a Sphinx image and I know there were many many players who would have rather gone down fighting for what was right and gotten themselves in trouble, burning PI bridges. I know there were a handful of people in my circle of friends who were disappointed that I didn't' make a giant fuss about this, but I personally never would have been injured of this sort of fight, it would have been other stalkers who got themselves into trouble and lost stuff they cared about.
There are also users who are currently breaking PI rules. Dragging these rules into the light would have brought an increased scrutiny to those accounts which would not be my intention.
Also as a small additional note for this question. There were a couple of other adoptables (I personally like and watched!) where were also in violation of some the rules that would have been dragged up and they also may have become casualties of my raising a fuss.
Why didn't you just change the costumes.
Because is wrong. I'm not even arguing that the rule is wrong, if PI mods get a bit to excited about images from a third grade textbook they can ban whatever costumes they want. What is wrong is changing art we've sold. Now because of PI's derogatory perspective of adoptables this might seem out of wack with reality, but let me give an a similar hypothetical. Imagine you hired a photographer to take pics at your wedding and host a website. Everything comes out great and you like the site. Two weeks later you got to check the images and the photographer photoshopped all your wedding dress images black because he thought it looked cooler... and refused to change them back to what you paid for. Imagine you had a contract that said the photographer would not alter any of your images, but in that two weeks the photographer decided to change their terms of the contract. Someone is going to get sued.
Now, I realize no one would sue me for changing some costumes, but it's not about doing what we can get away with it's about doing what is right. We here will always do our best to do what is right. We would certainly never do something so shady based on one completely out of the blue, seven year to late rule call.
You can know that when you buy art from us we will be always be honest and transparent.
-----------------------------------
As one final note, personally I'm so much happier not having to deal with Pony Island. There are some wonderful people there including some moderators but their rules are wacky. Like bonkers. I don't envy anyone who tries to navigate them. Doing things here makes me happy, (-8 and every other website we've peeked for possible events has much more commonsensical rules grounded in reality. Obviously PI was not really a site for me anyways and I was there for the adoptables. (-8 Did you know you could actually get some kind of virtual ponies to play with on there? I never found them, but I've heard from reliable sources that its true, (-8 so if that's your thing look for them and have fun!
Very simply one of our costumes for Netjers was deemed to be breaking the rules.
Also a handful of CPs were called out along with the female Netjer Barbarians skirt being to short (which it is not according to PI rules at the time, but that matters little and I'll explain why below).
We were told that we had to change these costumes to make them PI appropriate.
We CAN NOT do that. We sell art and promise to host those images. If you purchase a Sphinx from us you are buying art and while we retain some copywrites we cannot and will not change your art without permission. That's sleazy and more importantly is potentially illegal in most western countries. We'd be breaking a contract and a trust.
In a perfect world we could change costumes going forward and we could bar people from posting these images on PI but unfortunately that does not work according to PI rules. I can quote the specific rules (as they existed at the time at least, I haven't kept up with new changes of course), but essentially PI rules require all linked sites to be PI appropriate, including image hosters. This created an impossible situation where were we were breaking PI rules because of this rule call. (There is one rule that states we could have put a warning about 'naked/partially clothed anthros' but this rule is contradicted in several other rules, creating a bunch of broken rules that only mean something when someone wants them to mean something.)
I really feel there should have been a better option for this situation. At the time this costume had already been around for SEVEN YEARS, displayed on front thread pages, owned and enjoyed by many PI players, including moderators. It was created when there were no adoptable rules and this particular moderator call simply invalidated our whole adoptable on Pony Island by association. The costume itself was inspired from a children's book created to be used by 3rd graders and we never would have felt it broke any of PI's rules as written or interpreted and that never would have been our intention. I feel PI could have many simple and much less destructive methods of dealing with situations like this, perhaps a mod approval section for new costumes or even banning particular images from PI, but unfortunately their rule concerning any website association or linking was the real problem. The intention of the rule of course is good (don't like to offensive sites, duh!) but the restriction that any linked site must also follow all PI rules is extremely limiting and was still routinely broken, as if it was there only as a trap when someone wanted to report you.
We simply had to leave the site and had no recourse because of this situation. I had always followed PI rules and my first job working on Sphinxes was to help navigate the rapidly changing rules concerning adoptables at the time. (In fact I'd consider myself an expert on PI rules and maintained a complete searchable database of every rule, including private rule calls by moderators both from myself and shared by others) and have nothing against PI, or even the moderator who made this rule call... I'm just saddened by it and what it meant for our community.
I also never told anyone on PI we had to leave PI and didn't send out a final mailing list because that, again, was against PI rules. Unfortunately many PI people don't even know we still exist, sadly!
That's the whole thing in a nutshell. Now I can add a little context and a few details.
----------------------
Unfortunately there is some kind of unwritten animosity towards adoptables on PI. There's some murky history here but personally I think it grew out of the uncontrolled chaos that was Lupines. (of course this was with the original (super criminal!) creators and probably has nothing to do with their current caretakers.) Adoptables are always referred to in minor, derogatory ways. Perhaps this official description of adoptables from 'The Great PI Survey 2015' might explain more clearly.
"Adoptables are some images of creatures or humans that are run by users. They serve no purpose other than look pretty."
Here's a link if you like
ponyisland.net/#!/?src=community&sub=forums&topic=3173208
Personally, I feel this attitude makes for a subtlety toxic environment where some PI mods seem to go out of their way to belittle what others love so much.
Now to be super super clear, there were some wonderful, helpful and friendly mods on PI which I had a good working relationship with. ...but obviously some not so much.
On top of this particular environment there were a lot of inconsistencies and contradictions in the Rules... holdovers from updates, copy/paste mistakes, intentional loops to be enforced whenever? Idk, but the rules were very much a mess. There were also a few rules that were, what I would call, wrong. I mean just factually incorrect. Of course PI can make up whatever rules they want, just like I can here. (PI can make up a rule that says you cannot use their site while wearing a bathrobe that doesn't cover your knees. It doesn't change any law in your country, but it is a rule they can add you'd be expected to follow, that's their prerogative.) To be clear, I call these rules wrong for various reasons, some of them encourage copywrite infringement and some would make you fail your art school test if you used them as real world rules. A few are just contradictory making them functionally broken. The rules as they are written contain so many contradictions they always felt like they were built as casual traps so that virtually anything could be against the rules if someone wanted to use them. There were also a pile of unwritten rules. Rule calls made up by mods or perhaps something that was in the rules but didn't make the next copy paste update. Let me give you a good example...
I was running a Sphinx forum game where people had to post images, as I do, (-8. The winner of the game hotlinked an image instead of using their own image hosting and the person in second place (who happened to be a moderator) complained that the person in first place cheated and broke the no hotlinking rules. I simply asked in the thread if the user could please add a link or give direction to where the 'no hotlinking' rule was for everyone's benefit and to educate them on the topic... of course knowing that there was no such rule anywhere in the rules (as mentioned above, I maintained a complete rules database). I was messaged that I should simply obey the mod's calls as they knew the rules and also mentioned that I could make my own rule call on who won the contest. Which was actually kind of wrong twice! Besides the mod being unaware of the rules they were actually supposed to be enforcing, Adoptable threads were also subject to all PI rules so if someone was cheating they should have been disqualified. ...ah well.
Enforcement of PI rules was also always fairly half hazard, in our threads at least. I can't speak to other spots around PI. It again, always felt like some mods who watched our threads would just pick and choose what rules to follow whenever. For years and years I absolutely monitored our threads and ensured that everything was always appropriate and followed PI rules, asking players to remove inappropriate images or reporting things if I could not/did not get a response. This was the PI rule for adoptable owners and worked hard at it. ...except in our very last Heb Thread when I knew we were probably done with PI and I was in a bit of a mood to be honest. It lead to all sorts of crazy things that should have been dealt with but wasn't. Here's one more example of random rule enforcement.
Wowza PI mods hate Tinkerbell. So, I was running another image posting game (do I do those to much? I hope not, I like them!) and I forget the rules exactly but I think it was something like posting strong female role models. Someone posted a classic (and super G rated) Tinkerbell image which was removed for 'inappropriate content' reasons. Just one or two posts above was an image of Wonder Women literally stomping on someone's head which was left and never mentioned. Her costume obviously broke PI's rules and there was both blood and violence in the image... but the mod in this case just seemed on autopilot and wasn't actually looking at the images just making sure you guys were not corrupted by Tinkerbells short skirt. Poor little fairy.
So rules were just enforced when someone wanted to enforce them... and the are written in such a way that you can break contradicting rules all the time without knowing you are breaking them!
I won't really go into to many details here, perhaps the rules have grown and evolved and I truly hope they get better for anyone involved with PI but it's not really my thing anymore.
------------------------
and a sort of FAQ of questions I get about this.
Why didn't I fight this.
That's both an easy and difficult question. I didn't fight this for you, who is reading this right now and cares about playing on PI.
In the past PI has often had a very harsh, scorched earth reaction to any sort of questioning of their rules. I can refer you to several artists and (now non-existent) adoptable owners if you can track them down because you won't find them anywhere near PI. I didn't personally care what happened to me or my account but I was desperately and passionately concerned with the surrounding fallout. I didn't want to see people get banned for sharing a Sphinx image and I know there were many many players who would have rather gone down fighting for what was right and gotten themselves in trouble, burning PI bridges. I know there were a handful of people in my circle of friends who were disappointed that I didn't' make a giant fuss about this, but I personally never would have been injured of this sort of fight, it would have been other stalkers who got themselves into trouble and lost stuff they cared about.
There are also users who are currently breaking PI rules. Dragging these rules into the light would have brought an increased scrutiny to those accounts which would not be my intention.
Also as a small additional note for this question. There were a couple of other adoptables (I personally like and watched!) where were also in violation of some the rules that would have been dragged up and they also may have become casualties of my raising a fuss.
Why didn't you just change the costumes.
Because is wrong. I'm not even arguing that the rule is wrong, if PI mods get a bit to excited about images from a third grade textbook they can ban whatever costumes they want. What is wrong is changing art we've sold. Now because of PI's derogatory perspective of adoptables this might seem out of wack with reality, but let me give an a similar hypothetical. Imagine you hired a photographer to take pics at your wedding and host a website. Everything comes out great and you like the site. Two weeks later you got to check the images and the photographer photoshopped all your wedding dress images black because he thought it looked cooler... and refused to change them back to what you paid for. Imagine you had a contract that said the photographer would not alter any of your images, but in that two weeks the photographer decided to change their terms of the contract. Someone is going to get sued.
Now, I realize no one would sue me for changing some costumes, but it's not about doing what we can get away with it's about doing what is right. We here will always do our best to do what is right. We would certainly never do something so shady based on one completely out of the blue, seven year to late rule call.
You can know that when you buy art from us we will be always be honest and transparent.
-----------------------------------
As one final note, personally I'm so much happier not having to deal with Pony Island. There are some wonderful people there including some moderators but their rules are wacky. Like bonkers. I don't envy anyone who tries to navigate them. Doing things here makes me happy, (-8 and every other website we've peeked for possible events has much more commonsensical rules grounded in reality. Obviously PI was not really a site for me anyways and I was there for the adoptables. (-8 Did you know you could actually get some kind of virtual ponies to play with on there? I never found them, but I've heard from reliable sources that its true, (-8 so if that's your thing look for them and have fun!
