Hello hello! First thing's first that I want to say -

We do agree with you guys that the rules aren't very clear, or well-organized right now. They are very scattered between pages, official forum posts, various responses in forum posts, guides, and some even appear to be somewhat obscured entirely. This, as noted, is a problem.

This is frustrating not only for you guys, but for staff as well, as it can lead to things being inconsistently accepted and rejected as time goes on, or as people who review them change and are left to interpret the rules differently. There are often times where the rules are so scattered around that even I'm not aware of some of the contradictions in acceptances from before I came onto the team!

As far as the TV heads (and other examples brought up in this thread), you guys are right; there have been inconsistencies with how we approve things and that's not acceptable. I think these examples indicate another issue with the rules being as scattered as they are: it makes it hard for even staff to be 100% consistent when interpreting the rules. Technically, full head replacements are covered under "Artwork replaces features and/or edits the avatar base" as a denial reason! I had even thought that there was more verbiage in the CW denial guide on the forums about that specific denial reason, but it seems it isn't even there, which even took me by surprise!

Because of this, I'll be prioritizing re-writing and revising the rules to be more clear and concise, and more importantly less scattered about and more easily accessible to everyone. :) This not only helps you guys, but also us as well because it puts everyone on the same page as far as what is and is not allowed for custom wearables.

I'd like to ask you guys though, if you have comments or suggestions on how you'd like to see this implemented. A list full of every, single, fiddly little detail of the acceptance and denial of custom wearables is not likely to be read by anyone, and is likely to be very long and full of a lot of things that won't necessarily apply in all, or even the vast majority of, cases. Too concise a list, and you get the same issues we are currently facing with the more abstract or niche rules a little bit 'lost' somewhere!

There's also the fact that if rules are collected, reviewed, revised, and rewritten, it may cause things that were previously accepted on the old scattered set of rules to no longer be acceptable under a new, revised set of rules and standards and finding the most efficient way to go about handling that is a tricky issue on its own, so I would be interested in feedback about that as well!

Just popping in for a quick note that maybe my wording was poor or not clear, but I definitely meant grandfathering in old items that wouldn't follow new/revised standards, rather than outright deleting them! Absolutely nothing is getting outright deleted, worry not! That is absolutely not what I meant in any capacity, and I apologize if it was read that way.

It'll just be a matter more of "from here on out, please do not reference older items that were approved pre-rule overhaul" more than anything. :) That's what I was looking for feedback on.

(WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE WAVING EMOJI, I DON'T KNOW WHY THEY NEVER SAVE FOR ME UGH) Hi everyone! I'm seeing a lot of confusion and concern (all rightfully) coming from unclear rules, and want to make sure that we all take a moment to remember:

we all want the same thing. wants the simplest and easiest set of rules to make clear and distinctive decisions on for accepting, and you all want the same thing so that you aren't afraid your CWs are going to get declined for a hidden rule.

We've established here and in other threads that the CW market is one of the primary things keeping the site online, and it's in our best interest to work together to make sure no one is afraid of their CW getting declined.

There is a lot going on right now (both here and obviously in the real world) that has created a ton of disruption, and I want this to be the simplest process that anyone can jump in to regardless of connections or time on site. I'm going to talk to Saint ASAP about how to get some kind of short term solution that we can all agree on, and then work to make sure we're updating the rules with every item that we inspect when looking at CWs.

Something I do want to clarify here: Staff illustrations and CWs will never be held to the same standards. I feel like we've (or I've) danced around this in threads in the past, but in the spirit of clarifications this will and has been the case. There are a lot of reasons for this, some that have been named in this thread and others that have been discussed in the past. It's just easier for us to maintain consistent style with sometimes stricter guidelines on hundreds/thousands of artists than it is for the artists on staff, who are creating things for the thousands of users and not tens of people buying on the CW market. So again, I'll be explicit here, this is something that will never change. If that makes you uncomfortable, I understand if you don't make CWs anymore.

I appreciate your feedback, understand your frustration, and want to work with you to make this better.

A thing we're already talking about doing - while writing out the updated rules - is starting from scratch by going through recent denials, and outlining why those items were denied.

That gives us the ability to say "oh, that doesn't make sense anymore" or turn it into a rule when we're able to post them out.

Hopefully that gives you a little bit of insight & faith into the process, that we're not just taking the existing unclear rules and making a few changes.

Just checking back in to say that we're working hard on the rules, and we're investigating some other things.

Something I'd like to float is making the moderation process have user input in some way: at what stage that is still hasn't been figured our or what we want to really test.

Hi creators,

is currently swamped in her other job due to current affairs, and is trying to use her time on Subeta to work on the rules rewrite.

I and some of my team are trying to fill in in the meantime on the queue, which we're also trying to fit in around our art plans and each of our own current affairs! It's taking a little while to get into the rhythm, please bear with us.

(Some newer items are accepted before older items because they're simple recolours and don't need to be discussed with anyone else first)

- yes, it is still being worked on! is rewriting the rules and drawing up sample art as examples of what we're looking to avoid, but she's been swamped with her rl job since the pandemic started to the point that I've been taking over the queue so that any time she does have is dedicated to the rule rewrite.

It's slow but sure!

- I can either deny that item now until the rules are done, or keep it in there and accept once the rules are sorted - which would you prefer? (We really don't want to start accepting thing-heads until the rules are sorted)

I apologise for just keeping it there, it's kind of become my little mascot item now that I enjoy seeing first thing on doing the queue. It's dumb small pleasures and I didn't realise it had been so long since it's been there!

- Oh it's a project that other people are helping with! Saint is just the lead on it. She's had input from the other art staff and UA staff too.

Something like art forum pricing is outside the scope of the CW rules rewrite, though. That's more of a site rules thing. As to the user input to submissions, it's still something we're looking at as it's something we think would be very useful! But as you say, our main focus is on getting the site more stable and better funded.

Thank you for voicing your concerns - happy to help where I can! (With too many exclamation points, I'm sure)

is no longer staff (no bad reasons! Her second job became a priority due to Covid) and so the rule rewrite is a little on hold at the moment. It's been partially completed, Saint had been working hard on it but I believe we're now talking with prominent CW makers in order to get it finished and figure out the best way forward with it.

The council isn't finalised, it's all still in progress. I've been working on the CW queue for a while to get a feel for it so I can give better input. I still have to catch up on everything to do with the CW council as I've been working on quite a lot of other things but I mostly wanted to give an update to just say that it's not a dead project or anything like that!

I just got back on staff and I'm still getting readjusted to things - but I am already working on some of this :) I don't want to go over details right this moment only because I'm still figuring things out again as well! But please know I'm working on everything. Just give me a bit to keep getting settled!

Hello everyone!

Please see this thread for updates on this. I'll be locking this board so we can keep everything in one spot!

https://subeta.net/forums.php/read/913050