Mentioning manga art by name

[WavesInEternity]

I still am very unsure of what's allowed and what isn't. To give one concrete example, would this be acceptable:

"Higashiyama Show is one of my favourite manga artists. I love everything by him, including his lesbian romance manga [removed link], but I'm especially fond of [removed] which tells the story of an intellectually gifted 11-year-old girl. I find it interesting that he started as a niche lolicon artist but became a mainstream mangaka through other works. His art is excellent."

According to your standards, does linking to the ANN page about "[redacted]" violate the rules? It doesn't contain any PIM per se.

[WavesInEternity]

Prism is a romance manga, not an erotic work. Why did you remove the link?

[Jim Burton]

So, my concerns in removing the above links (assuming they contain erotica) are:

A) That you appear to be recommending the artwork itself, rather than commenting on it.
B) Your demonstrating probable notability within a fandom does not extend to demonstrating they are cultural phenomena, e.g. something mentioned on Wikipedia (say now prohibited material that features Samantha Fox, Traci Lords, Brooke Shields, Sean Lockhart (for the gays)). This closes the number of options you have for good faith sharing of identifying details, and I'd rather not go there.

If there is no erotica there on that page (of any kind, including the the name of an erotic set) you may link it.

[Jim Burton]

By all means, say you are a fan of a person whose contribution to anime is eclectic and may extend to Lolicon, but please do not use the forum to recommend or direct any reader to their erotic works, as these may be deemed unsuitable for minors, or violate some statute.

[WavesInEternity]

So, my concerns in removing the above links (assuming they contain erotica) are:

A) That you appear to be recommending the artwork itself, rather than commenting on it.
B) Your demonstrating probable notability within a fandom does not extend to demonstrating they are cultural phenomena, e.g. something mentioned on Wikipedia (say now prohibited material that features Samantha Fox, Traci Lords, Brooke Shields, Sean Lockhart (for the gays)). This closes the number of options you have for good faith sharing of identifying details, and I'd rather not go there.

A) This is a very thin line. Are we forbidden from commenting on such works that we love? Do we have to censor our appreciation of the work if we are to comment? For instance, many lolicon works involve some rather interesting discussions of ethical issues regarding AMSC (age of consent abolition in [removed], differing rates of intellectual and psychoemotional maturing in [removed]...) and would therefore be worth discussing here. It's something I considered doing, but didn't do because I wasn't sure of the rules. Ideally, though, I think there would be much value in discussing some of them.

B) All anime and manga is arguably only relevant to "a fandom". Should we avoid discussing all anime and manga altogether because it's not relevant to non-fans? I'd point out that many lolicon artists do indeed have a Wikipedia page in Japanese, including Higashiyama Show. Does only the English Wikipedia "count"?

If there is no erotica there on that page (of any kind, including the the name of an erotic set) you may link it.

That is a wholly unreasonable standard. Too many mangaka are involved in both erotic and non-erotic work, so linking to the name of an artist involved in both, or to any work by such an artist, will often mean that the page linked will incidentally include the titles of erotic works.

[Jim Burton]

Given you again mentioned the name of your artist's erotic works, I had to remove them from view. I struggle to see how this would be ambiguous at this point.

Indeed, you really shouldn't be linking the artist's page if it points to their erotica or invites users to view it. You should also seek clearance before posting it if any of that still confuses you.

If you feel your favourite lolicon casts a light on some interesting themes, I'm sure it's well within your grasp to communicate this to a broader audience without referencing said work directly or establishing some kind of broader cultural commentary re. the artform.

[WavesInEternity]

Given you again mentioned the name of your artist's erotic works, I had to remove them from view. I struggle to see how this would be ambiguous at this point.

It's ambiguous because you do accept some commentary of mine where I mentioned two explicit lolicon anime works by name, which I certainly think made sense to do in context. You acknowledge the value of such commentary on works that are historically and/or culturally significant... but such significance is a very ambiguous criterion.

Indeed, you really shouldn't be linking the artist's page if it points to their erotica or invites users to view it. You should also seek clearance before posting it if any of that still confuses you.

No, the page just mentions erotic works by title, in a completely incidental fashion. There are no PIM anywhere on such mainstream websites as AnimeNewsNetwork of MyAnimeList, even though there are dedicated pages for some erotic manga. See this ANN page for instance. Similarly, the works I had mentioned in my previous post are listed on the author's Japanese Wikipedia page. Ultimately, finding the titles of erotic works on those websites is trivial, but the notion that we should altogether refrain from linking to those sites seems quite absurd.

The issue is that, symmetrically to what I mentioned in that post where I mentioned Cream Lemon and Lolita Anime (namely the fact that lolicon and erotic anime/manga go hand-in-hand), the world of "mainstream" anime/manga and their erotic counterparts also go hand-in-hand. The boundaries are very fuzzy and the two are inextricably linked. Indeed, that is why lolicon/shotacon is still legal in Japan and will nearly certainly remain so: because its prohibition would result in an unacceptable slippery slope for the entire fandom.

If you feel your favourite lolicon casts a light on some interesting themes, I'm sure it's well within your grasp to communicate this to a broader audience without referencing said work directly or establishing some kind of broader cultural commentary re. the artform.

It is, and I've done exactly that. Still, I can't help but lament this necessity: in the same way as it can be useful to tackle issues of sexual morality by directly referencing and analyzing the works of Sade, it would be useful to reference some lolicon works for the same purpose.

[Jim Burton]

Only ambiguous in your view, since I have already given you a rule whereby you can mention these works if Wikipedia, IMDB, western mainstream media mentions them. This was clearly the case in the thread you asked me to moderate earlier in the discussion. I can't find any such cultural commentary about the titles I removed, and so they are gone.

I am not permitting most of your links to Anime News Network, as it is is considered a weeb site, and not commentary like IMDB or Wikipedia. Therefore, I can not say with confidence they are not recommending or directing users to the material they list. You can ask other mods about this, but I doubt you will have any luck; I am a relatively lenient moderator and will listen when you can come up with anything from their side that does not violate our rules. But at this point, I just feel you are having an argument with the rules themselves, and this may have dumb results for you.

Take the fact that someone cared enough to write about it on western Wikipedia as indication that no one will bother our forum host if you discuss it dryly and matter of factly on here.

[Fragment]

https://forum.map-union.org/viewtopic.php?t=1381

This discussion of loli in general terms is obviously fine.

Directly linking to images that are illegal in some countries is not fine.

There is a grey zone between those two. But there are two things we’d like people to keep in mind.
1) We should be motivated to try and keep other members, including those who live in other countries, safe.
2) Moderators have limited time and resources and members should be trying to make their job easier, not harder.

Jim gave a standard of Wikipedia as meeting the criteria for notoriety. He also mentioned that sufficiently disclaimered discussion of other works may be permitted. But at this stage as you readily admit you’re trying to push the boundaries by throwing up borderline cases to see what gets you a warning. That’s not okay and it’s a fast track to actually getting that warning.

You clearly weren’t trying to have an academic discussion about the topic. You were introducing a minor to loli and providing specific recommendations. If that person is in the UK or Australia, you were providing direction to something that could see them get a knock from the police.

Is your desire to discuss your favorite loli worth that? This is not a forum for weeb activism.

[WavesInEternity]

I am not permitting most of your links to Anime News Network, as it is is considered a weeb site, and not commentary like IMDB or Wikipedia. Therefore, I can not say with confidence they are not recommending or directing users to the material they list.

They do not recommend nor direct users to any 18+ material. It's actually one of the "cleanest" and most "family-friendly" websites of that kind. The only material they ever directly link to or host is material that sponsors them, all of which is safe-for-work. Unless you mean that simply a link to an author's personal blog is unacceptable, but by that standard, many Wikipedia pages would be inappropriate as well as they also include such links in their references, in essentially the same way and for similar reasons.

You say you didn't find any cultural commentary on the works I referenced, but what if I were to be the one to write that commentary (exactly what I had in mind, essentially)? Needless to say, I could publish it on another platform. The main reason I wish to write such commentary is that an argument I think can be compelling for the legality of lolicon/shotacon is that it has "genuine artistic value", which I do wholeheartedly believe is the case, and I believe I can convince others of that fact.

Directly linking to images that are illegal in some countries is not fine.

There is a grey zone between those two. But there are two things we’d like people to keep in mind.
1) We should be motivated to try and keep other members, including those who live in other countries, safe.
2) Moderators have limited time and resources and members should be trying to make their job easier, not harder.

I never linked to any illegal images, obviously. I thought the meaning of "directing" meant "linking to" or "telling where to find it", and that was what I strictly avoided. I do think the rule should be clearer in that respect.

Jim gave a standard of Wikipedia as meeting the criteria for notoriety. He also mentioned that sufficiently disclaimered discussion of other works may be permitted. But at this stage as you readily admit you’re trying to push the boundaries by throwing up borderline cases to see what gets you a warning. That’s not okay and it’s a fast track to actually getting that warning.

I was genuinely uncertain about the rules, not "trying to push the boundaries". I'm not sure where the boundary is, so I'm asking and giving concrete examples. I still am likely to require clarification in some cases, but I'll ask beforehand.

You clearly weren’t trying to have an academic discussion about the topic. You were introducing a minor to loli and providing specific recommendations. If that person is in the UK or Australia, you were providing direction to something that could see them get a knock from the police.

Is your desire to discuss your favorite loli worth that? This is not a forum for weeb activism.

For what it's worth, my own suggestion would be to allow the simple mention of all formally published titles and the linking to general-purpose, safe-for-work pages about them on mainstream websites (including ANN), but require a disclaimer for any title that might be banned in some common jurisdictions. (Reductio ad absurdum: should we avoid mentioning Pokémon by name because it's banned in Saudi Arabia?)

Even by that standard, though, I did go too far in that other thread. I became overenthusiastic when my interlocutor expressed an interest in the title I had initially mentioned. That first mention wasn't intended as a recommendation at all, but only as a relevant fact about me (that I paid for the translation of work X with relevant themes). I didn't expect the reaction I got and it took me by surprise. I was in fact a "weeb activist" for nearly a decade of my life, starting as a 13-year-old teenager... old habits die hard.

I'll make sure to include disclaimers if I ever include a historically/culturally significant title in some commentary in the future, and will ask if I'm unsure as to whether or not the topic is approached "dryly" enough.