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A lot of anime are, inarguably, quite graphic. Many sport blood, open flesh wounds, nudity, and several other "mature" themes. Now, in order to effectively illustrate some answers, detailed written descriptions or images must be provided. This is one such question, which contains graphic imagery of the aftereffects of severe bite wounds.

Do other StackExchange sites have policies on this? If so, what are they, and should we adhere to them? To what extent do we allow such images?

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  • To add my own $0.02: I believe we should be allowing anything which does not contain explicit nudity, though I'm not against linking to those off-site with a warning attached.
    – Cattua
    Jan 20, 2013 at 4:44
  • Yep. I was slightly hesitant to post that image. And I'll gladly pull it if it bothers anyone.
    – Mysticial
    Jan 20, 2013 at 4:48
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    @Mysticial As I state in my answer below, if you're hesitant about a graphic image, but want to use it, a nice compromise is to spoiler-tag the images with a warning.
    – Logan M
    Jan 20, 2013 at 5:33
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    @LoganM I didn't consider either of those images to be disturbing at all - but possibly to others. So I didn't bother to hide it. But for anything that's much worse, I would've hid it behind a link with a clear warning.
    – Mysticial
    Jan 20, 2013 at 5:37

2 Answers 2

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I don't know what the policy is on other SE sites, but if there's a network-wide policy on graphic images we should follow that. My answer is basically the same as Eric's comment, but I made an answer so that it could be voted on.

I don't think we should be worried about graphic violence in images posted here. The only people who will read the question and answer linked to are users here or people who google for something related to Highschool of the Dead. In the former case, SE requires all users to be at least 13, and generally a user here should know that HOTD is a fairly graphic series if they intend to click on the question. In the latter case, anyone searching HOTD is sure to have seen plenty of graphic content related to the series, so we shouldn't be worried about that either. If you have especially graphic or disturbing images, a spoiler tag could be used with a warning, but I don't think we should require it in general.

Nudity should not be allowed, mostly because it's unprofessional and usually unnecessary. Some people may check this site from work computers, so any NSFW sexual content should not be shown. SE has a policy banning sexually explicit and pornographic material, which of course is a bit ambiguous. I'd lean on the safe side here and say that anything questionable should not be directly posted here.

The SE policy above explicitly includes links to sexually explicit content or pornography. I personally have no problem with people linking to NSFW content with an appropriate warning if it is absolutely necessary to ask/answer the question (and if it's an acceptable question). But until an SE employee clarifies this, even if you are not violating our site's policy, you may be violating SE global policy. I doubt you'd be banned for that if you are legitimately using the site properly, but I don't know for sure so tread with caution.

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  • +1 I think this most accurately sums up my view on the matter; thanks, Logan!
    – Cattua
    Jan 20, 2013 at 17:00
  • I generally agree with you, though I think that nudity can be allowed in very specific examples. anime.stackexchange.com/questions/849/… is one such example where the nudity is an integral part of the question.
    – kuwaly
    Jan 21, 2013 at 0:53
  • @kuwaly I'm specifically talking about content which is sexual in nature and is likely to violate internet use policies for many organizations. If the image is censored, like the above case, then I don't think there's any problem with it. I was a bit hesitant to even mention nudity at all, because one could argue that anime is an art form and any reputable art site will have at least some nudity. However, from a practical standpoint, we shouldn't allow it with absolutely no conditions because many organizations will penalize even for inadvertent access to NSFW content.
    – Logan M
    Jan 21, 2013 at 1:07
  • That was I figured, but I just thought a distinction should be made.
    – kuwaly
    Jan 21, 2013 at 1:09
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I want to refer you to this answer by Anna Lear:

The Terms of Service contain the following warranty clause:

The Network may contain, or direct Subscriber to sites containing, information that some people may find offensive or inappropriate. Stack Exchange makes no representations concerning any content contained in or accessed through the Network, and Stack Exchange will not be responsible or liable for the accuracy, copyright compliance, legality or decency of material contained in or accessed through the Network.

However, there is also a description of acceptable content in section 3:

Subscriber represents, warrants and agrees that it will not contribute any Subscriber Content that (a) infringes, violates or otherwise interferes with any copyright or trademark of another party, (b) reveals any trade secret, unless Subscriber owns the trade secret or has the owner’s permission to post it, (c) infringes any intellectual property right of another or the privacy or publicity rights of another, (d) is libelous, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harassing, hateful, offensive or otherwise violates any law or right of any third party, (e) contains a virus, trojan horse, worm, time bomb or other computer programming routine or engine that is intended to damage, detrimentally interfere with, surreptitiously intercept or expropriate any system, data or information, or (f) remains posted after Subscriber has been notified that such Subscriber Content violates any of sections (a) to (e) of this sentence.

If you find posts that don't appear to follow the policies and rules stated in the ToS, please flag those posts for moderator attention or contact the team by using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of every site.

There isn't a clear Stack Exchange policy on the matter, so the subject is rather patchy.

In my eyes we shouldn't limit users to question about more graphical anime, and even plain hentai, as they both fall into the category of this site.

Graphical images (even mildly) rarely have use in this site, but as with all other images, it should only be allowed if it is relevant to the post in question.

We should probably also add to our FAQ that the site may contain mature content.

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  • Agreed, especially with the last paragraph.
    – JNat StaffMod
    Jan 20, 2013 at 13:28

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