28 replies to this topic

[KidCongo]

Hi,
if possible, could you post a comprehensive guide, as to what is considered offensive material, especially concerning sex-scenes?

[Grumpy]

Hmm... We don't have a very strict set of rules right now, so, it's a bit hard to say. But, in a general sense consider movie ratings.

If the content would have been rated M (which means 17 and up), it is okay (highest rating which you can see in a movie theater). But it should get the mature audience tag.
If the content would have been rated 18+ (adult only), it is not allowed here.

Determining what's what's is somewhat difficult as there are no official rating and the Japanese system is highly different from the west. But, we'd prefer to take a general western rating system over the Japanese. So, while detailed sex scenes which does not show genitalia may pass as under adult in Japan, it would not be the same for American rating system as an example.

I hope that helped. There's a lot of "trying our best" to determine them.

[KidCongo]

Thanks, I'll try to keep it in mind, now I just need to get acquainted with the US ratings system.

[Grumpy]

Well, it's not just US, Britain, Korea, etc... most standards are fine. It's just that Japan's system is far too liberal to be legal anywhere else.

[Loki]

yet they ban whatever they want

[FunnyBunnyLogic]

yet they ban whatever they want

More like they only ban the things they don't want...

[powha]

Fuck Ishihara! =_=

[KidCongo]

Would it be possible to leave the manga-entries in the directory, and merely remove the chapters, whilst locking their upload, maybe with a short message stating the reason? I have no idea, how technically feasible this is, but I've noticed mangas being repeatedly added and removed (I actually only noticed it once, with either Nozoki Ana or Velvet Kiss), and I wonder if it were possible, at least with the more mainstream - and not completely outrageous - releases.

[Starbuck]

Hmm... We don't have a very strict set of rules right now, so, it's a bit hard to say. But, in a general sense consider movie ratings.

how 6 months can change a lot of things
you are censoring mangas with the mere whiffs of eroticism, while avidly uploading any that splash blood, gore, killings, dismemberments, mental terror, bullying, stalking, ...

how long do u plan to have such a puritan policy ? or are there plans in the queue to have a separate sections for mature (not hentai) manga ?


coz, honestly, if this go on, Batoto.com will be a failure in its bid to be a genuine counter-site to commercial manga hosting.


best regards,

[Terrabane]

how 6 months can change a lot of things
you are censoring mangas with the mere whiffs of eroticism, while avidly uploading any that splash blood, gore, killings, dismemberments, mental terror, bullying, stalking, ...

how long do u plan to have such a puritan policy ? or are there plans in the queue to have a separate sections for mature (not hentai) manga ?


coz, honestly, if this go on, Batoto.com will be a failure in its bid to be a genuine counter-site to commercial manga hosting.


best regards,

I'm not usually the type to add fuel to a fire but in this instance I have to add a couple of things to what this poster said. If I recall history correctly Batoto is supposed be for Scanlators. But by censoring you effectively limit which groups can post their releases on the site. Now don't get me wrong, I do understand that there is a certain limit as to what you wish the public that gives traffic to the site the opportunity to view and I believe that is well within the rights of the site admins to enforce such restrictions. But when that censorship begin to encompass series that while being erotic in nature, but with no overt sexuality, or excessive nudity, being involved comes into play I find it a tad... biased. I made mention of this exact same thing in a post on the series forum and have no issue with speaking my mind about it again because while I accept the decision of the site owners, I have to voice what I see as a injustice towards a very well put together series being locked because of its topic content.

[Trebor]

you are censoring mangas with the mere whiffs of eroticism, while avidly uploading any that splash blood, gore, killings, dismemberments, mental terror, bullying, stalking, ...

First, you may call it censorship, if you wish. But that's a highly charged, prejudicial, and inaccurate term. It's more accurate to say that we filter our content.

Second, without addressing any specific examples and speaking generally, yes, you are more or less correct, because we must follow rules and standards of our advertisers. These are not standards that we set, but the standards that society has decided.

Just look on television. You see car chases and murderers and shootings and doctors operating on people with all sorts of blood and body parts. But you never see a breast on TV.

We are doing no more "censoring" than the typical television show. Maybe your view has been skewed by manga, since a high proportion of manga has fan service, ecchi, and more hard H stuff. Regardless, that's not the how this site operates.

We understand that you, as a normal reader, are frustrated, but there are other factors that we must take into consideration. Please understand this is what we must do in order to keep this site operational and something that the vast majority (if not all) of our partner scanlators understand. And this is not some arbitrary rule nor is this something unprecedented.

or are there plans in the queue to have a separate sections for mature (not hentai) manga ?

Yes, there are plans in the future for this.

But when that censorship begin to encompass series that while being erotic in nature, but with no overt sexuality, or excessive nudity, being involved comes into play I find it a tad... biased.

Please cite the comic and I would be happy to explain the reason (or, perhaps, reverse the decision). I can't comment on something so general.

I made mention of this exact same thing in a post on the series forum and have no issue with speaking my mind about it again because while I accept the decision of the site owners, I have to voice what I see as a injustice towards a very well put together series being locked because of its topic content.

That's because the comic forums are for discussion of the actual comic. Administrators and moderators will only visit those forums if they, too, want to discuss the comics. They are not to be used for issues like this.

If you have questions about our decisions, you should A) post in one of the boards specifically setup for that, e.g., the General Comic Hosting board or the QA board B) PM a Batoto Staff member (currently KidCongo and Sality) or C) if none of those options work for you, PM an administrator (myself or Grumpy).

----

We also have a dedicated thread setup for this, which contains some guidelines and the opportunity to ask admins/moderators, as well as other community members, what comics are appropriate or not: http://www.batoto.ne...propriate-here/

[Starbuck]

Come on, I love a manga like Inugami (http://vatoto.com/comic/_/comics/inugami-r1146), but how can you say it's more "sexually acceptable" than one like Nana to Kaoru (ecchi high-school comedy romance), Nozoki Ana or Velvet Kiss (both soft-core hentai romance) ?
so please, be a tad honest here. It's not "society", but your own moral references/prejudices ... and it's not for any reason, that I'm talking about puritanism, coz clearly nowhere in western countries, but in the US would we be having such a argument.

besides explicit sex scenes here and there (not even mentionning the violence), a whole volume in Inugami is all about the emotional torture of a woman being gang raped and drugged. And it has been uploaded in full ..
Another great manga, Singeki no Kyojin, doesn't have more than 2 chapters without such extreme violence, that 99% US cables would absolutely refuse to broadcast (except at such late hours and with disclaimers as to make it unviewable but for an extreme minority of dedicated fans)
yes, it's your site. and it's your rules.
except that I don't see Batoto.com be a success with such double-standards.


glad to hear that you have plans to deal with this issue. could you please develop ?


Best regards,

[Trebor]

Come on, I love a manga like Inugami (http://www.batoto.ne...s/inugami-r1146), but how can you say it's more "sexually acceptable" than one like Nana to Kaoru (ecchi high-school comedy romance), Nozoki Ana or Velvet Kiss (both soft-core hentai romance) ?

Velvet Kiss is most definitely not softcore. It has a story, yes. There's even chapters with no sex. But it's clearly hentai (you even used that word).

In any case, can you point me to which chapters of Inugami you are talking about? I don't read that series.

so please, be a tad honest here. It's not "society", but your own moral references/prejudices ... and it's not for any reason, that I'm talking about puritanism, coz clearly nowhere in western countries, but in the US would we be having such a argument.

No, let's be honest here. We (staff) are not omniscient. We don't know everything that is going on at all times on this site. If a violation is reported to us, or if we find one ourselves, we will fix it. I'm sure there are comics that violate our policies up on our site right now. That doesn't mean we are disingenuous or that we won't follow our policies. It's just the reality of allowing our users to upload and not having an upload system completely controlled by site staff.

These rules aren't put in place particularly because of our morals. We do it because of guidelines that we have to follow. These guidelines are made in the USA, yes. And these guidelines are based in morality, yes. But we didn't make them. We follow them.

We aren't the censorship police nor do we have an agenda, beyond providing scanlations a home. I'm not sure why that's so hard to understand.

---

Just so we're clear, if you look at the guidelines that we have linked, we aren't against all sexual content. The current test for us is if the comic is predominantly sexual. That's probably why Inugami is allowed.

You know, even on YouTube (Google-owned) there *is* naked people on there, but they're doing stuff like interpretive dance. They're not having sex (porn). This site runs in much the same way. If a comic has other redeeming values aside from sex, it is allowed. I don't think it's hard to understand nor disingenuous of us to adopt this policy. In fact, I think it's well-reasoned, intended to allow as many comics as possible while limiting our liability.

You understand, of course, that if you want us to follow some highly strict black-and-white rule, then we would have to take down a lot more comics for having sex. As it is now, our policy allows some while taking down the most offensive ones. It strikes a balance between these competing interests.

[Edit] Also, this thread shouldn't really be in Batoto Suggestions (that's used for more technical aspects of Batoto). I'm moving this to General Comic Hosting.

[Starbuck]

Well, it was a suggestion on how to improve Batoto.com. not on its technical, but thematic aspect.


correction about Inugami, even though it's fundamentally a story about life, death and rejuvenation, with heavy references to sex (incl. incest and rape), I was thinking about Inugami (Wolf Guy) by Tabata Yoshiaki.
Anyway, I understand where you come from with your policy. But, in all honesty it's just plain double-standards (or hypocrisy).


at its source all romance manga are about sex. some are more explicit than others, but none are trying to hide it.
look at the latest chapters of a shounen like Magico, for pete's sake.
And that's the same you can expect about US standard "morality" when it comes to sex : talk about it, show curvy, scantily-clad girls ... but ho, not even the sight of some pubic hair.

in the same vein, a manga like Velvet kiss has more explicit sex scenes, but I have yet to see a penis in it.
Instead it shows a woman's body from every side. Is that why it's "indecent" ? because it shows boobies and juices ?
however, no problems with doing the elegy about unfettered violence, killings and sufferings. Talk about socety's hypocrisy !!

So why ? Morality is about setting the rules (official and unofficial) through which society's members interact. To claim that's better to show violence and killings, rather than sex (death vs life if I simplify heavily) speaks volume about the morale reference you claim to uphold

The more sex you can find in a manga like Nana to Kaoru is about sensual touching and foreplay. No nude scenes, though lots of skins and curves.
The medium is with SM and bondage, but that's just the background. At heart, it's nothing but a high-school romance. And a pretty entertaining one at that

If Batoto.com want to be shounen-exclusive, with anything that celebrates violence and gore, it's your choice.
but you aren't going to compete against commercial (or non-commercial) sites, with a bigger and more liberal (as in freedom to choose) library.


And that's really too bad.


Best regards

[soranokira]

at its source all romance manga are about sex. some are more explicit than others, but none are trying to hide it.

and how many shoujo manga have you read? they ARE romance manga, and a large portion of them do not even hint even a trace of sex, just pure dating level of romance.

Disclaimer: I'm not speaking as a representative of batoto even if I accidentally sound like one.

in the same vein, a manga like Velvet kiss has more explicit sex scenes, but I have yet to see a penis in it.
Instead it shows a woman's body from every side. Is that why it's "indecent" ? because it shows boobies and juices ?
however, no problems with doing the elegy about unfettered violence, killings and sufferings. Talk about socety's hypocrisy !!

Batoto's going by society's standard of morality. Stories going heavily into gore,violence, horror, psychological etc. stuff may be tagged with 18+ just like a slightly more ecchi manga in a typical manga shop. They just happen to be considered more acceptable than more explicit ones like Velvet Kiss

To claim that's better to show violence and killings, rather than sex (death vs life if I simplify heavily) speaks volume about the morale reference you claim to uphold

Violence and killings in manga, due to its general black-and-white nature, is considered more or less 'censored' and is more 'ok' than black-and-white sex.

If Batoto.com want to be shounen-exclusive, with anything that celebrates violence and gore, it's your choice.
but you aren't going to compete against commercial (or non-commercial) sites, with a bigger and more liberal (as in freedom to choose) library.

I don't see how this site is shounen-exclusive. In fact batoto only rejects one small part which a large part of the population would like to be excluded from standard works. and when did batoto become a manga-reading trying to compete against commercial/non-commericial sites? bigger and more liberal library? it's not like batoto has absolutely NO intentions of expanding into hosting stuff like velvet kiss and nozoki ana. It's just for batoto it's currently catered more for the general population.

[Starbuck]

and how many shoujo manga have you read? they ARE romance manga, and a large portion of them do not even hint even a trace of sex, just pure dating level of romance.

yeah right. instead they go for kissing and hugging, as the soft version of sex. hey, there could innocent 8 years old in the readership ...
please, it's a generalisation I made, so ofc they are exceptions.
But do romance manga (shounen AND shoujo) that focus only for platonic relations, with no speck of sex, form the majority of the genre ? tbh, no I don't believe it. though I concede I got no hard evidence.

when I say sex, I don't mean porn : I mean sexually attracted protagonists.

Batoto's going by society's standard of morality. Stories going heavily into gore,violence, horror, psychological etc. stuff may be tagged with 18+ just like a slightly more ecchi manga in a typical manga shop. They just happen to be considered more acceptable than more explicit ones like Velvet Kiss

Batoto.com is not going by society's standard. they are going by one stream of US morality.
there is a whole world outside the US, unless you forgot it.
and clearly that brand is a prude when it comes to eroticism, while glorifying when it comes to violence.

Also, Batoto.com doesn't have to hide behind some "society's morals", unless they have legal requirements to do so.
I don't know US law in that regard, but if anything they just have to register in a more liberal (as in freedom of choice-loving) country. and that's it.
it's not 100% exact, but they have IP adress statistics about their members, so they can see where their readership is from.
in addition what the point to have several language versions (beyonf english and spanish), if not to reach for most western and latin societies

Disclaimer: I'm not speaking as a representative of batoto even if I accidentally sound like one.

I don't see how this site is shounen-exclusive. In fact batoto only rejects one small part which a large part of the population would like to be excluded from standard works. and when did batoto become a manga-reading trying to compete against commercial/non-commericial sites? bigger and more liberal library? it's not like batoto has absolutely NO intentions of expanding into hosting stuff like velvet kiss and nozoki ana. It's just for batoto it's currently catered more for the general population.

then don't speak about their plans as if you knew them for sure.

Batoto.com OFFICIALLY said they created this site in order to offer a quality alternative to commercial sites (like Mangafox and others). How are you going to do that if you censor the hosting of ecchi or soft hentai artistic work ?
both represent a more than sizeable part of adult mangas, and a significant one of teen works.
Fine by me if Batoto.com wants to narrow the library choice, but only purists will be pleased.

leechers are consumers. parasitic consumers since most don't participate in the costs of translating/hosting manga, but consumers nonethless.
And manga hosting is a retail business.
a general rule of marketing, when the opposition is generalist (full offer of manga style), you go either for the niche, or be a generalist with a brand.
right now, the brand is there ("an anti-mangafox site"), but that's all ... and frankly, that's not enough to woo the vast majority of world wide leechers.
you need the freedom of choice : aka the non-exclusion of ecchi or mature artworks (and no I'm not talking about porn !!)

Like I said to Trebor, I just want to bring my own pebble (in providing constructive criticism) to help Batoto.com achieve their official goal.
Now, Trebor said there were plans about this restriction in the choice manga choice. I'm just waiting for clarifications.
Without it, like many others, I'll just switch to a "big tent" manga site, and you can go elitist for all you care


Best regards,

[Elrohon]

Well, here's my opinion... as a moderator of Batoto and an avid manga reader of all genres. If you're complaining about selection, download your own manga. It's easy to do, and will take you... a few minutes of searching (usually) to find chapters to a manga you want to read. In doing this, you can get, in my opinion, the best quality manga there is. You can read it offline when you want AND it doesn't take up that much space on your computer.

If it makes you feel better Starbuck, I can give you links to these download sites, and heck, I'll throw in an simple to use offline manga reader.

there could innocent 8 years old in the readership ...

You seem to be aware that this is the internet, and that kids will ignore warnings, yet you still want comics like Nozoki Ana and Velvet Kiss...
And my last opinion on this whole situation, you seem to generalize all sorts of romantic affection as sex... not that there's anything wrong with that, but honestly, a kiss scene and a scene depicting sexual intercourse are completely different. Where you're from, the two might not be so different, but due to the standards that Batoto must conform by, their is a BIG gap.

[Starbuck]

Hi Elrohon,


seems like I must repeat it every time

when I say sex, I don't mean porn : I mean sexually attracted protagonists.

to give a few examples :

in Velvet Kiss, there is sexual intercourse between the protagonists
in Nana to Kaoru, there is sexual play (not intercourse !!) between the protagonists
in Magico, there is sexual attraction between the protagonists

but none of those manga are porn. they are telling a story, about romance with a backdrop of sex.
When Gauguin or Toulouse-Lautrec depict naked women or boobies, you don't categorise it as a porn painting, do you ?

since it's well-known that 95% of internet searches are sex-related (common-wisdom not fact-based), if parents don't want their kids to touch porn materials it's fairly easy for them to put filters.
And don't watch TV. Nor read magazines. nor go to the beach. the swimming pool. car-washing in summer. stag parties. spring break ....
Please let get real here

So let's me remind you : I'm certainly not advocating for Batoto.com to be a porn site.
I'm simply saying that you are shooting yourself for no good results, by adopting a policy too restrictive in regards to hosting non-sexually sensitive manga.
you already put small disclaimers on violent/gore manga.
Why not putting a filter page requesting consent or a warning about the sexual content of those mangas.

Ofc, it's going to attract kids/teens faster than a can of coke in a hot summer. But it's their choice, you aren't their parents/guardians.
And as you know all too well, there are already umpteenth numbers of manga sites who aren't so restrictive as you.
So instead of going for good quality scans here, they'll go to these sites ... as they already do.


Best regards,

[Elrohon]

Guess I must be blunt. We have a policy. A policy that will most likely not change. What you see is what you get. Nothing's really stopping you from using a different reader either.

Regards,
Elro.

[mhh]

I just want to repeat this again:
This is in no way about what series we (=the moderators) and which we don't like. We lock content on the basis of whether it could be potentially be harmful to Batoto's continued existence itself.

Otherwise what Trebor said should have explained everything.

Personally I read some of the series you mentioned, and I agree that the U.S. morals system doesn't make much sense. [violence more acceptable then sex & nudity]. But even if that is my opinion the add network providers won't care about that. And something like Batoto can't be realistically run without adds.