Coalf

Hello, I am an aurora artist and this is my art. I posted this piece of art in the discord, I was not warned or told it was inappropriate for the server. At a later date, I was approached by Weezy who asked me for some images, I gave him this one as well as others, since I believe it reflects the Tajara lore well. Mainly in regards to how dark it can go. (After all I wrote some of it!) I personally disagree with the assessment that it's too gorey. However, I understand if people are feeling squeamish over it and don't enjoy seeing it. Thus, if the admin decision comes to it being too much, I'd be fine with editing out the blood splatter and simply leaving in the implication of the bullet.

This is enough of a justification to suspend their usage. As you said, Wiki has always erred on the side of caution since time immemorial. And as you said image creation is not a requirement for the wiki, nor to join the staff. So there won't be a big loss for suspending them. We've always banned the use of images from Google specifically because we cannot guarantee we have permission for their usage. Similarly, we cannot guarantee any of the images Cael generated on the Port Antilla page were made by him. There is no signature on the artwork itself, besides it being obvious it was generated. He does not have any files proving he made it, nor can we ask the artist. And I doubt he has screenshots of himself generating that content. For all we know he found these AI generated images on Google, put them on the wiki, and said "made by Dreamjourney" or whatever the software is. I am not saying he did so. But it's an unnecessary risk we're setting up ourselves for. This is a huge vulnerability, mainly now when copyright bots are rampant. As you said, the server owners are the ones who are going to face legal trouble, not the person who uploads these. Outside of that, to re-iterate others points, insane aura loss. It's at this point proven that most people attribute obviously AI generated images to scams, grifters, and lazy/cheap businesses. The fact that none of the ugly-ass mangastudio images I made for Taj lore were ever the center of this many controversies speaks volumes about how little people value AI images over the shittiest artworks made by humans. Not to mention we have previously removed images because they created bad associations even if they were legal to use. As a Taj writer, I distinctly remember removing the WW2 propaganda images of nazis and soviets portrayed as cats, because it created a bad association with the species. Even though those images were by that time in public commons and thus allowed. For flavor, this is a conspiracy theory and I have no way to prove it. But ever since the playerbase has started enaging more and more with AI art, AI articles and AI generated whitelist applications. There has been an exponential increase in bots that prowl this forum. There have always been "waves" of bots. But now they stick around and obviously read anything we post here. I frankly think it is absolutely bizzare that aurora is batting for this at all. It's already had an internal discussion on this in the past, it was decided to not allow it for reasons stated above. Cael was told multiple times not to do it, it's disappointing he had done it by the time I quit. It's my fault for not writing that down as head wiki dev at the time as I could have prevented this entire frankly stupid headache. But I suspect it would have been ignored anyway even if I had written it down. And to put things in context. The entire face of the wiki was created from scratch by Kyres. The aurora lobby flashes images made by artists, commissioned or free, from the community. The wiki is littered by works from me, for lore I wasn't even part of or after I had left staff. The entire Unathi page glistens with Wolfies art. Hell, the heads of Idris? Zavod? NT? Made by Lancer in mspaint using mouse and keyboard. Not to mention the numerous small artworks and graphic designs people have made in gimp or photoshop. And of course, the innumerable sprites made by volunteers from every part of the world, dedicated spriters. Hell the code itself! Generations of coders building off of each other's backs to make this server what it is. All of this was made voluntarily, donated voluntarily. I think it's hyena-like behavior to continuously take from a community and then refuse to simply remove a few images you yourself claim are "unimportant". Finally, if you haven't read any of the above. I don't hold it against you. Shits long and boring. But I want you to read this lower part. In Unathi lore there is a page called "Unathi Guilds". On top of that page, is one painting that Wolfie made. I watched her make it in a stream. It's not her best work, and she'd be the first to admit it. But it's hers, it is there, and it will always be hers no matter what names you change on it. Writer, artist, very controversial figure, and roleplayer, nevertheless she contributed what she could. Beneath it is the Heph logo, made by Nursiekitty, an iconic logo for an iconic company. She was a moderator, admin, and contributor, and the name of her character is still immortalized as the first person to ever encounter Vaurca. Beneath these two images rest three more. The first one made by "StarryAI" is large, but kept very small, I assume so it is harder to notice the vague nonsensical smear square shape in the middle of it. I guess the free trial ran out before it could be generated out. Even lower, two images by "NightCafe", 200x200 pixels large. Did the free version not provide bigger ones? Or were they shrunken this way? Maybe they're just thumbnails saved off of google images, and that's why they're so small and low quality? I don't know, I can't talk to the computer. But neither of these AI's ever was in the community. Noone here talked to them. Neither of them know what Aurora is. I doubt anyone here even knows these two companies existed (or if they still exist). I think I'd be on the side of the first two rather than the latter two.

Not related to Aurora, I'm just proud of these Mike Mignola studies:

Uploaded all art into gallery since I forgot my password lol.

New art roasted and posted in my gallery. See above.