I really don't know the full story behind the TOS reviision, but from the little that I have read, there was a "squeaky wheel" complaining. To have peace they changed the TOS to please this person. However, the wording of the change TOS and guidelines is really poorly written and self-contradictory.
By the way since last night they have once again changed the wording of the guidelines, but the TOS does not reflect any of the revisions sine the first announcement. There are seven key items in the current (for now) guidelines here I would like to pick them apart to show how poorly eritten they are:
In the guidelines is say, "No child nudity of any kind" then it goes on to specificly prohibit, "exposed chest on females, buttocks or genitals" That is an error that says prohibits "exposed chest on females", "exposed chest on buttocks" or "exposed chest on genitals". Other than the gramatical error, this first item prohibits child nudity without providing for exceptions.
In the next point they limit the its statement to "characters under the age of 18". Rather than "characters that [i:ae0f8f5330]appear to be[/i:ae0f8f5330] under the age of 18". That mean that they are talking about any character that appears to be of any age that were created after 1987 can not be nude.
Then they prohibit transparent cloths, censor blurs, blots, or anything witht eh word "Censored" written on it or any props to cover otherwise unclothed areas. Since all clothing are a form of props, they have just prohibited the use of clothing as well. Also if you have a picture of a child holding a mug of chocolate to his mouth, the mug prop is covering a part of his face and hand, those parts are not covered with clothing so the mug is now prohibited too.
The next point is weel enought writen so I won't comment on it.
Next point: Now they say that babies can wear diapers, but fail to mention if an infant wearing only diapers is allowed.
Then they say that they alone will determine the apparent age of a character. OK, I can understand that. But in viewing some of the images that they have already removed they have a very strange way of determining age. I saw one image where the charcter had the figure of a woman. Her her face was wrinkled with age her small breasts were quite saggy and her figure showed what once many have been an attractive one but is now withered by age. I have found that image was deleted for being a nude child, determined by the smallness of her breasts.
The last point contradicts the point about the diaper, it says that in cases where "gender that is questionable on an image with an exposed chest". All babies are gender questionable, so no babies in only diapers. Also the statement fails to mention whcih chest is in question. So, that would mean that an image with a baby (fully clothed) or an alien (fully clothed) will be deleted if anyone else in the image is bare chested.
The actual TOS contradict all these points except for where the first point says "No child nudity of any kind".
So, as of at least last night, transparent body parts is the only way that childern and infants can be depicted according to these guidelines and the TOS. Tomarrow, who knows what the guidelines will read as by then.
Pangor