actually, that's the whole "professional" and "tasteful" part.  you can't do standard "censored" thumbs.  that's why jim farris' pic got pulled.  because he had black thumb with text.  i hasten to add that was how he did all his other joke renders.  you can't cover the breasts or other regions with censor bars or blurring or items that say "nudity," so dphoadley's solution is at best in need of a moderator's ok.

i've been holding back (hard to believe, huh?), but if we're going to get serious again....

i'm really beginning to get offended by the idea put forth that the only reason to post nude thumbs is to get more hits, and that such thumbs are only posted to get more hits.  and the notion that it's automatically easy to make a compliant thumb.   and also the notion that "pleasant" and "safe" thumbs will make this site "more professional."   acadia has once again stated that the galleries will be more "tasteful" now, and that simply insults my work.

my two most "high art" pics probably won't be posted here because of the new policy.   they're not t&a, and they're the only two of the nearly 30 of the past few years of work i've chosen for my gallery that i would actually be proud to show family and friends (though one is more clumsy than i like).  i don't think i have one other that i would.  too "low" art.  i can state, with absolute certainty, that any thumbnail of those images that did not include nudity i wouldn't find good or even decent.  if i end up posting them, it will be because i have accepted a thumbnail which is both badly composed and misleading by my own standards.   and i know because before this brouhaha began, i tried to make thumbnails that didn't include nudity.  just to be safe.  i tried different framing, different scaling, and nothing without nudity worked. 

i predict that about 3 or 4 unfinished works will have the same problem.  unless i decide to paint clothes on my nudes.

and there's work i'd like to do but haven't because i presently lack the necessary morphing and anatomy mastery.   i'd love to do a series of body close-ups, especially torsos.  for something of a reference, see mfenberg's gallery here, especially his earlier posts.  how would you do a suitable, non-misleading, and well composed thumbnail of an image that was just a breast?   personally, i at can envision an artistic  photo/render like that a lot easier than one with any bathing suit i can imagine.

on the other hand, all actual t&a shots have to do is pics of legs.    where layout  isn't a big deal and the only goal is titillation, it's pretty easy to make a thumb that says, "this chick is hot."  it's not at all easy if you wanted to say something more complex.

other sites unlike the erotic render site do allow nude thumbs. runtimedna, whose gallery i most respect in poserdom, has neither custom thumbnails nor any tagging for nudity.  posetteforever allows nude thumbs, and they're nothing like the site that can't be named.  theartdoor (formerly rendervisions) allows nude thumbs.  searching cgsociety i found absolutely nothing about nudity in thumbnails, and the guidelines for the thumbnail just mention filesize and dimension.  i just checked the deviantart t.o.s., and they don't even mention the word nudity.   artzone allows nude thumbs, though they're not included in global browsing results (you can see them in a person's gallery).  no traditional fine artist's gallery i've been to mentions nudity or warns people about the nudity on their sites.  when i was involved in teaching a course where fine art majors made online galleries, none of them mentioned nudity or even thought twice about using it on their home pages.  none thought twice about showing me works with nudity.  i suspect they have a fine grasp of the art community's professional standards.

this whole premise that nudity is less professional and that "safe" and "pleasant" is more professional goes completely against everything i've learned of the art community and of design.  i say that as someone who grew up around artists (mostly from nyc), who makes a living as a web & multimedia designer, and who constantly seeks out examples of high level design, illustration and art work.

unless i've grossly misinterpreted them, the new thumbnails rules are more restrictive than cosmo and g.q. covers.  or bazaar (see britney spears pregnant cover),  and vanity fair (see demi moore cover which preceded it, and her painted suit before that).   recently, i just searched for perfume ads as references for an image i was working on.  just about half of them wouldn't fit the new thumbnail standards, even though they were definitively professional and also part of mass media.  i recently bought a book of the cutting edge fashion illustration, and it's chock full of nudity.  heck, the contents of most professional design collections i've seen, such as ones that collect the best of ad design for the year, wouldn't fit the new thumbnail standards.   and that doesn't even address the professional photography collections i've viewed and own. 

and that's all commercial work meant for mass consumption, not fine art.

in my experience, the professional fine art community views negative reactions to nudity as prudish and childish at best and oppressive and evil at worst.  i don't agree with that- i think it's fine for people to define their own comfort zone- but if you're trying to make this site more professional, i'd like to know who you think is going to be doing the judging of that.   work that looks professional, in both art and illustration usually looks "edgy."  safe and cool are basically antithetical.  i believe the new standards will only make the site more boring and unprofessional, with the same t&a  wrapped in spandex, lycra and even metal, while sending artists who like to actually push boundaries to other galleries.

if we're trying to make this gallery family safe, then just say that.  because kids don't hire designers or illustrators.   and it makes more sense to have a programmatic solution  than have  random cadre of people as arbiters of what is acceptable and what is not.  and if old thumbnails don't have to be changed, then what's the point?  i guess it's how rendo looks, not how our individual galleries do.  is "profesional actually "hobbiest customer friendly."    if that's so, then i wish they had just said,  "we'd like you to censor your thumbnails so that we don't offend those viewers who aren't part of the professional community, have never been part of the professional or trained fine art community, and haven't been culturally acclimated to nudity but don't want to use nudity filters."   personally, i think that's going to be problematic, because as i and jim farris pointed out, this is a large and culturally diverse community and there will always be a significant portion that finds certain things offensive.   nudity is only one of them.  frankly most professional fine artists i know would be (highly) offended by the style and composition (and often, lack of work), not the nudity.

i think if rendo wants galleries that promote a specific image, they should just approve each image and reward those accepted like daz does.