Virtual Youtubers and "THE FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE"

One of the golden rules of the Virtual Youtuber community is that you don't talk about their other identities in their spaces.
Some examples being their livechat, comments under their videos, or communities like the Hololive subreddit.

While Danbooru has plenty of fans of VTubers, this place is (as far I've seen) considered to be outside of that, so it's fine to talk here about this knowledge, within reason of course.
With the various graduations over the last months, there has been a slow but steady influx of voice actor connection art of Virtual Youtubers.

To better keep track of these connections, especially involving people with multiple persona, should these connections be added to their Wiki pages?
Possibly under a spoiler tag or an expand box, or would it preferred to just don't bother with that?

Note that I'm absolutely NOT talking about any kind of IRL information.

GabrielWB said:

To better keep track of these connections, especially involving people with multiple persona, should these connections be added to their Wiki pages?
Possibly under a spoiler tag or an expand box, or would it preferred to just don't bother with that?

Note that I'm absolutely NOT talking about any kind of IRL information.

In the Discord channel, we did have a discussion on that, and the consensus was that they shouldn't be added in unless the talent in question makes a direct connection/admission of their past identity (perfect example would be Selen Tatsuki vis-a-vis Dokibird). We've had multiple instances of users having inserted the past identities onto current ones' wikis despite not having admitted the connection and we've had to remove those, spoilered or not, to prevent possible repercussions.

ArcieA said:

In the Discord channel, we did have a discussion on that, and the consensus was

If it didn't happen in the forum then there's no consensus.

I would like to say that from an outsider perspective, as someone who isn't into vtubers, this whole golden rule thing has always struck me as absurd.

There's no real difference between a vtuber talent who has streamed under different names with different models and a VA who has played different characters. We obviously would keep track of the connection in the latter case, and there's no reason not to for the former. Everyone knows that there is a connection. The vtuber fans are welcome to close their eyes and pretend not to know in their own communities, but danbooru shouldn't be restricted by that.

If artists draw vtuber voice actor connection art, then it needs to be tagged as such on danbooru. Keeping a list of other personas in the relevant wikis would help us in tagging that consistently. So we should keep track of it. In spoilers if we must.

CoreMack said:

I would like to say that from an outsider perspective, as someone who isn't into vtubers, this whole golden rule thing has always struck me as absurd.

While I am slightly into vtubers...

There's no real difference between a vtuber talent who has streamed under different names with different models and a VA who has played different characters. We obviously would keep track of the connection in the latter case, and there's no reason not to for the former. Everyone knows that there is a connection. The vtuber fans are welcome to close their eyes and pretend not to know in their own communities, but danbooru shouldn't be restricted by that.

I agree with this, especially the last point. If it is likely to cause actual problems for the vtubers themselves then sure (just like in any non-vtuber case), but in many cases this is a flimsy argument at best since their alternate identies are basically textbook examples of "open secrets".

ANON_TOKYO said:

If it is likely to cause actual problems for the vtubers themselves then sure (just like in any non-vtuber case), but in many cases this is a flimsy argument at best since their alternate identies are basically textbook examples of "open secrets".

Really, the main reason why we've avoided it so far, aside from the subcultural reasons, is to avoid drawing attention to Danbooru itself by acknowleding the connection directly in wikis (hence why only cases like Dokibird, Sayu Sincronisity, Pmaru-sama, Aglio Olio e Peperoncino, etc., where the connection has been publicly acknowledged, have them listed so far).

We haven't yet had a case where a VTuber has sent a DMCA or similar for hosting such information, but we have had a case where a VTuber had her legal team DMCA fanart of herself in such a way that evazion was forced to take them down, so if something like that could happen, then a DMCA for hosting that info, whether it be by the VTuber themselves or the companies involved with them, doesn't seem as far-off. That is the actual main risk behind hosting this info, hosting info that could be considered private enough to force legal intervention ala listing an artist's legal name as their tag and nationality in their wiki, not making VTuber fans butthurt and VTubers themselves annoyed, because general VTuber community practice is being broken.

I kinda agree with the idea of having a “direct admittance” requirement. If there’s no record of the vtuber stating they are another vtuber, how can we truly know?

Damian0358 said:

Really, the main reason why we've avoided it so far, aside from the subcultural reasons, is to avoid drawing attention to Danbooru itself by acknowleding the connection directly in wikis (hence why only cases like Dokibird, Sayu Sincronisity, Pmaru-sama, Aglio Olio e Peperoncino, etc., where the connection has been publicly acknowledged, have them listed so far).

We haven't yet had a case where a VTuber has sent a DMCA or similar for hosting such information, but we have had a case where a VTuber had her legal team DMCA fanart of herself in such a way that evazion was forced to take them down, so if something like that could happen, then a DMCA for hosting that info, whether it be by the VTuber themselves or the companies involved with them, doesn't seem as far-off. That is the actual main risk behind hosting this info, hosting info that could be considered private enough to force legal intervention ala listing an artist's legal name as their tag and nationality in their wiki, not making VTuber fans butthurt and VTubers themselves annoyed, because general VTuber community practice is being broken.

DMCA is not applicable to this. "This creator used to be known as X" is a fact, and there's no copyright in facts.

At most they could complain that it's doxxing. But if it doesn't connect them to their IRL identity then I don't see any real legal danger there either. Especially since, again, it's usually an open secret.

Blank_User said:

If there’s no record of the vtuber stating they are another vtuber, how can we truly know?

C'mon, this is such a non-argument. Maybe Cover Corp. is a pioneer in lifelike TTS AI's. Maybe the concept of Vtubers was all a dream (Zapdos would like this). How would we know they're not all Yagoo with a voice changer?

CoreMack said:

DMCA is not applicable to this.

Technically speaking, the case I brought up of a VTuber having her legal team DMCA fanart of herself also wasn't applicable, in so far as the claim made in the DMCA, but the way it was done forced evazion to take it down anyway.

Regardless though, if we do decide to include this info in wikis, then that can still induce conflict, and we've developed practices specifically to reduce conflicts (see the practice of separating SFW and NSFW entries for the same artist - combining them would be factual, but inspire the artist to ask for their art to be taken down). Additionally, and you know this is going to happen, the moment you open the floodgates on this you'll inspire some folks to add that info in the wikis even when it doesn't actually help tagging voice actor connection whatsoever, because nuance is something many users lack.

FWIW Cover has previously cease and desisted youtube channels that were spreading info about connections between hololive vtubers and their irl online personas. But that's a pretty isolated thing from like 5 years ago. Whether or not they would do that sort of thing again, or even for vtuber to vtuber connections, is yet to be seen afaik

Japan in general tends to be more anal about the rule.

Generally speaking, I would say don't make the connection unless it is acknowledged by the vtuber in question. It avoids liability down the road if corpos and indies can just go after places for that shit.

Damian0358 said:

we've developed practices specifically to reduce conflicts

If conflict aversion is the goal, I would say respecting vtuber subculture's antiquated idol culture rules would be the way to go.

ANON_TOKYO said:

C'mon, this is such a non-argument. Maybe Cover Corp. is a pioneer in lifelike TTS AI's. Maybe the concept of Vtubers was all a dream (Zapdos would like this). How would we know they're not all Yagoo with a voice changer?

I’m talking about situations in which two vtubers sound the same and a lot of people think they’re the same person, but there is no other evidence. Are there other forms of evidence besides direct acknowledgment that could reliably connect them?

Blank_User said:

I’m talking about situations in which two vtubers sound the same and a lot of people think they’re the same person, but there is no other evidence. Are there other forms of evidence besides direct acknowledgment that could reliably connect them?

I think this is a likely problem, especially for smaller JP vtubers who would have less people able to correct inaccurate speculation of past accounts. I think our current status quo of keeping it off the page unless the vtuber is open with their identity is the best option. I wouldn't necessarily be against adding it if there are a considerable amount of voice actor connection posts but even among high-profile reincarnations there don't seem to be many of posts with that tag unless they're open with their previous identity or have at least heavily referenced it.