Improve guidelines for Twitch Emotes and follow them consistently
The current set of guidelines for Twitch Emotes is a razor-thin line of subjectivity, and it is interpreted differently depending on which human being reviews it.
A year ago I submitted a dancing mango emote that was approved. A few months later it was taken down for violating guidelines on nudity. I reviewed the guidelines with my artist and we blurred the butt part of the dancing in an effort to comply with the guidelines. Please bear in mind that I reached out to twitch and informed them of my very conscious effort to try and follow guidelines, but that i still wanted the emote because it is completely harmless and miles better than a dozen competitor emotes i could name off hand.
Twitch's response was that they couldn't offer guidance beyond the "general guidelines", and that if i felt other streamers were "getting away with it" i should report them.... So not only did they give me no useful advice, but they asked me to stop complaining and start narcing.... great....
Fast forward, I submitted my revamped emote and within the notes of its submission i articulated that I had made updates to ensure compliance and that I looked forward to hearing if there were any concerns. The emote was approved a few months ago and had no issues until today when it was removed for the same vague reasons as before.
If you are going to make me wait a month to get an emote approved by a human being, then there is absolutely no way it should be so easy and arbitrary to change your mind about the emote. It's within compliance or its not. This back and forth is wasting tremendous amounts of my time, and its also wasting my money as i work with my very accommodating artist who continues to allow adjustments up until approval.
I reached out to twitch for clarification about the removal and they gave me an incredibly inhuman response, insisting that they couldn't provide more details than the vague ones provided in the removal notice.
Please, I'm begging you, for everyone's time, money, and sanity. Apply your rules consistently and do so once. I spend a ton of time upgrading and enhancing my stream to engage my audience and entertain people. It should not be this difficult to deal with one emote.
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whimsygame commented
I second this. I had an emote get rejected that was on par with something you would see in a disney film (rated G) got flagged for "sexual content"... very next day twitch announces they allow "implied topless" and "nudity" with a new "sexual content" stream warning option... very unfair that harmless non sexual emotes are being rejected.