At first blush the index of forbidden images, i.e. posts considered off-topic and therefore subject to deletion, might seem obvious. Since my last two articles (In Nomine Archivi and The BEA Pentateuch) covered what types of posts are welcome, i.e. on-topic, in the BEA Gallery, everything else could be deemed off-topic. But this is not so cut and dried as it might first appear. This page will be my last (gratia Dei) on topicality at the BEA, and will examine this remainder, i.e. off-topic and marginal posts.

When Owner first appointed moderators in the UG, their mandate was to eliminate spam and off-topic posts. His declaration is no longer online, but I remember words to the effect that "off-topic" posts included illegal posts (such as child pornography and bestiality) as well as those vicious and obscene posts whose only purpose was to attack other participants. Obviously such posts could not and will not be tolerated. Equally obviously there are other categories of off-topic posts: male homosexuality, to pick an obvious one (but who could conceive of a gay raid on the BEA?), or landscapes, or family-album pics (unless some family members are on-topic!).

A glance at the Users' Gallery, however, will show numerous posts which fall outside the category of large breasts, but which have nevertheless been deemed acceptable by many participants - and, above all, by the moderators, since the posts were not removed. Such posts are in a limbo between off-topic and on-topic, leading to disagreement among participants and moderators. I will go over several types of these "marginal posts" now.

Jokes: There are occasional gallery posts intended only as a joke, without any connection to big breasts. One common example, which has fortunately become unnecessary with the advent of moderators, was a can of Spam™ with a caption such as "Please stuff this in your own mouth and keep it out of the Gallery!" Not exactly a laff riot, I know, but there have been really good jokes. The most hilarious cartoon I have seen in years was posted by MyCroft, who had to post it in halves in order to scale it down to UG size, allowing me to perform a public service now by presenting it in its uncut glory (I've also taken the liberty of editing the English slightly).

MyCroft hesitated to post this because it was off-topic, until I pointed out that the lady has sufficiently large breasts to justify its posting, and I think we are the richer for it - but have we missed other comic masterpieces because they were felt to be off-topic? I feel that the BEA would benefit by regaining some of the humor it had last year, in the Forums as well as the Gallery - and it need not always be strictly on-topic.

Pictures peripherally related to breasts - such as the recently-posted bra showing size tag. Other possibilities include pictures of:

• the strap-on appendages used by the latex princesses;
• artists active in the big-boob field (e.g. Russ Meyer, though most available pictures of him seem to feature on-topic models anyway);
• faces or other non-mammillary anatomical close-ups of big-breasted models we all know and love.

OBE: not Order of the British Empire, much as some of the models posted here might deserve that honor, but Other-than-Breast Expansion, e.g. butt expansion, penis expansion, elbow expansion, also waist reduction, leg lengthening - heck, give her a nose job while you're at it. (There is a good argument, however, that nipple expansion is a subset of breast expansion and therefore completely on-topic). I know many participants are dead set against OBE posts. I'm not a fan of OBE myself, but I feel that it is marginally valid as a cousin of breast expansion. After all, the technique is presumably the same, and it is conceivable that OBE morphers might want to compare notes with BE morphers.

"Morph-me": The most frequent and most controversial type: pictures of small-breasted, even flat-chested women as subjects for the morphers to ply their trade on. I hope it is universally accepted that breast expansion has a place at the Breast Expansion Archive, albeit not the exclusive one some have believed or would like, and morphers do need raw material to work on. The trouble is, morph candidates are not in themselves on-topic: they are only potentially on-topic, and a large number of morph-me posts will lead to acrimony. Such posts definitely fall into the marginal category.

So: these are the categories that fall into the limbo between on- and off-topic (there may of course be others I haven't thought of). Each is cherished by some and abhorred by others. To try to ensure domestic tranquility, I think (as usual) there should be a guideline for posts (and thus for moderators) in these categories; clearly, given their tenuous claim to topicality, the right to post them is more limited than the standard on-topic posts. I guess the de facto limit of ten on-topic posts has gained general acceptance (though personally I think ten is a little high, and should be a size rather than numerical limit): I propose a limit of one post per person per day for posts falling within these marginal categories.

As always, such a guideline is only a guideline, subject to the discretion and judgment of the moderators. And I would advise those who resent such a limit on their favorite category to consider this guideline as a protection of minority rights rather than just a restriction. Without any guideline everything is left up to the moderators, and a moderator who hates, say, OBE posts is likely to delete all that occur. Remember that the final output of moderation is the least common denominator: it's obvious that the moderators do not work as a group but individually, and if each deletes his bête noire nothing marginal is likely to survive. If there exists a guideline of one post per person a day (for example), individual preferences have some protection - as do the great majority who do not share those preferences.

In medio stat virtus.