I am SO SICK of people calling the art that got Ponderosa and Elaboration originally suspended "tasteless."
Look, taste doesn't even enter into the equation! Obviously it was to
some people's taste, as people did decide to view it. But that's just the point--the pictures were clearly labeled and under a cut. (Ponderosa has said hers was, and I assume Elaboration's was, because that's just what's
done in the HP fandom.) If you wanted to view it, you knew what you were getting into. Taste is just not relevant.
Now, I do think that posting pornographic images (and especially cat macros) in comments to news and lj_biz posts was in poor taste. But that's an entirely different situation. That's posting with intent to annoy, in places where people are not expecting to come upon porn (at least at first).
Tastelessness depends on context. If someone says "A woman's place is in the kitchen," that's absolutely tasteless if said in the presence of anyone--male or female--who would be offended by it. (I would hope that would be most people, but that's not relevant.) However, if it is said only in the presence of similarly misogynistic people, then there isn't a question of taste.
Besides, I still haven't seen Elaboration's picture, but there's no question in my mind that Ponderosa's has significant artistic merit--meaning there aren't very many places where it would, in fact, be tasteless.
