Char said:
This isn't what we're really saying though. Using the same logic above, I wouldn't be able to tag an image of a real person with that person's name because the person's name doesn't appear in the image. To me, this is also like saying that I can't tag "cup" on a picture, and am instead limited to only tagging what makes up the cup (e.g. plastic, cylinder, opening). The difference is that I can SEE that it is a cup. All the evidence for a cup is right there in front of me. I can SEE that the person/character in an image is definitely "person_x", all the evidence is right there. But, I can NOT tell that "character_y" in a specific picture is a herm if I CAN'T see the traits that would make him/her a herm.

I'm confused about this - why doesn't this work in opposite direction, ex. "I see Artica Sparkle, and infer 'herm'"? There's plenty of evidence for Artica Sparkle's character being a herm, even on this site - that is, why can't we (by default) presume that the same character will have the same gender in different images? To me, it's like saying that I see enough to infer that a cup is a mug, yet I can't see the handle, and therefore can only tag "mug" but not "handle"...?

lurkingfox said:
I'm confused about this - why doesn't this work in opposite direction, ex. "I see Artica Sparkle, and infer 'herm'"? There's plenty of evidence for Artica Sparkle's character being a herm, even on this site - that is, why can't we (by default) presume that the same character will have the same gender in different images? To me, it's like saying that I see enough to infer that a cup is a mug, yet I can't see the handle, and therefore can only tag "mug" but not "handle"...?

Because we tag what gender they look like, disregarding what they may or may not have under the counter.
This is e621's tagging philosophy.

Riversyde said:
Because we tag what gender they look like, disregarding what they may or may not have under the counter.
This is e621's tagging philosophy.

post #150800
Is? Darlin, I think you mean has been, currently is, and will always be, our lil policy round here regarding these kinda things; n why in the hay is this lil discussion still goin, didn't we resolve this lil issue already, or do y'all need some more pictures, of ponies a course.

Riversyde said:
Because we tag what gender they look like, disregarding what they may or may not have under the counter.

But that's the thing that confuses me - ex. Artica Sparkle actually looks like a herm. After all, it's Artica Sparkle - no knowledge of what's "under the counter" needed.

(edit) Okay, so I think I was confused because I've always considered the gender tags to be the a best guess of the genders of the characters within the picture, not restricted to literally based on what one can see of the character's bits. I can see the difference now, though I'm not 100% sure this is a good idea in practice.

Practically, I'm afraid that non-porn would end up with so many ambiguous_gender tags to make gender tagging near useless for those pics. Either that, or it would create enough bias towards 'female' and 'male' that it'd really piss off those who inherently dislike that people presume those two genders (fairly low, but surprisingly higher than one would think) - and in the latter case, I doubt that the value added is worth peeving those people.

lurkingfox said:
But that's the thing that confuses me - ex. Artica Sparkle actually looks like a herm. After all, it's Artica Sparkle - no knowledge of what's "under the counter" needed.

post #156163
Why shuga, you don't see a big ol pair a knockers or a vagoo on lil ol me do ya, yet I'm tagged female ya see, cause I look like one, just tag what ya see and don't think about it too hard, no need to worry that fuzzy lil head a yours over such a lil thing.

lurkingfox said:
But that's the thing that confuses me - ex. Artica Sparkle actually looks like a herm. After all, it's Artica Sparkle - no knowledge of what's "under the counter" needed.

How the hell can your top half make you look like a herm?

Riversyde said:
How the hell can your top half make you look like a herm?

If you have "I'M A HERM" painted on your face?

lurkingfox said:
I'm confused about this - why doesn't this work in opposite direction, ex. "I see Artica Sparkle, and infer 'herm'"? There's plenty of evidence for Artica Sparkle's character being a herm, even on this site - that is, why can't we (by default) presume that the same character will have the same gender in different images?

It doesn't work in the opposite direction because you're having to make assumptions. There are specific traits about characters that make them the characters that they are. Fur color, patterns, body structure, species, size, and so on. Even when some of these traits are modified in a pic (like species), you can still tell it's the character, simply in a different form. But when you can't see the traits that make Artica Sparkle a herm, you are ASSUMING that she is a herm. I know it makes perfect sense to assume Artica Sparkle is a herm IF you know that Artica's "default" gender is a herm. But this is projecting what you know about a character onto an image where the ONLY evidence you have to go by is that the character is traditionally a herm. You have no proof, all you have is "well Artica was a herm in all these other pics..."

lurkingfox said:
To me, it's like saying that I see enough to infer that a cup is a mug, yet I can't see the handle, and therefore can only tag "mug" but not "handle"...?

If you see enough to infer that a cup is a mug, then it's a mug. If you see enough to infer that a character is a herm, then it's a herm. The problem is people are saying "historically this character has been a herm, so it's a herm in this picture too even though you can't tell." That is completely different from saying "I see enough of this cup to infer that it is a mug and not just a cup".

ExplosiveBlaziken said:
If you have "I'M A HERM" painted on your face?

post #151346
Well, I guess ya beat me to that un, but really, y'all need to stop arguin bout such a lil thing, it ain't gonna cause ya nuthin but a bunch a trouble, n y'all don't need such trouble over such a lil thing.
NOW STOP YOUR SHIT BEFORE MY GODDAMN MEDS WEAR OFF AND I START... I mean, y'all can quit ya fussin now and SHUT THE FU... stop with all this horsin around, ya hear.

[oops I temporary lost what was left of my sanity from all this drama, sorry bout that]

nzt said:
post #151346
Well, I guess ya be me to that un, but really, y'all need to stop arguin bout such a lil thing, it ain't gonna cause ya nuthin but a bunch a trouble, n y'all don't need such trouble over such a lil thing.
NOW STOP YOUR SHIT BEFORE MY GODDAMN MEDS WEAR OFF AND I START... I mean, y'all can quit ya fussin now and SHUT THE FU... stop with all this horsin around, ya hear.

Knock that off.

Princess_Celestia said:
Knock that off.

What, I thought you liked ponies :p

Riversyde said:
How the hell can your top half make you look like a herm?

See my edit - I didn't get that gender tags weren't supposed to be a best-effort guess at gender. (If it's a best-effort guess, then character identity is probably the most reliable indicator of gender - even more reliable than visual appearance if the bits are a little obscured.)

nzt said:
What, I thought you liked ponies :p

You're roleplaying. That's not what these forums are for.

Char said:
If you see enough to infer that a cup is a mug, then it's a mug. If you see enough to infer that a character is a herm, then it's a herm. The problem is people are saying "historically this character has been a herm, so it's a herm in this picture too even though you can't tell." That is completely different from saying "I see enough of this cup to infer that it is a mug and not just a cup".

Let me ALSO expand on this by again restating that I'm NOT saying you have to see genitalia in order to make an educated guess at at LEAST whether the character is male or female, and sometimes even herm. It's perfectly possible to make an educated guess at a person's gender IRL without looking at their genitals, and it's perfectly possible to do so in a picture too.

lurkingfox said:
See my edit - I didn't get that gender tags weren't supposed to be a best-effort guess at gender. (If it's a best-effort guess, then character identity is probably the most reliable indicator of gender - even more reliable than visual appearance if the bits are a little obscured.)

It IS supposed to be best-effort guess. Again, a gender tag is stating the APPARENT gender of the character in the image, even if the character is historically a different gender or even claimed to be a different gender in a particular image by the artist or character owner.

You know what, let me try explaining this another way: cub porn. Do you guys care more that the artist SAYS a character in a porn pic isn't a cub, or do you care more if the character actually looks like a cub? I'm serious, I'm genuinely curious about this.

[oops I temporary lost what was left of my sanity from all this drama, sorry bout that]

[oops I temporary lost what was left of my sanity from all this drama, sorry bout that]

*walks in thread, looks around, puffs on pipe*

Yep. Nothing new here.

Aurali said:
*walks in thread, looks around, puffs on pipe*

Yep. Nothing new here.

So tell me, how do you manage to deal with this on a daily basis and keep your sanity?

Nice job comparing the Admins to Nazi's, douchebag.

Actually, if you look at my metaphor, Cuntboys would be Nazi's o.O'

Also, yeah, tag what they look like. It's in no way violation of this to tag clothed males as cuntboys... they do, indeed, look like cuntboys. They also look like males, though... so I think character references and references to other pictures may be necessary to distinguish the gender in the same way that it is uses to distinguish between flat-chested girls and cuntboys. That is all.

And I don't tag things because it is not my right to force my interpretations of what an image is... and although this site is privately owned, I think an Admin would be flaunting their power in most situations to say that they do have the right to have their opinion of the image represented in the tags... and I don't, users don't, character owners don't, and artists don't have the right to tag things as the genders I think that they are.

Char said:
Do you guys care more that the artist SAYS a character in a porn pic isn't a cub, or do you care more if the character actually looks like a cub? I'm serious, I'm genuinely curious about this.

Physically taking the appearance of a cub and being a cub are two different things. If the artist says that the picture isn't of a Cub, then I believe that and that is very important to me (to know what the artists/chracters wants his picture to be of)... But the fact that it looks like a cub still disinterests me.

However, if it is on the verge of being a cub (as with a character with obscured genitalia could be a female or a herm just as easily), the artists opinion would be the deciding factor in my mind.

Char said:
Do you guys care more that the artist SAYS a character in a porn pic isn't a cub, or do you care more if the character actually looks like a cub? I'm serious, I'm genuinely curious about this.

Cubs are a little tricky because there's incentive to be really obtuse about it (like the thing with mental/'real' character age and physical/'apparent' age, and getting around rules). I think e621's settled on saying that "cub" indicates physical or 'apparent' age, not 'mental' (or whatever) age.

So, I'd normally care more about what they say the character's physical/'apparent' age is (i.e. what the stakeholders say the character is), unless I think they're just trying to get around something like FA's rule against cubs, in which case I'd probably discount that in favor of judging from the picture. (And I think for most people it'll be either a Bayesian mix of the two like that, or just a judgement call.)

[oops I temporary lost what was left of my sanity from all this drama, sorry bout that]

nzt said:
So tell me, how do you manage to deal with this on a daily basis and keep your sanity?

LOL she doesn't have any sanity, that's how. She lost that when she got lost in drama land.

Char said:
It's perfectly possible to make an educated guess at a person's gender IRL without looking at their genitals,

T_T nobody ever knows my gender...I get weird looks and questions of whether I'm a guy or girl. :'(

cookiekangaroo said:
LOL she doesn't have any sanity, that's how. She lost that when she got lost in drama land.

It was a rhetorical question, this is a furry website, nobody on it is sane, especially the people who are seriously arguing about this.

nzt said:
It was a rhetorical question, this is a furry website, nobody on it is sane, especially the people who are seriously arguing about this.

But arguing is soo much fun ;P

SoulLess said:
But arguing is soo much fun ;P

It's all fun and games until somefurry takes it far too seriously.

lurkingfox said:
To me, it's like saying that I see enough to infer that a cup is a mug, yet I can't see the handle, and therefore can only tag "mug" but not "handle"...?

Because then people looking for mugs with handles would come away disappointed, and the people looking for mugs without handles wouldn't be able to find it.

That is really it. The tags should reflect what is visible in the picture - no more, no less. If the tags don't accurately describe the content of the pictures, they're no good to anyone.

targetdog said:
Because then people looking for mugs with handles would come away disappointed, and the people looking for mugs without handles wouldn't be able to find it.

Or the people looking for mugs would be able to infer the handle in the picture and be able to find it... and the people looking for mugs without handles would be disjointed to know that the mug has a handle behind generic vision obstructing object numero uno.

SoulLess said:
Or the people looking for mugs would be able to infer the handle in the picture and be able to find it... and the people looking for mugs without handles would be disjointed to know that the mug has a handle behind generic vision obstructing object numero uno.

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but I really have no idea what you're trying to say here.

Let's do away with the mug and handle thing. It's getting confusing.

Take this: post #125698

YOUR WAY:
If you have your way, it would be tagged herm even though there is no penis visible, because you know the character is usually (but not always) a herm.

In this case, people searching for "herm" will find this picture. Because they're searching for herms on purpose, they'll likely be disappointed because there's nothing in the picture indicating that she's a herm.

Also, people searching for "female" who have blacklisted "herm" will not see this picture. Which is a shame, because they're missing out on something that could potentially be enjoyable to them.

The current tagging guidelines are designed to avoid these scenarios:

BY THE RULES:
If we're following current tagging rules, the above post would be tagged female because there is a visible vulva but no penis visible. The fact that she is often drawn one way would not be taken into account.

In this case, people searching for "herm" will not find this picture. This is appropriate, because there's nothing in the picture indicating that she's a herm. These people are now happy because the only things they find in their search are characters with both man- and lady-bits, which is exactly what they were searching for.

Also, people searching for "female" who have blacklisted "herm" will see this picture. This is appropriate, because there's nothing in the picture indicating that she's a herm. These people are now happy because the only things they find in their search are characters with only lady-bits, which is exactly what they were searching for.

If you don't agree with it, that's fine. I've got my own opinions that so far I have kept to myself. I'm just trying to clarify what I believe the rules are saying because some people aren't following the ideas.

lurkingfox said:
But that's the thing that confuses me - ex. Artica Sparkle actually looks like a herm. After all, it's Artica Sparkle - no knowledge of what's "under the counter" needed.

Except if, like me, you'd never heard of Artica Sparkle before this thread and don't really care to research her back story and maybe just wanted to see images of females giving head, which the image that's been tossed around pretty obviously is to anyone who'd never heard of the character before.

YOUR WAY:
If you have your way, it would be tagged herm even though there is no penis visible, because you know the character is usually (but not always) a herm.

In this case, people searching for "herm" will find this picture. Because they're searching for herms on purpose, they'll likely be disappointed because there's nothing in the picture indicating that she's a herm.

Also, people searching for "female" who have blacklisted "herm" will not see this picture. Which is a shame, because they're missing out on something that could potentially be enjoyable to them.

See, the thing is. I'd fap to it, because despite no penis, I know shi's a herm, and just that thought is enough for me :v

Despite my absence here - I think I agree with you, Char, on the extra tags being a potential solution, still. Nobody seems to have expressed dislike, and I see some indirect support by several - for example, the post above me.

I figure why not add them on a trial basis, perhaps? Announce that they're there if people want to use them, but note that the existing gender tags must be as-you-see-it? See if they're used, decide from there? Just a possible suggestion.

I feel it's actually worth this to point this out - Char, you seem to be doing an excellent job handling this and actually listening to people. I don't see much of the oft-occurring resistance to change solely because decisions by staff are often seen as a loss of power or pride if they're changed, especially at user suggestion, and I'm extremely pleased to see that. I'm also very pleased that you're taking a moderate, logical, apparently sane route in dealing with everyone. Excellent job, in short.

I have expressed dislike, as have those of us strongly telling the people whining that just because their character is normally X, it should always be tagged X even when it's Y. There has been plenty of dislike for it.

To the people who go "I KNOW SHI'S A HERM AND THAT EXCITES ME" Look up the damn character then, since you so obviously know she's a herm most of the time/originally, then any picture she's in must interest you, right?

Stop getting your stupidity mixed up in tagging. If you took any of these pictures and showed them to someone with no prior knowledge of the characters, what gender would they infer from the picture? THAT is what needs to be tagged. It's not "BUT THIS IS WHAT I AM INSIDE" or some such crap. Keep that to FA or Yiffy.tk and other roleplay sites or what the crap ever. Good lord.

lurkingfox said:
I'm confused about this - why doesn't this work in opposite direction, ex. "I see Artica Sparkle, and infer 'herm'"? There's plenty of evidence for Artica Sparkle's character being a herm, even on this site - that is, why can't we (by default) presume that the same character will have the same gender in different images? To me, it's like saying that I see enough to infer that a cup is a mug, yet I can't see the handle, and therefore can only tag "mug" but not "handle"...?

You see Artica Sparkle and infer herm. Someone who doesn't know who the hell Artica Sparkle is looks at her and thinks female. It doesn't matter if she's USUALLY herm. It matters to that image. Just that one image. The metatag of the character's name that brings all said pictures together certainly does show that the character is more often herm than anything else, yes; But that doesn't change the fact that, in this picture, she looks like a female. to use your mug/handle/cup example, but bitsified: If you look at a picture of a character you know nothing about, that has a big round ass and feminine curves to them, with sideboob showing, but no package- Do you think that's a picture of a herm immediately, or female? What if it's a feminine lower body, but it has a penis and you can't see the top? Would you call that a dickgirl or a herm, when for all you know it could just be an effeminate guy?

What you want to call the character doesn't matter compared to what the character looks like in that exact drawing that is being tagged.

Okay, the way I see it as far as "hurr durr this character's a herm"

example A: post #65684

this is Krystal from Starfox. Krystal is female, however, this is male. just because Krystal is female most of the time does not mean this is always the case.

example B: post #150305

this is Miles (tails) Prower from sonic the hedgehog. Tails is male, but seen here he is female. this is the same scenario as Krystal, only in reverse.

My point to this exercise is this: DO NOT ALWAYS ASSUME A CHARACTER'S GENDER BASED ON NORMALITY, THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE.

cookiekangaroo said:
My point to this exercise is this: DO NOT ALWAYS ASSUME A CHARACTER'S GENDER BASED ON NORMALITY, THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE.

People aren't saying they assume gender given an obvious basis of change.

They're saying when there's nothing stating that obvious basis, that one would tend to assume that that character's default gender is applicable. Because why the fuck would it mysteriously change for no reason, especially when this isn't pointed out?

JustFrame said:
People aren't saying they assume gender given an obvious basis of change.

They're saying when there's nothing stating that obvious basis, that one would tend to assume that that character's default gender is applicable. Because why the fuck would it mysteriously change for no reason, especially when this isn't pointed out?

It can't change, because you handle gender on a case-by-case basis for each image. Every image is a unique instance of the character, and every instance is completely independent of one another. So it doesn't matter if a character is created with a particular gender in mind, every single time they are drawn they can be portrayed as any gender the artist decides.

The main issue with intersexuality is there are no secondary sexual characteristics that point to it. Even if you can't see a vagina in a picture, you can infer a character is female if it has wide hips and developed breasts; those are feminine characteristics. You might not see a penis in the picture, but you can infer it's male if it has broad shoulders and undeveloped breasts; those are male characteristics.

There are no secondary characteristics for cuntboys, dickgirls or herms. Their concepts are based entirely on a particular set of primary sexual characteristics (genitalia) present amidst the set of opposite sexual characteristics. All a dickgirl is is a character that possesses predominantly secondary female characteristics and a penis (a male characteristic). If you take away the penis, then all you have left are female characteristics. All you can infer from only female characteristics is female.

Now here's the thing people keep arguing about: if you can't see it in an image, does it still exist?

Right... but if I search for a herm and find http://e621.net/post/show/125698 ... and recognize she is a herm.. then she is right where I left her.

If I search for a Female and find that picture, only to realize that that character is a herm... I will be disappointed in what I find.

IF her legs are spread and no penis is visible, then I would rather not find her on a herm search... but AS-IS, there is no strong evidence telling me whether she is a herm or a female and would trust in the gender tagging to tell me whether the object I'm looking at in the picture is a female or a herm... if they lie to me about it, then thank you e621 tagging rules... for lying to me.

And, on the internet where herms are so prevalent, it is simply ignorance to say that you can just ASSUME that it's female.

MY POINT IS MADE. PEOPLE HAVE SUGGESTED THAT THEY HAVE STRONG DISLIKE OF THESE RULES. I AM NOT SPEAKING FOR THE COMMUNITY, JUST STATING FACTS ABOUT WHAT THEY HAVE EXPRESSED.

Quotes:

Because we tag what gender they look like, disregarding what they may or may not have under the counter.
This is e621's tagging philosophy.

But when you hide whats under the counter, a female looks like a herm JUST AS MUCH as it looks like a female. This is the internet, herms are too common for you to make assumptions for female.

Practically, I'm afraid that non-porn would end up with so many ambiguous_gender tags to make gender tagging near useless for those pics. Either that, or it would create enough bias towards 'female' and 'male' that it'd really piss off those who inherently dislike that people presume those two genders (fairly low, but surprisingly higher than one would think) - and in the latter case, I doubt that the value added is worth peeving those people.

Thank you. On the internet, it is higher than you would imagine.

It doesn't work in the opposite direction because you're having to make assumptions. There are specific traits about characters that make them the characters that they are. Fur color, patterns, body structure, species, size, and so on. Even when some of these traits are modified in a pic (like species), you can still tell it's the character, simply in a different form. But when you can't see the traits that make Artica Sparkle a herm, you are ASSUMING that she is a herm. I know it makes perfect sense to assume Artica Sparkle is a herm IF you know that Artica's "default" gender is a herm. But this is projecting what you know about a character onto an image where the ONLY evidence you have to go by is that the character is traditionally a herm. You have no proof, all you have is "well Artica was a herm in all these other pics..."

If it doesn't work in THAT direction, then it doesn't work in THIS direction either. You have to make the assumption that she doesn't have a dick and has a vagina in order to tag it as female. So you have NO evidence that she's a female and not a dickgirl or herm.

Let me ALSO expand on this by again restating that I'm NOT saying you have to see genitalia in order to make an educated guess at at LEAST whether the character is male or female, and sometimes even herm. It's perfectly possible to make an educated guess at a person's gender IRL without looking at their genitals, and it's perfectly possible to do so in a picture too.

It's simply not valid to cross that assumption(where you can guess at mail or female as a default) over from RL(where herms are near nonexistant) to Online (where herms are statistically increased in the population.) It's like living in india and moving to america and still guessing that most people in your vicinity share your eye colour. (since in India, for the most part, all have the same eye colour... in america, It's much more varied)

KloH0und said:
It can't change, because you handle gender on a case-by-case basis for each image. Every image is a unique instance of the character, and every instance is completely independent of one another.

No, see, this is where you're completely wrong because characters have an established mode of gender. And when one sees that character they see it by proxy.

That's what a character is: An establishment of tropes and concepts held together in a personality, which is carried from one phase to another.

That is why we have a little thing called character tags, imagine that.

SoulLess said:
If I search for a Female and find that picture, only to realize that that character is a herm... I will be disappointed in what I find.

I wouldn't. And I wasn't. You'd only be disappointed if you decide to go with the original idea that character is X. It comes down to whether you take the creator's word as law and apply it to an ambiguous image, or if you decide to use the ambiguity of the image to create your own interpretation.

Regardless of which route you take, that ambiguity still exists. Whether you decide to maintain the gender or bend it in your mind's eye, in the image that character is still wearing pants, or their legs are still crossed, or the image crops at her waist.

From a purely academic point of view, for the sake of categorizing images: there are female characteristics visible, there are not male characteristics visible. Therefore the image can be described as containing a female.

JustFrame said:
No, see, this is where you're completely wrong because characters have an established mode of gender. And when one sees that character they see it by proxy.

That's what a character is: An establishment of tropes and concepts held together in a personality, which is carried from one phase to another.

That is why we have a little thing called character tags, imagine that.

So since Artica Sparkle's gender defines her character, none of these images should be tagged artica_sparkle then.

post #116555
post #116542
post #116450
post #137221

SoulLess said:
If I search for a Female and find that picture, only to realize that that character is a herm... I will be disappointed in what I find.

The rules are in place to establish a standardized system of tagging, whether you're disappointed or not.

JustFrame said:
No, see, this is where you're completely wrong because characters have an established mode of gender. And when one sees that character they see it by proxy.

That's what a character is: An establishment of tropes and concepts held together in a personality, which is carried from one phase to another.

That is why we have a little thing called character tags, imagine that.

No, he's not wrong. There are no established modes of gender. If you can't see Artica's peen in that image, then there's no reason to tag it herm just because she is in other pictures. People who are searching for female and who aren't intimately familiar with her character history aren't gonna give a damn if she's "really" a herm.

From a purely academic point of view, for the sake of categorizing images: there are female characteristics visible, there are not male characteristics visible. Therefore the image can be described as containing a female.

It cannot, because there is no way to show that she isn't a herm (which she could, just as easily be.)

As I said before, on the internet where herms are so prevalent, it is just ignorance to assume female.

Also, those characters should be labeled "Artica_Sparkle" but they should also be labeled with "Genderbent" or appropriate tag.

Also, when you abuse the ambiguity of an image to meet your own ends despite what is actually described as the character... you might as well just say that Jesus Christ was a Nazi.

KloH0und said:
So since Artica Sparkle's gender defines her character, none of these images should be tagged artica_sparkle then.

If it's clearly that character, then they should be tagged with that character's tag. What does that have to do with what I said?

ippiki_ookami said:
No, he's not wrong. There are no established modes of gender.

Yes there is. A character with a particular gender will generally have the same gender across the board, if it changes this is usually pointed out. Why is that hard to get?

Also: The POINT of a character is that it has uniquely identifiable traits.... batman is a MAN that goes around in a bat suit and fights crime and has a secret identity.

Each instance of Batman is NOT independent of each other instance, they all have the same set of characteristics that make them unique or they're not the same character.

If you want to change a characteristic, you can make a picture of batman in a bunny suit... or make it a woman... but you note that something is different and it has become it's own entity. Batman thus becomes Batwoman (who is a different character with mostly the same characteristics otherwise)... or "batman in a bunny suit." In these instances, you have changed some particular ideas about the character to fit your desires, but not enough about them to change the whole character. They are still far from just being "Batman", but they can be called a different Version of "Batman"

SoulLess said:
It cannot, because there is no way to show that she isn't a herm (which she could, just as easily be.)

This is not how logic works; this is a fallacy. You do not make a statement and then say "PROVE ME WRONG". This is how religious followers sometimes try to defend their beliefs. "YOU CAN'T PROVE THAT GOD DOESN'T EXIST".

The point is we don't HAVE to prove that a character ISN'T a herm in a picture because there's no proof that she IS a herm in the picture.

JustFrame said:
Yes there is. A character with a particular gender will generally have the same gender across the board, if it changes this is usually pointed out. Why is that hard to get?

Yes, pointed out and tagged correctly. My point is, it is against tagging protocol to tag things you cannot see.

Char said:
tl;dr: TAG ONLY WHAT YOU SEE, ALWAYS

This is not related to gender but it is related to this statement. (Also sex and gender are not the same. One's sex can be different from one's gender.) Images and flash files which have a known artist or author but don't have an artist's seal, signature, or the like should be tagged "unknown_artist" since not everyone would know the artist just by seeing the picture, right? Likewise, shouldn't character names be removed unless the file explicity says, "This is a picture of so-and-so"?

SoulLess said:
Also: The POINT of a character is that it has uniquely identifiable traits.... batman is a MAN that goes around in a bat suit and fights crime and has a secret identity.

Each instance of Batman is NOT independent of each other instance, they all have the same set of characteristics that make them unique or they're not the same character.

I'm not talking about the fiction in general or even particular franchises. I'm talking about e621. On e621, all images are tagged based on what they explicitly contain. If you're posting a comic about two female anthropomorphic dogs having sex, the pages don't get the tagged "lesbian" until they start having sex, and the "breasts" tag will only appear on the pages after they've taken off their shirts.

You tag what you see.

This is the way things are done on e621.

Who fucking cares if Artica Sparkle gets tagged dickgirl in a hundred images? Do you think her creator is suddenly going to be forced to remove the vagina from his idea of Artica? Do you think people are going to stop imagining her as a herm? Even if you went and changed all hundred tags back to herm, do you think you'd stop people from imagining Artica without a penis? Or without a vagina?

They are still far from just being "Batman", but they can be called a different Version of "Batman"

Again, we're talking specifically about e621 here. Let's say I post that image of Batman in a bunny suit.

It would get tagged batman and bunny_suit. Sure, it might also get the more specific batman_(in_a_bunny_suit) if his character is unique enough to warrant a new tag, but in the end the picture still has the original Batman tag.

ippiki_ookami said:
Yes, pointed out and tagged correctly. My point is, it is against tagging protocol to tag things you cannot see.

And as has been gone over: You see a character with a verifiable gender, and you see that gender.

Lupo said:
This is not related to gender but it is related to this statement. (Also sex and gender are not the same. One's sex can be different from one's gender.) Images and flash files which have a known artist or author but don't have an artist's seal, signature, or the like should be tagged "unknown_artist" since not everyone would know the artist just by seeing the picture, right? Likewise, shouldn't character names be removed unless the file explicity says, "This is a picture of so-and-so"?

I know I already answered this once before somewhere in this thread, but I'll answer it again.

If you see a character, and you know that character's name, then you tag the image with that character's name. You do this because you are able to discern enough information from the picture to know "this is definitely character_x". The same is true for tagging the artist, you discern enough information from the image (or you see it posted on their FA) and know "this is definitely by artist_x". That is perfectly fine.

What you can not do is tag a character as a herm when ALL YOU'RE GOING BY is "this is character_x, therefore it's a herm". You can't SEE that they are a herm in the picture, all you can see that it is character_x.

I'm running out of ways to explain this. :|

Char said:
This is not how logic works; this is a fallacy. You do not make a statement and then say "PROVE ME WRONG". This is how religious followers sometimes try to defend their beliefs. "YOU CAN'T PROVE THAT GOD DOESN'T EXIST".

If you're going to bring the appeal to ignorance into this, then you need to realize that this entire rule is based off it's very logic.

Why? Because I CAN ACTUALLY PROVIDE EVIDENCE THAT A CHARACTER HAS A STANDARD GENDER. This has been done in comments on this site for awhile. You, on the other hand, are saying that because we can't SEE it they must be X despite the wealth of evidence to the contrary.

Because, you know, we can't possibly know unless we see it in that singular image.

But common sense be damned. Oh well.

Char said:
I know I already answered this once before somewhere in this thread, but I'll answer it again.

If you did I missed it; there was much written.

Char said:
What you can not do is tag a character as a herm when ALL YOU'RE GOING BY is "this is character_x, therefore it's a herm". You can't SEE that they are a herm in the picture, all you can see that it is character_x.

I'm running out of ways to explain this. :|

No need to explain that part to me, I understood it the first time.

The way I see it, there will be two types of people looking at a picture.

First, there are the people who don't know the character in the picture. They wouldn't know what gender a character is supposed to be, so they go by what's visible in the picture.

Second, there are the people who do know the character in the picture. For them, the tagged gender is irrelevant because they know better. And if they wanted to find pictures of that character they wouldn't have to search by gender, since they already know the character's name.

Tagging by what's visible is beneficial for group A and makes no difference for broup B. So what's the big problem?

Its funny, i found artica sparkle through the female posts...in all instances she was clearly female and liked her look. I go through my weekly herm binge(no need to explain) and what do i find? tits and a penis...but was the penis on the artica? NO, i couldn't see anything from the waist down it was just the what i can assume was a male. I wanted herm, i want to SEE tits and penis and a vag on the woman not see tits and hope there was a penis and extra below. What do i do? its tagged herm but i see no herm, I've seen pictures of artica sparkle as a female and as a herm so what do i do? tag it female. Why? no penis, and evidence that she has been portrayed as a complete female before. Why is this a problem? it shouldn't, perspective is up to the artist...if you didn't make it visible that its X or y or other that's on YOU as the artist. If i drew a girly male character(more feminine features in body with long hair and a penis) from behind being penetrated anally and never showed his package from that view point and it gets tagged straight do i rage? No, i go "well i can see he does look like a female in this picture, i'll be sure to change it up with the angle to include his package or in a way to show his more masculine face. Then move on, why? because people are looking at my art then going to my fa account and going "oh that's a dude? wow he looked like a girl...still its well done let me stick around and look at your other stuff"

man...i promised myself i wouldn't post on here, but the call was too strong. In short I agree completely with the new rules, we gotta do the best we can with tagging and if you wanna see herm/dickgirl/cuntboy/??? you want to see all aspects of what your looking for, if you wanna see a specific character just click that characters tag. Its so simple its mind bogging how there is a flame war here...keep up the good work mods, its the only reason i'm still here. Now i'm off to 20pc for my pony fix, have fun guys

THANK YOU CHAR!!!
:D

Braeburn said:
man...i promised myself i wouldn't post on here, but the call was too strong. In short I agree completely with the new rules, we gotta do the best we can with tagging and if you wanna see herm/dickgirl/cuntboy/??? you want to see all aspects of what your looking for, if you wanna see a specific character just click that characters tag. Its so simple its mind bogging how there is a flame war here...keep up the good work mods, its the only reason i'm still here. Now i'm off to 20pc for my pony fix, have fun guys

Thing is, this isn't even a new rule; 'tag what you see' has been around forever, which is why I don't understand why everyone is making such a big fuss about it. It's nothing new.

So, I've got a good understanding now, about this situation. It may be tag what you see, but a new group has arisen, and the mods would prefer to continue catering to the former, rather than bend to the latter's will. In the case of Artica Sparkle, or "any other herm" for that matter... if it's clothed, then I'd say tag it female, but if it's naked, and the peen is obstructed, let's say in the case of http://e621.net/post/show/125698

Then I'd say to tag it herm. Unless of course... there is clearly no wang. But if it's got an obstructed penis, then it's a herm, unless it's clothed, and you wouldn't be able to tell. Going back to what someone said, clean pictures could all be labeled ambiguous_gender, but we don't do that because it's common sense. So you can use common sense to say that a picture of a known herm with penis obstructed - not "no penis" - should be tagged as herm.

Or hell, could even go as far as to say "penis_obstructed" along with the herm tag. That's silly, of course.

JustFrame said:
If you're going to bring the appeal to ignorance into this, then you need to realize that this entire rule is based off it's very logic.

Why? Because I CAN ACTUALLY PROVIDE EVIDENCE THAT A CHARACTER HAS A STANDARD GENDER. This has been done in comments on this site for awhile. You, on the other hand, are saying that because we can't SEE it they must be X despite the wealth of evidence to the contrary.

Because, you know, we can't possibly know unless we see it in that singular image.

But common sense be damned. Oh well.

No, I'm not saying "they must be X", I'm saying "they LOOK like X". That's the whole point of tagging, describing things as they appear.

You can provide all the evidence you want to that a character has a default gender, but again, the vast majority of users are going to 1) not know the character's default gender, and/or 2) not care what the character's default gender is, only what their gender appears to be in any given pic.

For males and females, this doesn't really require actually seeing their genitalia or breasts in order to make a reasonable assumption that they're male/female. But herms, dickgirls etc, when covered up, tend to look ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENT than just a male or a female. Therefore, tagging a covered-up herm/dickgirl/cuntboy as such is completely pointless when there's no indication that they're any of those things.

Pictionary said:
In the case of Artica Sparkle, or "any other herm" for that matter... if it's clothed, then I'd say tag it female, but if it's naked, and the peen is obstructed, let's say in the case of http://e621.net/post/show/125698

Then I'd say to tag it herm. Unless of course... there is clearly no wang. But if it's got an obstructed penis, then it's a herm, unless it's clothed, and you wouldn't be able to tell. Going back to what someone said, clean pictures could all be labeled ambiguous_gender, but we don't do that because it's common sense. So you can use common sense to say that a picture of a known herm with penis obstructed - not "no penis" - should be tagged as herm.

Or hell, could even go as far as to say "penis_obstructed" along with the herm tag. That's silly, of course.

If you can't see the penis/balls, then they might as well not be there at all (which it's being completely assumed to begin with that they ARE there).

And again, it's ridiculous to say that clean pictures could all be labeled ambiguous_gender simply because you don't see boobs or dick. I'm assuming you guys are capable of telling random men and women apart without having to see them naked IRL, so I assume you can do the same for a picture of a furry character.

Tags are for the integrity of the search system, NOT the integrity of the characters.

Aurali said:
Tags are for the integrity of the search system, NOT the integrity of the characters.

You're very fond of your search system, aren't you Aurali? :3

Aurali said:
Tags are for the integrity of the search system, NOT the integrity of the characters.

This. this this this, a thousand times this.

Char said:
If you can't see the penis/balls, then they might as well not be there at all (which it's being completely assumed to begin with that they ARE there).

And again, it's ridiculous to say that clean pictures could all be labeled ambiguous_gender simply because you don't see boobs or dick. I'm assuming you guys are capable of telling random men and women apart without having to see them naked IRL, so I assume you can do the same for a picture of a furry character.

The problem there is: you're using common sense to "infer" that the clothed character is male/female, so why not use the exact same common sense to "infer", along with your own knowledge of that character, that said character is a gender? Didn't someone earlier in this thread say something along the lines of visible genitalia? Why not use the same assumption of clothed characters to make the assumption of herm characters that aren't blatantly displayed as a different gender in a certain picture?

Oh wait, I forgot - there's a larger audience of people who would rather remain blissfully unaware of a character's true gender. Silly me.

I say, have all the owners of the characters, and the artists, take all of the wrongly tagged shit down, keep them up on the source sites.

Pictionary said:
The problem there is: you're using common sense to "infer" that the clothed character is male/female, so why not use the exact same common sense to "infer", along with your own knowledge of that character, that said character is a gender? Didn't someone earlier in this thread say something along the lines of visible genitalia? Why not use the same assumption of clothed characters to make the assumption of herm characters that aren't blatantly displayed as a different gender in a certain picture?

Oh wait, I forgot - there's a larger audience of people who would rather remain blissfully unaware of a character's true gender. Silly me.

I say, have all the owners of the characters, and the artists, take all of the wrongly tagged shit down, keep them up on the source sites.

So we're making them do all the work when they may not have even posted it? Cool idea bro

Pictionary said:
The problem there is: you're using common sense to "infer" that the clothed character is male/female, so why not use the exact same common sense to "infer", along with your own knowledge of that character, that said character is a gender?

Because knowledge of a character does not count as common sense. That is additional information that you've been exposed to that goes beyond common sense.

Pictionary said:
Oh wait, I forgot - there's a larger audience of people who would rather remain blissfully unaware of a character's true gender. Silly me.

You are absolutely 100% correct, and it's the point that I wish I could drive home. Most of our users do not care what a character's "usual" gender is.

Pictionary said:
I say, have all the owners of the characters, and the artists, take all of the wrongly tagged shit down, keep them up on the source sites.

They can take down art all they want to, it will never change the fact that if they draw their herm character to look just like a female, then that's what the MAJORITY of people are going to think when they see it. If that bothers them, I don't know what to tell them as they're bringing it upon themselves. =/

Actually... why not have a two-fold tag system? Use the source as the first level of tagging. If there's no source, or the source doesn't specify... "then" go ahead and tag as you see. I'd be cool with that.

Even if you know the artist. Unless you can go right to the page and it says such and such about gender... 'course, that'd be against policy still... WAIT! Why not have it only apply to stuff that could be tagged as ambiguous_gender? Like clothed situations, or perhaps... where it's not readily apparent that, in the case of herm/female, it has the correct genitalia?

Hmm... I'm just throwing ideas out there really, I'd like to sort of tweak the tag what you see, but I'm not sure how.

I mean, considering there's a lot of gay pictures out there of the sub getting humped with his back to the dom, and it could absolutely be tagged as straight if one didn't have prior knowledge of the characters. That's the only big problem I have here...
http://e621.net/post/show/92122/ This is tagged both "ambiguous_gender" and "gay", should only be one or the other.
http://e621.net/post/show/46965/
http://e621.net/post/show/156427/
http://e621.net/post/show/137541/
http://e621.net/post/show/124886/ This is tagged gay, but there's no evidence that the other one is male, other than "previous knowledge", or looking up the source.

There's several other examples, and herms seem to be the only ones getting the short end of the "tag only what you see" rule.

Pictionary said:
I mean, considering there's a lot of gay pictures out there of the sub getting humped with his back to the dom, and it could absolutely be tagged as straight if one didn't have prior knowledge of the characters. That's the only big problem I have here...
http://e621.net/post/show/92122/ This is tagged both "ambiguous_gender" and "gay", should only be one or the other.
http://e621.net/post/show/46965/
http://e621.net/post/show/156427/
http://e621.net/post/show/137541/
http://e621.net/post/show/124886/ This is tagged gay, but there's no evidence that the other one is male, other than "previous knowledge", or looking up the source.

There's several other examples, and herms seem to be the only ones getting the short end of the "tag only what you see" rule.

I would have tagged all of these as straight. :/ they look like girls to me.

cookiekangaroo said:
I would have tagged all of these as straight. :/ they look like girls to me.

So why don't we? Broken tagging system, that's why. It's why we need to come up with a good tag system, or those pictures I linked could just as easily be put into the "looks female, so should be tagged female" category, as most "herms who were drawn female, or herms who don't explicitly show that they are" are put in.

Pictionary said:
I mean, considering there's a lot of gay pictures out there of the sub getting humped with his back to the dom, and it could absolutely be tagged as straight if one didn't have prior knowledge of the characters. That's the only big problem I have here...
http://e621.net/post/show/92122/ This is tagged both "ambiguous_gender" and "gay", should only be one or the other.
http://e621.net/post/show/46965/
http://e621.net/post/show/156427/
http://e621.net/post/show/137541/
http://e621.net/post/show/124886/ This is tagged gay, but there's no evidence that the other one is male, other than "previous knowledge", or looking up the source.

There's several other examples, and herms seem to be the only ones getting the short end of the "tag only what you see" rule.

Herms are just simply the easiest examples, but they're certainly not the only examples, as you pointed out above. Herms/dickgirls/cuntboys tend to get singled out because they're the genders most likely to be disliked by the typical user (I know I myself don't particularly care for them either).

I will say again that there is no perfect solution. No matter what anyone comes up with, there's going to be "but what about this?! or that?!"

I'd speak more on this but I really need to get to bed. Maybe tomorrow.

Char said:
I will say again that there is no perfect solution. No matter what anyone comes up with, there's going to be "but what about this?! or that?!"

Or, you know, you could just allow people to verify outside sources of proof in the comments. That's what they are there for and what they have been used for all this time.

It's like you made this rule specifically to piss off artists and character creators at this point just because by-golly your users don't give a flying fuck about what they intended. Sounds like something right out of Arcturus' book.

Wahai said:
The way I see it, there will be two types of people looking at a picture.

First, there are the people who don't know the character in the picture. They wouldn't know what gender a character is supposed to be, so they go by what's visible in the picture.

Second, there are the people who do know the character in the picture. For them, the tagged gender is irrelevant because they know better. And if they wanted to find pictures of that character they wouldn't have to search by gender, since they already know the character's name.

Tagging by what's visible is beneficial for group A and makes no difference for broup B. So what's the big problem?

This.

SoulLess said:
Also, those characters should be labeled "Artica_Sparkle" but they should also be labeled with "Genderbent" or appropriate tag.

I actually like this. With one catch-all tag, we could have the tags reflect the content of the image, but also indicate that the genders are not quite what they appear to be.

JustFrame said:
Sounds like something right out of Arcturus' book.

Straight up, fuck you for comparing Char to Arcturus. Get off your fucking high horse and pull your goddamn head out of your ass so maybe you can see the stupid bullshit you're spewing, and the common sense that is being said here, eh?

Vulgarity aside, now...

Pictionary: To answer your "why don't we?" iit's because OF PICTURES LIKE THESE AND OTHERS THAT THIS THREAD WAS MADE. People have been fucking up the tags so badly that it's actually a serious problem because they haven't been tagged corectly across a lot of images because of people inferring gender from oter pcitures of the characters and applying them, -even if it's obvious that the gender isn't correct-. There have been HUGE comment wars where people have bitched and whined about "Artica Sparkle IS A HERM DUMBASS" and similar shit... on a picture where she's completely female, and was commissioned to be so. THIS IS THE STUPIDITY OF YOUR ARGUMENTS. The character's name or usual gender doesn't mean shit when tagging That. Exact. Image.

JustFrame said:
Or, you know, you could just allow people to verify outside sources of proof in the comments. That's what they are there for and what they have been used for all this time.

It's like you made this rule specifically to piss off artists and character creators at this point just because by-golly your users don't give a flying fuck about what they intended. Sounds like something right out of Arcturus' book.

It's funny because I didn't make this rule. This rule has been around since looong before I was here, I'm just reiterating it again because we've been having issues with people tagging stuff that they can't see.

But no, the rule is not here specifically to piss off artists and character owners, although that is a side-effect. I WISH IT WASN'T, but as things are right now, it is. This is why I'm honestly considering the previously mentioned suggestion of having secondary tags for "declared" genders for when they disagree with the "apparent" gender.

What if, we add the character's actual gender to their wiki page, while continuing to tag them however we see them?
This would have a consistent source of gender for the character for Group A, and holding up the tagging guidelines for Group B.
Would this make everyone happy?

Riversyde said:
What if, we add the character's actual gender to their wiki page, while continuing to tag them however we see them?
This would have a consistent source of gender for the character for Group A, and holding up the tagging guidelines for Group B.
Would this make everyone happy?

Except this is what we were supposed to have been doing THE WHOLE DAMN TIME.