Genjar said:
Truly ambiguous ones are rare, though.

Agreed, what I'm worried about here is people using semi-anthro as an excuse to not properly identify the form, provided it can be categorized more specifically

Almost everything that's currently tagged as semi-anthro can be fit into the main categories.

Got more to say about this, could you link some examples?

The rest? Well, someone suggested an ambiguous_form tag, which seems like a good idea. 'course, that would be tagged for all characters that cannot be pigeonholed somewhere, not just borderline anthro/ferals.

Hm,

Do you think ambiguous_form would help people find stuff better than semi-anthro? (at least for the feral-anthro body type ambiguity)

That's my main concern with tags like these

If we used ambiguous_form, then that could mean basically anything, by the very definition of the tag.

semi-anthro is at least less vague than that, which narrows between two body styles

A better name not withstanding, people can search for semi-anthro, and be fairly certain they'd know the kind of results they'd find

Anthropomorphism means giving non-humans human features. Most humanoids are not anthromorphic at all: there's no base creature that has been made more human-like. Except for some humanoidized characters (and things, such as planes).

This is a good point.
That's one of the things that should probably addressed somewhere, if it hasn't already:

The definition of 'anthro', compared to 'anthropomorphic'

This is also related to the perceived 'furry'/'not furry' dichotomy as well

Animal humanoids are usually considered to be the opposite: a form of zoomorphism, humans with animal features instead of animals that are almost fully human.

Yess, that's the term, zoomorphism

What we could do, re: the semi-anthro thing, is maybe find a way to define the tag, and probably similar, in terms of:

• anthropomorphism - tags closer related to human, humanoid, some 'anthro'

• zoomorphism - tags closer to 'semi-anthro', some 'anthro', feral

• ??? (other)

I honestly don't see much difference between those. Feral is feral, regardless of the art style.

post #241795 is tagged feral because of the hummingbird. The canines are clearly anthro (handlike paws, bipedal posture).

Yeah, I'd guess that's why they're all under the same feral tag.

For most people unfamiliar with the style/feral physiology, it's hard, if not impossible to consciously discern between 'realistic' feral expressions/anatomy, and those closer to the anthropomorphic side.

If someone's primary familiarity with animal physiology comes from talking animal animated family films- whose characters need to be given 'human' expressions and reactions for film-reasons- then I'm not too surprised if the difference seems inconsequential to non-existent