Topic: On proper gender tagging

Char

Former Staff

I fear we may never finally squash this problem of gender not being properly tagged on images, but let's cover this AGAIN since there seem to be a lot of people still who don't understand why it's NEVER EVER APPROPRIATE to tag gender using information that you can not directly infer from the image itself.

Let me present a scenario to you. Suppose I want to find explicit images of herm wolves. So I search for "rating:e herm wolf". The following image pops up in my list of results: post #84822 (this used to be tagged herm, I'm just using it as an example). This is NOT an image that I want to see if I'm looking for herms, because there is nothing in the image that makes me think it's a herm. Therefore, this image is NOT PROPERLY TAGGED because the tags indicate that there is a herm when, in fact, there is no clear indication of such.

Edit from P.C Any character who "is" a hermaphrodite, shall be tagged as such. There shall be no exceptions to this rule. 1. The character has a Cunt, no dick, and No Boobs shall be tagged Cunt Boy. 2; A character with Boobs, a Dick, and no Vag shall be tagged Dick Girl. 3; Any character shown to have a Dick, Boobs {Or no boobs} and a Vag shall be tagged Hermaphrodite. All three clauses will be tagged Intersex, and there will be no tagging of "Male Herm" or "Female Herm" end edit

The above scenario ALSO creates a problem for users who blacklist "herm". Since there is no indication that there is a herm in that image, it would be NEEDLESSLY blacklisted for those who blacklist "herm". It hides content that they would normally be fine seeing.

So why would that post be tagged "herm" anyways? Because the character "Artica Sparkle" is, typically, a herm. This does not matter. I don't care if a character TYPICALLY has 12 dicks, 30 testicles, and 14 vaginas on their body if I CAN'T SEE THEM. It doesn't matter what the artist says, it doesn't matter what the character owner says, it doesn't matter what ANYONE says. If they look like a female, they get tagged female. If they look like a male, they get tagged male. If they look like a herm, they get tagged herm. Period. You should never, EVER tag a picture according to information that has been gathered from an artist/owner/ANYONE's description of the characters in the picture.

To the artists: Please understand that if you draw a picture of a character in such a way that there is no indication that the character is a herm, then it might as well not be one. This is also like saying "these two characters are brother and sister" when there is no similarity between the characters whatsoever, nor any indication in the picture that they identify themselves as brother and sister (such as text like "Oh sis you feel so good!" or "I hope mom doesn't find us!"). We are not disagreeing that the characters in your pictures are herms or relatives, as that is entirely up to you. HOWEVER, e621 tags on a picture-by-picture basis. A character that is a herm in one image you draw may very well be a male in another image you draw, just because you felt like it one day. So we will ALWAYS use only the information that can be derived from the image itself, and not what you say you intended, because it's irrelevant to what the picture actually depicts.

To the character owners: I understand it might seem like e621 is "wrong" for claiming that your character is a male or female in a particular image, when you personally consider your character to always be a herm. Please understand that e621 is NOT disagreeing that your character is a herm. We are not saying "this character in this picture is definitely a female, not a herm." We're saying that ALL INDICATIONS within the picture itself point to NOTHING MORE than "female". If your character actually has dick/pussy/whatever below the belt, it is IRRELEVANT information if it can not be seen in the image. I don't think we have very many people on e621 that want to see "herms that don't actually look like herms in a particular image".

tl;dr: TAG ONLY WHAT YOU SEE, ALWAYS

Updated