After giving it some thought, I figured a thread to discuss this would be better than outright requesting an alias to watermark for this tag.

annoying_watermark feels like it's too subjective to be a legitimate tag, and it also feels like a mildly insulting remark towards artists who have to put very noticeable watermarks on their art. Many have had bad experiences with their art being stolen and printed at cons, sold in various ways online, and even made into merchandise sold at big-name stores. That's part of the reason why the negative connotation of "annoying" in regards to their protecting of their art bothers me so much.

I've also noticed discrepancies in tagging this, due to its subjective nature. For example, this post doesn't scream "annoying watermark" to me:
post #675922
The text watermark is out of the way, and the larger one is overlaid onto the drawing so that it blends in (I didn't even notice it until I gave it a longer glance).

This post, however, does contain a more "annoying" and visible watermark:
post #626463

Most of the posts in that tag are a mixed bag, with some of the watermarks being very obvious and some of them not, and I personally don't see many of them as annoying. "Annoying" is subjective and also gives a negative connotation to it where it's not needed. Perhaps "obvious watermark" or "highly-visible watermark" could be neutral alternatives, if it's not an option to alias to "watermark" altogether?

Also, since I made sure to look at the tagging checklist beforehand:
Do NOT tag

• Subjective tags that express opinions. Common examples include beautiful, sexy, hot, good, crappy and most other adjectives.

I feel like this one would fall under that bullet-point.

Thoughts?

A watermark by itself, at least how it is intended to be used, should usually fill the entire picture and not only a side with a text. Here they're more like notices than watermark to me, even if the first one can be considered a watermark since it's transparent, but it is not used as an intended watermark at all here

Neither of those are actually particularly obtrusive, the first shouldn't even have the tag. annoying_watermark is more meant for ones that are clearly visible from the thumbnail, are highly distracting, or cover a large portion of content such as these:

post #13326 post #18162 post #72874

Particularly the more DeviantArt-style ones:

post #635196 post #80774

As well as post #36122 satirized in post #39562.

There is probably a better name we could use for the tag, but the tag itself is fine. It allows people to blacklist something that many people find highly irritating, subjective or otherwise. I do agree that it needs a cleanup though.

I'll agree that Annoying_Watermark needs a cleanup, and maybe a different name, but I like the tag. It is useful for blacklists.

post #671719

I think this a good example of the sort of thing it is supposed to refer to, ideally. And while there may be some subjectivity on where the line is drawn between an annoying watermark and a non-annoying watermark, I don't think that is fundamentally different from there being some subjectivity on, for instance, size tags.

Needs cleaning, but should stay. I've added "-annoying_watermark" to searches before.

Something like "obvious_watermark" could still be in a corner, "annoying_watermark" is usually when it is actually over the art itself

IMHO annoying_watermark should be renamed obstructive_watermark it better describes the intention of the tag and is less subjective or shaming.

RandomArcticFox said:
IMHO annoying_watermark should be renamed obstructive_watermark it better describes the intention of the tag and is less subjective or shaming.

I like obtrusive_watermark myself.

distracting_watermark! 'Obtrusive' is more precise, though.

abadbird said:
distracting_watermark!

Plus one for this.
English isn't the native language for a large portion of the userbase, so it's probably best to keep the tags relatively simple. Obtrusive and obstructive aren't words that I've heard used often. ...I probably couldn't even spell those, if I hadn't just seen them.

Genjar said:
Plus one for this.
English isn't the native language for a large portion of the userbase, so it's probably best to keep the tags relatively simple. Obtrusive and obstructive aren't words that I've heard used often. ...I probably couldn't even spell those, if I hadn't just seen them.

Yeah, I'd agree with this. distracting_waterwark is pretty understandable, descriptive and a lot more common of a vocabulary word than 'obtrusive' is. I know some native english speakers who wouldn't know what 'obtrusive' meant, but would probably be fine with 'distracting'. So even for natives, it's just not as widely used. 'Obstructive' might be ever so slightly more widespread, but not by much, and not in this context. So even though both are perfectly nice words, 'distracting_watermark' probably makes for a better tag name. So plus one for that.

abadbird said:
distracting_watermark! 'Obtrusive' is more precise, though.

+1

I can only agree with that reasoning. +1.

I agreee with both distracting and obtrusive watermark.

I understand the need for the tag in blacklists and searches of course, just its current state is very disorganized and a lot of it feels subjective. Figured I'd point it out and get some feedback. :)

I was hoping someone would suggest some alternative names for the tag! I'm not very good with synonyms myself, hehe. I definitely agree with "distracting" being more well-known of a word and it feels less shame-filled to boot, so +1 to that from me. It can also encompass a lot of the pictures that don't feel like they belong in the current tag. Hopefully an alias from "annoying" to "distracting" will be on the way shortly?

Kida said:
I understand the need for the tag in blacklists and searches of course, just its current state is very disorganized and a lot of it feels subjective. Figured I'd point it out and get some feedback. :)

I was hoping someone would suggest some alternative names for the tag! I'm not very good with synonyms myself, hehe. I definitely agree with "distracting" being more well-known of a word and it feels less shame-filled to boot, so +1 to that from me. It can also encompass a lot of the pictures that don't feel like they belong in the current tag. Hopefully an alias from "annoying" to "distracting" will be on the way shortly?

Sure can, approved the move