Currently original_character is meant to be used only when inserting a fan character into an existing franchise, right?

It constantly gets mistagged onto what the fandom generally calls OCs- just about any character that someone makes up.

Would it be possible to rename it to something a bit more intuitive?

Maybe character_insert or something.

mary_sue

I kinda assumed it actually was for general oc's, so I guess there's definitely some kind of distinction to be made there. o.o

Misappropriated said:
I kinda assumed it actually was for general oc's, so I guess there's definitely some kind of distinction to be made there. o.o

That's a common assumption, especially by users who are familiar with other boards. Since the original tag group is used that way almost universally.

Maybe the current alias should be switched around? The usage would be more obvious if fan_character were the main tag.

Genjar said:
Maybe the current alias should be switched around? The usage would be more obvious if fan_character were the main tag.

Hmm, that makes sense. Didn't notice the alias.

Ooh, fan_character, I like that idea

Genjar said:
That's a common assumption, especially by users who are familiar with other boards. Since the original tag group is used that way almost universally.

Maybe the current alias should be switched around? The usage would be more obvious if fan_character were the main tag.

I like this idea. fan_character would be much better for this.

Generic_Sparkledog_#_
Then the number of tag hits would fit it just so well.

+1 to fan_characte.

It has less definitional baggage and more clarity. I can't argue with that.

I'm pretty certain it should have been "original"_character from the very beginning.

Also, +1 for the idea, will wait on further input before doing anything though.

fan_character does seem to be a better tag. +1

Just gonna remind everyone this is here so it doesn't get lost.

This is now approved. The alias is flipped and now all versions of original_character are aliased to --> fan_character instead. This should make it more clear what the tag is actually used for since the name "original_character" was sometimes being misunderstood to include actual original content. But the tag itself is meant to only be used for fan-created characters from an existing franchise - not every personal character or original fursona on the site. Using fan_character as the name of the tag instead should reduce this type of confusion.

I like this tag because it's faster to type.

On another note, we should probably go through fan_character -my_little_pony and delete 95% of the fan_character tags there.

parasprite said:
I like this tag because it's faster to type.

On another note, we should probably go through fan_character -my_little_pony and delete 95% of the fan_character tags there.

Careful, there, parasprite. It's only 90% of them; 5% of them is just random fan-inserts, and another 5% is FNAF fan-inserts.

Less than 10%, from what I can see. Most of those are clearly based on some franchise.

I've been using 'fan_character -my_little_pony -pokemon -sonic_(series) -final_fantasy -star_fox -digimon' for the cleanup, and even then, most are valid.

If it

Genjar said:
Less than 10%, from what I can see. Most of those are clearly based on some franchise.

I've been using 'fan_character -my_little_pony -pokemon -sonic_(series) -final_fantasy -star_fox -digimon' for the cleanup, and even then, most are valid.

I actually expected closer to 25% tbh (I was mostly just joking about the 95%). Some of us must have been keeping an eye on it already.