Despite not being canines, hyenas are quite often tagged as such. Now I think most of the hyena posts are correct, but there remains around 600 or so ones in need of clean up. Seem reasonable to remove the canine tag here? And should anything be done to curb mistagging in the future?

There is really nothing to prevent that... Just like with dragon & reptile (only tag Scalie with them, unless they are furred dragons which only gets that tag), sometimes sergals with mammal (that's my mistake), and the plethora of pony & horse on any unicorn, pegasus, or winged_unicorn (horses/ponies do not have any horns or wings, earth pony is the only tag that gets those). These mistakes can't be stopped, they just need to be fixed.

If someone asks why, just comment, but otherwise just keep fixing unless the artist/source says they were a hybrid, which may be uncommon but is, then, missing the hybrid tag.

Siral_Eurgh-xan said:
There is really nothing to prevent that... Just like with dragon & reptile (only tag Scalie with them, unless they are furred dragons which only gets that tag), sometimes sergals with mammal (that's my mistake), and the plethora of pony & horse on any unicorn, pegasus, or winged_unicorn (horses/ponies do not have any horns or wings, earth pony is the only tag that gets those). These mistakes can't be stopped, they just need to be fixed.

"horse" is implied by "pony", and while there may be physical differences between earth ponies, unicorns, pegasii, and winged unicorns, they're all technically still ponies. It's "My Little Pony", not "My Little Pegasus/Earth Pony/Unicorn/Winged Unicorn". :P

If someone asks why, just comment, but otherwise just keep fixing unless the artist/source says they were a hybrid, which may be uncommon but is, then, missing the hybrid tag.

Speaking in general, what the source or artist says is irrelevant. If an upload doesn't have a feature showing, it doesn't get tagged.

Getting back to the OP...

rezi said:
Despite not being canines, hyenas are quite often tagged as such. Now I think most of the hyena posts are correct, but there remains around 600 or so ones in need of clean up. Seem reasonable to remove the canine tag here? And should anything be done to curb mistagging in the future?

If something is tagged and doesn't apply, remove it. Asking for cleanup help is fine, though how many of those 600 are posts with hyenas and canines in them?

(Searching with the "solo" tag will probably help cut down the load a bit.)

imagoober said:
"horse" is implied by "pony", and while there may be physical differences between earth ponies, unicorns, pegasii, and winged unicorns, they're all technically still ponies. It's "My Little Pony", not "My Little Pegasus/Earth Pony/Unicorn/Winged Unicorn". :P

Speaking in general, what the source or artist says is irrelevant. If an upload doesn't have a feature showing, it doesn't get tagged.

For the first, no. No matter what, horses and ponies are not tagged along with unicorns, winged unicorns, and pegasi, because they have defining features that are tagged differently. Horses and Ponies do not have wings or horns. Those mistakes occur constantly, so I've asked admins for their rules (hence where EP's rule comes in).

For the second, hybrids are often an exeption to the rule because of TWYS simply meaning if they also look like... In hyenas, they'll need to also look like wolves, dogs, foxes, etc., but there can be cases where they are hybrid and get the tags, but only have one. It is smart to check the source to see if they intended that, or to see if it is a fanmade species that also get a tag here. Etc. as well, there could be times when hyena is not intended but tagged, and the description can be updated to include that statement. A further point on this is when mystical species (demons, slime, Angels, etc.) get mistagged because of species lookalikes. Slime are not mammals, but a equine slime gets tagged with mammal.

imagoober said:
Getting back to the OP...

If something is tagged and doesn't apply, remove it. Asking for cleanup help is fine, though how many of those 600 are posts with hyenas and canines in them?

(Searching with the "solo" tag will probably help cut down the load a bit.)

That number's an estimation from leaving out the other most common canines, probably actually hovers around 500 with ones the search'll miss. Given that hyena canine has around 1700 posts though, I just wanted to double check before changing a third of these post's tags.

Looking a little more closely, there're also a lot of Mightyena/Poochyena tagged as hyena, and I don't believe we tag Pokemon that way.

rezi said:
That number's an estimation from leaving out the other most common canines, probably actually hovers around 500 with ones the search'll miss. Given that hyena canine has around 1700 posts though, I just wanted to double check before changing a third of these post's tags.

Looking a little more closely, there're also a lot of Mightyena/Poochyena tagged as hyena, and I don't believe we tag Pokemon that way.

Oddly enough, Pokemon do get their base species tags. Arcanine does get at least canine and mammal (it is not implied, though, for reasons unknown). Only Pokemon that look like an animal, Anthro or otherwise, get such tags, and I do not know about your aforementioned Pokemon.

Siral_Eurgh-xan said:
Oddly enough, Pokemon do get their base species tags. Arcanine does get at least canine and mammal (it is not implied, though, for reasons unknown). Only Pokemon that look like an animal, Anthro or otherwise, get such tags, and I do not know about your aforementioned Pokemon.

The more general species terms make sense, but I'm talking more things like Arcanine -> Wolf or Squirtle -> Turtle. Found this thread here discussing it a bit more, and the consensus seems to be general, overarching tags only

rezi said:
The more general species terms make sense, but I'm talking more things like Arcanine -> Wolf or Squirtle -> Turtle. Found this thread here discussing it a bit more, and the consensus seems to be general, overarching tags only

It depends on how specific. Wolves are a genus, whereas turtles are an order. An easy way to say this is "how specific can I get?". If you can organize them to only two tags (over type like mammal, marine, etc.) and then a more specific (like canine, feline, reptile), then stay at those.

Siral_Eurgh-xan said:
It depends on how specific. Wolves are a genus, whereas turtles are an order. An easy way to say this is "how specific can I get?". If you can organize them to only two tags (over type like mammal, marine, etc.) and then a more specific (like canine, feline, reptile), then stay at those.

I see what you mean. Guess in this case the buck stops at mammal, barring creating feliform. Don't know how useful that tag would be, though

rezi said:
I see what you mean. Guess in this case the buck stops at mammal, barring creating feliform. Don't know how useful that tag would be, though

*rephrasing after rereading*

Is canine a appropriate genus for them? Do we have a genus that can be used for hyenas (let's exclude mystical species for now)?

A good criteria is: can it organize individual species into an overlying one?; and would it have to be made? Making one up will obviously a problem, and I don't know enough about hyenas ATM to really speak about genus for them.

Siral_Eurgh-xan said:
*rephrasing after rereading*

Is canine a appropriate genus for them? Do we have a genus that can be used for hyenas (let's exclude mystical species for now)?

A good criteria is: can it organize individual species into an overlying one?; and would it have to be made? Making one up will obviously a problem, and I don't know enough about hyenas ATM to really speak about genus for them.

Wait I'm uncertain, what definition of genus are we using? If we're talking a biological one, I'm pretty sure we couldn't consider hyenas as canines. The family Hyena is contained in Feliformia, not Caniformia, so Hyenas are more closely related to cats and mongooses than canines.

We tend to include up to three: class, family/subfamily, and genus/species under the species tag. It is not likely the suborder Feliformia would be created if for no other reason than it's not likely to really be used, given how vague it is. There are some exceptions, like turtle, but we use "turtle" and not "Testudines", the name of the order including turtles, tortoises, and terrapins. Unfortunately this reverberation between accurate and common tends to lead to inaccuracies (such as big cats being put under feline).

If, say, a mightyena actually looked like a hyena, I wouldn't mind the hyena tag given our use of hyena is as a family, Hyaenidae. Considering we include lucario or arcanine, etc, with canine, I see no reason to not also use hyena for mightyena.

Siral_Eurgh-xan said:
Is canine a appropriate genus for them? Do we have a genus that can be used for hyenas (let's exclude mystical species for now)?

Canine refers to the subfamily, Caninae, under the family of Canidae. Hyenas are part of the suborder of Feliformia and are thus more related to felids than to canids.

And even then it's a tenuous link at best. After poring over the taxonomy, I'd say hyena works as the umbrella family; uploaders just need to be more vigilant about tagging the individual species.

Epantsimator said:
And even then it's a tenuous link at best. After poring over the taxonomy, I'd say hyena works as the umbrella family; uploaders just need to be more vigilant about tagging the individual species.

Bit of a tangent but why do those have separate tags while it was ruled that the lynx subspecies do not?

As said before, there is no way to prevent this mistake, so it is best to correct the posts that are tagged so.

It would be difficult for a feature to implemented where mistakes like this would be automatically corrected.

Epantsimator said:
And even then it's a tenuous link at best. After poring over the taxonomy, I'd say hyena works as the umbrella family; uploaders just need to be more vigilant about tagging the individual species.

This is my preference as well, especially considering hyena (Hyaenidae) is already a taxonomic family.