[color=LawnGreen]Hello everyone!

[color=LightSalmon]I tought it would be great to have a forum about tagging techniques. So we could learn from each other how to be more efficient.

[color=LawnGreen]My tagging technique:

[color=LightSalmon] So i optimalised my tagging method as much as I could so here it is:
I use a program called Ditto [color=LightSalmon] which is a clipboard manager program the help with this program i assigned tags to my numpad.
For example:
7-anthro 8-simple bg 9-white bg
4-grey bg 5-feral 6-humanoid
1-detailed bg 2-semi-anthro 3-alien

[color=LightSalmon]This way I can tag using only my left hand and select the pictures in edit mode with the other.

[color=LightSalmon]Useing this method i can tag 150 tags in only 6 minutes so i think it's pretty efficient.

[color=LightSalmon]So. What's your tagging method?

Tag artist. Tag species. Tag anything relevant from my quick tag-list:

Lastly, tag anything extra that's needed in order to identify the image. Whether that be sexual position, fetishes or physical features of the characters.

I tag the artist, species, character, year if I remember, then colors and background. I may add other tags if I think to, but those're the ones I focus on.

http://tinyurl.com/h48hdfp

Hexdragon said:
8-simple bg 9-white bg 4-grey bg 1-detailed bg

You do use underscores in those I hope?

Anyway, before becoming admin, I just used my own-made schedule to search for posts missing resolution tags or incorrect resolution tags and copy-pasteded them in. It's effective though because the schedule cannot be wrong, since resolutions are based on numbers that don't change; I can add the tag on entire pages of posts just via the thumbnails.
Now I just tag script them. Same idea, just quicker.

I have two methods, one I use and one that's logical. The first is CnP relevant images. If from downloading to uploading directly; open three tabs. One is for the upload page, one is for the source, and one is for a similar image. Download from the source, upload the image's preview on the upload page, and copy the similar image's tags (via the edit button) into your upload page. Then, juggle between your preview image and the similar, and add/remove tags that belong or don't. If big_penis is on one, but not on another, remove the tag; if Judy_Hopps also has a dildo shoved up her ass while giving oral to Nick_Wilde, you add the dildo tag. This system works for uploading comics, especially between shared characters, but constant mistagging is against the rules, so try to keep only general, noticable tags, and avoid heavy details by always removing/ignoring them.

The second method I envision is "pretagging". Download a large group of images, and open a text document, or text documents for organization, with the file names (I highly suggest you ALWAYS NAME A DOWNLOADED FILE!) written, to find the file when uploading. Then, underneath, you begin to tag all that is visible from the downloaded image, and the text document. Rinse and repeat between as many times as images you have, and CnP the specific tags for each image. This method lets you preemptively prepare uploads, which is good if you have spare time to burn while waiting on your images to be approved. An example is

One method for universal sourcing: always keep the source tab open, or bookmark it so you can copy the URL and put it into the source field. The best sources are the posts, not the artist page or the direct image you downloaded. This helps if you continue image sequences, again like comics or start-to-end sets of images, and helps if you find out your image gets BVAS'd, by giving you the source and not have you backtrack to it from your history.

So I'm guessing I'm the only one that looks at the image and tags each thing in it one by one? No wonder I get tired after like 2 post. You guys are using programs and techniques and shit.

2pro4me

I tag artist, year, species, solo/duo/group, sex, genitals, clothes, body position, sex position, penetration, feral/anthro/human, background, eye color, hair color, and fur color. I also tag details like piercings, jewelry, objects, smiling, blushing, text, where they're looking, grabbing, inside/outside, tufts, etc. If it's a recurring character, I tag that as well and go through that gallery for a secondary source.

Still, people find things to complain about. I'm still not sure what this comment was about.

The_Diggler said:
So I'm guessing I'm the only one that looks at the image and tags each thing in it one by one? No wonder I get tired after like 2 post. You guys are using programs and techniques and shit.
2pro4me

I used to do that too. When I upload (sometimes), I still tag it until there's nothing left to tag what I can remember.

I haven't really developed any strategies yet. I just sort of analyze the image and get everything I see. Naturally, this usually doesn't cover every tag right away, so sometimes I go back in and edit them in later. These new strategies sound like fun, though.

leomole said:
I tag artist, year, species, solo/duo/group, sex, genitals, clothes, body position, sex position, penetration, feral/anthro/human, background, eye color, hair color, and fur color. I also tag details like piercings, jewelry, objects, smiling, blushing, text, where they're looking, grabbing, inside/outside, tufts, etc. If it's a recurring character, I tag that as well and go through that gallery for a secondary source.

Still, people find things to complain about. I'm still not sure what this comment was about.

It looks like he tried adding a tag(s) that was already placed. When looking through images from comments, the tags can be disorienting, and you may not see them all. I speak from experience, specifically with Duo, Loli, and Shota; they probably made that comment and then "added" a tag before checking if it was already there. 'ere is the history , and it doesn't show them actually adding any tag.

Hudson said:
You do use underscores in those I hope?

Yes ofcourse.
My tagging history would be quite a mess without putting those underscores there :D

Hudson said:
Now I just tag script them. Same idea, just quicker.

Well i can't use tagscripts cause it would be impossible to writhe an algorithm which can tag anthros and ferals. ( and actually a lot's of pics are missing their anthro tag i will create a forum about this problem too in the future.)

For pictures that I'm uploading, or which are very poorly tagged, I have a checklist:

Otherwise I tend to just tag a few things that are commonly forgotten or which are part of my own tagging projects. Been a bit away from uploading and tagging for a bit because of school stuff, but I should be back into it soon.

If anyone happens to have any additions for my checklist, by the way, let me know.

Oh, one bit of assisting with tags: both users and normal tags are "repeat offenders". Specifically, when users upload, they almost always forget tags, or add ones that can be removed or specified. With me, it had always been not_furry. Go click on their profile, then their posts, and sift through their images and look for missing/invalid tags. To be more specific on invalid tags, it's when they add it again on an image, that's against the rules, not when they put it on initially.

For the other one: do stuff like -solo -duo -group, or dragon -furred_dragon -Scalie, or cum -rating:explicit. There are tags that can be missed easily, and can be tagged in should they apply. My current favorite is the simple cub tag, because they also need their approximate age and sexualized tag (shota/Loli, they apply if the youth is sexualized in the image), if it applies; and the missing # of entities. They both are so common it's not even funny...

I just use the tag script tool the site has, then search a set of conditions in which a tag that could be needed is absent. For example, anus -butt then I would add the butt tag to the script and click on the thumbnails that I think need the tag.

• source(s)
• check sources for characters/owners
• check owner profile or e621 itself for prior takedown history (searching status:any helps)
• year (if available)
• artist
• species (educated guess)
• gender
• male/male, male/female, female/female, etc. if applicable
• solo/duo/group
• solo_focus, duo_focus
• faceless_male, faceless_female, disembodied_penis
• anthro/feral/humanoid/whatever
• anthro_on_feral, bestiality, etc. etc.
• looking_at_viewer, looking_away, looking_back
• pose (standing, sitting, on_side, etc.)
• state of dress/undress (clothed, bottomless/topless, skimpy, partially_clothed, mostly_nude, nude, crossdressing, undressing)

• genitalia
• erection/flaccid
• humanoid/animal (canine, feline, tapered_penis, etc.)
• uncut/cut w/ respective tags (retracted_foreskin, etc)
• size
• breasts + nipples
• size
• sex positions

lost motivation to finish this

just check the tag history on posts that i've uploaded and you should get a feel for how i do things

leomole said:
Still, people find things to complain about. I'm still not sure what this comment was about.

People will always go around saying stuff like that, while you just know by yourself that it isn't true. It's ironic how they demand more effort in tagging from other users, while they often don't even have a hundred tag edits in their history on e621 or have a sizeable monochrome collection of grey and red records.
Never respond to them, just report them.

I tag (compared to how many posts I've fiddled with) very few posts in any comprehensive way. I would say 95-99% of my tag edits are edits consisting of changing three tags or less. I just find it fun to go forward and not dwell on single posts. Adding 50 tags to all posts feels hard and time consuming, adding 1 tag to all posts 50 times feels easier since you go through more posts (even though it's probably less efficient). I also don't hunt on the first page so I rarely tag new posts and I generally start from the lowest ID when doing projects, so a lot of posts already have at least the basic tags.

What I tag when I actually do multi tag updates:

• If it's a character, I rarely hold back, I tag everything I can think of except for going into extreme details like, "leg" (which is not allowed btw), or "pointing_at_left_earlobe" instead of just "pointing". If there are two characters in a picture it will often have more than 50 tags when I've swooped by, if it's more than two then it's not uncommon for me to blast through the 100 tag barrier (I tend to get stuck (in a good way) with tagging large groups of people or orgies, but don't really like collages (e.g. "Gotta catch 'em all" posters)).
• Sex, sex act, position, clothes, poses, jewelry... You name it
• If it's a background or setting I tend to step back just a bit (unless the background is in focus), though I generally don't hold back. It's not uncommon for me to tag such trivial things as sky clouds sun tree even though it's inside through a window. Sometimes people give you a silly laugh at you for adding that little playing die that's lying on the table, but I've actually on several occasions found posts I've been looking for based on such obscure items, so I'm not gonna stop until I grow tired or an admin tells me to :P
• Generally I use pretty much all of the tags listed on the checklist (howto:tagging_checklist), as well as some minor ones I tend to favor (come on, if I'm not allowed to be subjective in deciding what a tag means, then I have to at least get the pleasure of choosing what tags I get to use :P)

I also highly suggest checking out https://e621.net/help/show/cheatsheet. Lots of goody stuff there: Lrn2srch.

On the rare occasions I do upload something I generally do a bit like @Siral Exan (in general, good advice) and pretag outside of e621, if it's a comic I tag all images first, and it's probably how I would do even if I was doing more uploads. I generally don't use external tags from other sources, or rather I tag my shit first, then I check what they've tagged it with to check if I missed something, generally just to avoid unnecessary or even invalidated tags, as well as check for character names or even nicknames and aliases. Even when uploading duplicates I tend to be paranoid and not copy paste tags, but that's maybe a bit too much.

The_Diggler said:
So I'm guessing I'm the only one that looks at the image and tags each thing in it one by one? No wonder I get tired after like 2 post. You guys are using programs and techniques and shit.

2pro4me

I bet you're just gonna love this next section :P

However I tend to use my own web app for tagging (utilizing the API and coincidentally themed to look exactly like e621), basically it's just a glorified single page thumbnail viewer in combination with a quick tag feature like the script tag tool on here. I mainly use it because it's quicker and is tailored to my own needs and not the needs of the masses, hence most everyday tips I use wouldn't apply to you plebs anyway ;). And most of them are not really helpful unless it comes to adding/removing more than one or two tags to/from posts or planning tagging projects and the rest applies only to my app, but I think I've been way too talkative anyway...

I edited the CSS to make my uploaded tags appear on 4 columns instead of 1. Then I added a lot of uploaded tags:

Furrin_Gok said:
I tag the artist, species, character, year if I remember, then colors and background. I may add other tags if I think to, but those're the ones I focus on.

Basically

The_Diggler said:
So I'm guessing I'm the only one that looks at the image and tags each thing in it one by one? No wonder I get tired after like 2 post. You guys are using programs and techniques and shit.

2pro4me

Nope, you're not the only one, though when there are things like parent/children posts I do sometimes copy/paste.

This is not a trivial thing, given my 16K edits (which includes going back for stuff I forgot or missed, and things I misspelled). :P

I use a script to determine which tags might be missing (character count, genders, background, etc).

if (/title=(solo|duo|group|zero_pictured)/i.test (document.body.innerHTML) !== true ) AddList('Missing Character Count');
if (/title=(nude|partially_clothed|mostly_nude|clothed|zero_pictured)/i.test (document.body.innerHTML) !== true) AddList('Nude or Clothed?');
if (/title=(anthro|taur|feral)/i.test (document.body.innerHTML) !== true && /title=(humanoid"|human")/i.test (document.body.innerHTML) && /title=not_furry/i.test (document.body.innerHTML) !== true ) AddList('Not_furry?');
if (/title=(lagomorph|rodent|bat")/i.test (document.body.innerHTML) && /title=big_ears/i.test (document.body.innerHTML) !== true ) AddList('Big_ears?')
if (/title=(masturbation"|handjob)/i.test (document.body.innerHTML) && /title=penis/i.test (document.body.innerHTML) && /title=(autofellatio|autocunnilingus|autofootjob|holding_penis|penis_grab|hands-free)/i.test (document.body.innerHTML) !== true) AddList('Penis_grab or Holding_penis?');

And so on. (That's probably crappy code, since I'm no programmer. But at least it works.)

Then I check the generated list one by one, and add the ones that are missing. As for tagging itself, I use AutoHotkey for macros, so I can type most tags with a two-letter shortcut.

Don't have an upload tagging strategy, because I basically don't upload.

For tag projects:

• Run autotagger daemon if not already running.
• Open DownThemAll and make sure it is paused.
• Pick a tag to apply/remove en mass.
• Set page size to 320.
• Do an appropriate search (eg -feral -anthro -human ).
• Blow up all thumbs to 200% size (you can do this easily with a bookmarklet)
• Activate thumbsdown (with e621 handling item).
• Click on all posts that need that tag change (eg. applying 'anthro').
• Tell thumbsdown to download all selected items (this will add an item to DTA's queue for each selected)
• Go to next page and do it again
• when the DTA queue is large enough to bother (500-1000 items), select all of the items in it, and export them to an appropriately named text file (and then promptly
• for example, exporting to anthro.txt will cause them all to be tagged 'anthro'. or 'anthro feral.txt' would cause them all to be tagged 'anthro feral'; or anthro -feral.txt would add anthro tag and remove feral tag if present.
• autotagger daemon detects new/ updated text file, checks post tags for all mentioned posts, and automatically applies the tag changes specified by the filename, waiting when necessary to account for per-hour tagging quotas.

This is obviously tailored towards large, simple tagging projects.
If I was inclined to do exhaustive tagging on single posts, I'd probably want to arrange it so that it worked like this:

• click on post thumb
• reduced sample image of post is automatically downloaded into a directory dedicated to tagging
• if the TMSU database isn't already initialized in that dir, run tmsu init and add all tag names currently used on e621 with a count > 1, into the database.
• Ask post API for tag list for that post, and apply it to the reduced sample image
• View the reduced sample image in sxiv (with image-info script set to show tmsu tags)
• use xdotool to automatically kick the user into the process of tagging that image via lighthouse + tmsu tagging script
• type stuff to tag the post using eager autocompletion and other nice features (example animation)
• when user quits sxiv, added or removed taggings are analyzed and applied (via autotagger daemon). Quitting with nonzero exit status (for example, by deleting the image) signals to ignore any tagging changes.

That's a fairly complicated edifice but just boils down to 'click on post, interact with optimized tagging system, tags on e621 get auto updated.'

I'm curious whether anyone knows how to connect 'click on post' with a local action rather than doing the usual browser 'load url' thing -- this is basically the sticking point above.

(I mean, ideally, the nice tagging GUI would be incorporated in e621.. but that doesn't look like it's going to happen any time soon)

I tag based on the categories given: Copyright, characters, series, etc...

Then based on genders, kinks, objects included, environment, orchestration (pair/couple, orgy, group, etc...)

Then leave a "tagme" just to let people know to tag anything they may find missing. Hopefully it works out. It's less of a chore for me. I don't like to tag anything, but I have to if I want to upload my art on to here.