Aliasing ♂ and ♀ / male_symbol and female_symbol -> mars_symbol and venus_symbol.

Reason: The aforementioned tags should each have their unicode symbol and less proficient name aliased to their respective proper terminology.

This will help avoid confusion when tagging; for example, tagging a post with a female character present with ♀ instead of female and tagging the Venus symbol when there is none visible in the post.

You do realize there are plenty of uses of the tag without diapers, correct? lol

(Jayfeather) said:
You do realize there are plenty of uses of the tag without diapers, correct? lol

So? They're still viable examples.

So, alias them to the proper terminology when everybody uses ♀ and ♂ to tag females and males? That'll probably cause more problems than this alias would fix.

720p said:
So, alias them to the proper terminology when everybody uses ♀ and ♂ to tag females and males? That'll probably cause more problems than this alias would fix.

I highly doubt that "everybody" goes to the trouble of finding and copy-pasting a unicode symbol into the tag box in favour of simply typing out female or male.

Riversyde said:
I highly doubt that "everybody" goes to the trouble of finding and copy-pasting a unicode symbol into the tag box in favour of simply typing out female or male.

I meant everybody that uses the tags. Also, some boorus actually use the symbols instead of actually typing male or female, sometimes lazy taggers just copy/paste the tags over here.

720p said:
I meant everybody that uses the tags. Also, some boorus actually use the symbols instead of actually typing male or female, sometimes lazy taggers just copy/paste the tags over here.

I don't think it's good practice to take other boorus' tagging systems into account when making tag decisions on here.
e6 has its' own independently managed tagging system and shouldn't be forced to bend to some other site's rules.

Nor do I believe that the fact that there are site users who might not know how tags on the site work / do not fix their copypasted tags to be e6-compatible should play a significant part in making a decision on a tag adjustment.
They're a very small group of people.

I vote for the reverse alias.

♂ and ♀ look cooler.

Also, it links the tag aesthetically to the content of the image. I cite the <3 tag: the tag is what is present in the image.

KloH0und said:
I vote for the reverse alias.

♂ and ♀ look cooler.

Also, it links the tag aesthetically to the content of the image. I cite the <3 tag: the tag is what is present in the image.

And it encourages people to learn how to type these things instead of just copying/pasting, thus encouraging a slightly-better understanding of Unicode in the general populace. Hopefully.

KloH0und said:
I vote for the reverse alias.

♂ and ♀ look cooler.

Also, it links the tag aesthetically to the content of the image. I cite the <3 tag: the tag is what is present in the image.

I thought that here was "the less unicode the better" rule here. (For example: http://e621.net/forum/show/42685) This is why there is <3 tag, and not ♥

Gilda_The_Gryphon said:
I thought that here was "the less unicode the better" rule here. (For example: http://e621.net/forum/show/42685) This is why there is <3 tag, and not ♥

I wasn't aware that was e621's disposition towards unicode.

I was under the impression that unicode is fine as long as its non-unicode representations are properly aliased. With the alias system mars_symbol and ♂ are functionally identical, the only difference is on the front end, i.e. what the user sees. It expedites the cognitive process of interpreting the tag; the user doesn't have to worry about acquiring/recollecting the definition of the term "mars symbol." If the user can see the symbol in the tags, they'll know that they'll see the same exact symbol in the image. Meanwhile, with the alias in place the ease of the physical process of typing out "mars_symbol" (in contrast to the relative difficulty of inputting "♂" with a standard QWERTY keyboard) when searching and editing tags is preserved.

The main thing I'm concerned about when aliasing to unicode characters, is encountering certain cases which the aliases may not be recognized both ways

E.g. Using the <3 tag and its aliases, when doing a search in the Tag section:

♥ turns up nothing

heart turns up nothing

Only <3 does

Which can lead to some misleading results

Other than that, I'm fine with aliasing one to the other as well i.e.

mars_symbol -> ♂
venus_symbol -> ♀

Though, the safer choice would be reversing those aliases

Also of note are the various other gender symbols, as listed in the Wikipedia article

Riversyde said:
I don't think it's good practice to take other boorus' tagging systems into account when making tag decisions on here.
e6 has its' own independently managed tagging system and shouldn't be forced to bend to some other site's rules.

Nor do I believe that the fact that there are site users who might not know how tags on the site work / do not fix their copypasted tags to be e6-compatible should play a significant part in making a decision on a tag adjustment.
They're a very small group of people.

All I'm saying is this will result in a shit-ton of images not having a gender tag and randomly being tagged mars/venus_symbol instead. If people already wrongly use the tag, aliasing it to the symbol tag won't change a thing.

Personally, I'd favor aliasing unicode to ascii, every time.

KloH0und said:
I wasn't aware that was e621's disposition towards unicode.

I was under the impression that unicode is fine as long as its non-unicode representations are properly aliased. With the alias system mars_symbol and ♂ are functionally identical, the only difference is on the front end, i.e. what the user sees. It expedites the cognitive process of interpreting the tag; the user doesn't have to worry about acquiring/recollecting the definition of the term "mars symbol." If the user can see the symbol in the tags, they'll know that they'll see the same exact symbol in the image. Meanwhile, with the alias in place the ease of the physical process of typing out "mars_symbol" (in contrast to the relative difficulty of inputting "♂" with a standard QWERTY keyboard) when searching and editing tags is preserved.

If memory serves, the reason that ascii is preferred over unicode, diacritics, symbols, foreign language characters, etc., is because not everyone knows how to create those characters. This site caters predominantly to an English-speaking demographic, and the vast, overwhelming majority of those users can type ascii characters without needing special knowledge of Alt key codes. It's not always intuitive what a unicode symbol would be aliased to, so a user who doesn't know the Alt code for a symbol is forced to either copy and paste from somewhere that features the symbol, or to guess.

Alt-11 and Alt-12 (at least on Windows, not sure about other platforms) also have the problem of having multiple common meanings. If we started allowing them as tags, it seems inevitable that they would become polluted with posts strictly using the male/female connotation, instead of mars_symbol and venus_symbol we'd intend them to be. I think aliasing them to ascii is helpful because it clarifies their meaning on this site.

More obscure symbols would make the problem even harder: I suspect a fair number of people would be unable to name Σ without a trip to their preferred search engine, let alone go "oh, that's Alt-228". Great Deity of Reader's Choice help us if anyone brings in Alt-8710.

titaniachkt said:
The main thing I'm concerned about when aliasing to unicode characters, is encountering certain cases which the aliases may not be recognized both ways

E.g. Using the <3 tag and its aliases, when doing a search in the Tag section:

♥ turns up nothing

heart turns up nothing

Only <3 does

Which can lead to some misleading results

This sounds like a good candidate for a feature request: for tag searches of this kind to automatically search the tag it's aliased to, instead. I think this would help clarify when a tag has many posts but has been aliased.

ikdind said:
This sounds like a good candidate for a feature request: for tag searches of this kind to automatically search the tag it's aliased to, instead. I think this would help clarify when a tag has many posts but has been aliased.

It already does that, hence the entire point of the alias system in the first place; searching for girl returns posts with the female tag. He's just saying it doesn't work when searching the tag index. Unless that's what you're talking about, in which case, never mind.

Guys, the unicode vs ascii argument is all well and good, but can it be moved to another thread? I'd rather not have my topic get derailed.

720p said:
All I'm saying is this will result in a shit-ton of images not having a gender tag and randomly being tagged mars/venus_symbol instead. If people already wrongly use the tag, aliasing it to the symbol tag won't change a thing.

I understand what you're saying, but I believe that leaving the male and female symbols alone will have a higher chance of uploaders not using the symbols' tags correctly than aliasing them. Having the symbols' tags as "mars symbol" or "venus symbol" instead of the symbols themselves will remove ambiguity from the situation that their tags are supposed to be used in.

Riversyde said:
Guys, the unicode vs ascii argument is all well and good, but can it be moved to another thread? I'd rather not have my topic get derailed.

Sorry. I definitely favor aliasing ♂/♀ -> mars_symbol/venus_symbol.

tony311 said:
He's just saying it doesn't work when searching the tag index. Unless that's what you're talking about, in which case, never mind.

That's exactly what I was talking about. :) I know you can specifically search for aliases and implications on their own pages, but it might also be helpful if the tag index automatically substituted aliases the way the post index does.

Ok, if no one disagrees with a valid counter-example, aliasing

♂ -> mars_symbol
♀ -> venus_symbol.

Addendum: And

male symbol -> mars symbol
female symbol -> venus symbol