Is it considered more proper to include the owner with the character's nametag, or is it entirely optional?

I've spent the past couple of days trying to teach myself how to tag my uploads better, and I noticed that some character names will be formatted with the owner's name (artist's name, franchise name, etc), but at other times the character's name stands alone.

I wanted to ask if it was considered improper to tag a character without including the owner with that same tag, or if it was just used to clear up possible confusion between characters of the same name, or something along those lines? The way I originally understood it, every effort should already be made to tag artists' names, and in most cases of original artwork, the characters being featured are already owned by that artist, so it's redundant to include the artist's name a second time in the character tag. However, folks do give permission to have their character's drawn or commissioned by other artists, so it could help give tag credit to the character's original designer.

But I'm guessing it's just entirely optional, as examples of both run aplenty on the site. Just use it to clear ambiguity?

Sinwhisper said:
Is it considered more proper to include the owner with the character's nametag, or is it entirely optional?

I've spent the past couple of days trying to teach myself how to tag my uploads better, and I noticed that some character names will be formatted with the owner's name (artist's name, franchise name, etc), but at other times the character's name stands alone.

I wanted to ask if it was considered improper to tag a character without including the owner with that same tag, or if it was just used to clear up possible confusion between characters of the same name, or something along those lines? The way I originally understood it, every effort should already be made to tag artists' names, and in most cases of original artwork, the characters being featured are already owned by that artist, so it's redundant to include the artist's name a second time in the character tag. However, folks do give permission to have their character's drawn or commissioned by other artists, so it could help give tag credit to the character's original designer.

But I'm guessing it's just entirely optional, as examples of both run aplenty on the site. Just use it to clear ambiguity?

I have always been doing it in cases where there will be or currently is a conflict with another character name in the database. Nothing is more confusing for a user then when they search a character name and find that it is attached to 3 or 4 different characters who all use the same name. It is the same reason that a lot video game and TV show characters have the name of the series they are from attached at the end as well.

There could be some grand form of unification applied to the tagging procedure for characters. But its a daunting task to go through and match every character with their artist and ensure the artists name is attached to the character. However as I currently see it having the artist listed as an "artist" tag is more than enough validation and as long as the character doesn't share a name with a currently in the database character there shouldn't be a need to attach their name to the end of the character tag in addition to having them listed as the artist. But that is just how I see it.

Do a tag search on the character name without any artist name. If you find unrelated characters, you might as well use character_(artist).

I always just check if it's a common name. Luna, Jericho, Rose, anything that is one word that's common enough deserves the artist name's suffix. Even if there is no found character with the common name, it gives more identity and makes character tags easier to sift through.

If it has a last name, or is a unique name, then just leave it as a character: tag, and then check to find if there are characters with the same name. If you make the suffix name and there is no other character with that name, then you basically made two character names that are the same character.

One statement, though: if you/anyone make(s) a character or artist tag, be it character:/artist: or *_(character/artistname) / _(artist), then click the ? next to the name, and finish making the wiki page by sourcing it to the owner/artist (respectively). There are a bunch of artist and character tags that need to be made and/or disambiguated, and doing this provides a secondary means of sourcing should the post not actually have a source.

This usually applies to somewhat common names that more than one character likely shares. In which case, it does prove helpful in separating said names by the artist(s) that created them.

I would just like to add that I'm generally against using the "_(character)" suffix in most cases, except maybe when the name is a common noun. The reason is that "_(character)" adds very little additional information and if the name is not unique enough usually causes problems down the road with two different characters being added to the same tag anyway since "_(character)" is still quite nondescript.

My (character) tag philosophy generally involves:

• Keep the tag as simple as possible
• Use latin alphabet
• If the character has a more detailed name (e.g. surname) use that before suffixing a given name.
• Suffix only if needed or if issues may arise in the future if the suffix is not added.
• Don't use the "_(character)" suffix

I found it's extremely helpful when all the characters from the same artist have suffix, because they can be searched by *_(artist).

For a practice, this artist owned 20+ characters (as I listed on the wiki), so basically I can find them all by searching artist's name.

In conclusion, I think it's better to have most character tags formatted in that way. And it will ensure that name will never conflict with other so-named characters in the future.

I think so far I'm leaning towards including "_(artist)" to avoid conflict.

Siral_Exan said:
One statement, though: if you/anyone make(s) a character or artist tag, be it character:/artist: or *_(character/artistname) / _(artist), then click the ? next to the name, and finish making the wiki page by sourcing it to the owner/artist (respectively).

ZaSigma4 said:
For a practice, this artist owned 20+ characters (as I listed on the wiki), so basically I can find them all by searching artist's name]

What kind of information should the wiki page contain? and is there any sort of information that it should not contain?

Sinwhisper said:
What kind of information should the wiki page contain? and is there any sort of information that it should not contain?

You could put general information about some character, if they often take multiple forms/species that information could be interesting. You could also put more technical details. E.g. owner information and links to some external site could be interesting. You could put wiki links to other characters somehow related to some character, both family relations or simply other characters usually depicted with them. There's really no checklist, just put useful or relevant interesting information. But I'd argue not to overdo it, some characters have very long and detailed character descriptions and history and in that case it may be better to put a synopsis and instead link to the rest.

I know it doesn't help much but I just try to imagine what one would like to know if you stumble over the wiki article. It should spark interest and if interest gets sparked the viewer should get the opportunity to find more (external) information if available.

On a side note it is also good to create an artist entry so people can find other sources/websites: https://e621.net/artist/create

Siral_Eurgh-xan said:
One statement, though: if you/anyone make(s) a character or artist tag, be it character:/artist: or *_(character/artistname) / _(artist), then click the ? next to the name, and finish making the wiki page by sourcing it to the owner/artist (respectively). There are a bunch of artist and character tags that need to be made and/or disambiguated, and doing this provides a secondary means of sourcing should the post not actually have a source.

Can you provide an ideal example after which such articles should be patterned? Should it contain links to reference sheets, character description pages, author's profiles on other sites, something else?

DerpyCoon said:
Can you provide an ideal example after which such articles should be patterned?

Sure. Artist:david_copper. Or, lazybones_(character). With artist:David_copper, look at their account and find each and every source available (FA, DA, etc., but all have to link just to their accounts), and click the ? Next to their name. Then, fill in the URLs tab with each account. For Lazybones_(character), find the artist Lazybones, and source their account into the ? page next to laxybones_(character), and include a description, and/or a link to their reference sheet with a description.

The final one is Ruby. There are multiple characters under than name, so character:Ruby_(David_Copper) will make a character tag, Ruby_(david_copper). Then, just source the character as explained above.

You use artist: or character: when the name is not taken, and it's unique (common are box, Ruby, David, etc., names you'd hear in reality). You use _(artist) or _(character) if the name is not unique, and it is being used as an artist or character already (it's preferred to use _(character) and _(artist) simultaneously, if the character and artist share a name, so david_copper_(artist) and david_copper_(character) ).

To be clearer, when you use artist: or character: you make the name grouped into the artist/character section, and edit the wiki to specify if it's an artist or character. If you use _(artist) or _(character), you make the name have those suffixes, that then organizes the names into their sections. And, when you use artist:*_(*name*) or character:*_(name), you make the name grouped into their section, and include the suffix to distinguish who owns it.

If you are having problems, I can walk you through it step by step, for artists and characters.