I've noticed that there are a couple of posts like post #865756 or post #957157 that use variants of tags that seem to be fairly widespread like shaded (soft_shaded) and gradient (gradient_theme).

soft_shaded might have some merit, but I really doubt that it adds much to the ability to search for that kind of stuff.

gradient_theme on the other hand doesn't offer much so far as I am able to tell.

I haven't been very active on this site so far, but I decided to try to take an interest in it, so I'm not entirely sure about the etiquette of removing tags that haven't existed before or changing them to the more accepted version.

Is there a particular rule for this sort of thing?

jaked122 said:
I've noticed that there are a couple of posts like post #865756 or post #957157 that use variants of tags that seem to be fairly widespread like shaded (soft_shaded) and gradient (gradient_theme).

soft_shaded might have some merit, but I really doubt that it adds much to the ability to search for that kind of stuff.

gradient_theme on the other hand doesn't offer much so far as I am able to tell.

I haven't been very active on this site so far, but I decided to try to take an interest in it, so I'm not entirely sure about the etiquette of removing tags that haven't existed before or changing them to the more accepted version.

Is there a particular rule for this sort of thing?

Ive always been iffy on "style tags".

Theyre objective but they dont really seem like something someone would take time to specifically search for or blacklist. So why bother having them?

GDelscribe said:
Ive always been iffy on "style tags".

Theyre objective but they dont really seem like something someone would take time to specifically search for or blacklist. So why bother having them?

That's more or less my opinion, but if we're going to have them, I might as well figure out how to use them properly.

I'm just going to assume that they should be corrected to the more common tags that might apply until I hear differently.

jaked122 said:
I haven't been very active on this site so far, but I decided to try to take an interest in it, so I'm not entirely sure about the etiquette of removing tags that haven't existed before or changing them to the more accepted version.

Is there a particular rule for this sort of thing?

It's usually not a good idea to wipe out tags without discussing it first somewhere, unless they've been tagged less than half-dozen times in the past year.

In general, anything that's been tagged more than that should be handled through aliases and implications, or at least mentioned first. Even some typos should be aliased, if they're common enough. There's been some that have been tagged hundreds of times over the years, so it's best for everyone if nobody has to manually clean those again.

If you have suggestions for tags to prune, the alias/implication tool is preferred for that: https://e621.net/tag_alias/new. Nobody's ever got into trouble for suggesting aliases, no matter how bad the suggestions turned out to be. Same cannot be said about users who delete tags without permission, nor about users who keep creating new bad tags.

As for the arts tags, many of those do seem too obscure to keep. Chiaroscuro, for instance. How many even know how to spell it, or have any idea of how to tag it? Tags such as high_contrast do the same job better by being far more accessible to most of the userbase. And I'm not sure if even that one's needed.

Genjar said:
It's usually not a good idea to wipe out tags without discussing it first somewhere, unless they've been tagged less than half-dozen times in the past year.

In general, anything that's been tagged more than that should be handled through aliases and implications, or at least mentioned first. Even some typos should be aliased, if they're common enough. There's been some that have been tagged hundreds of times over the years, so it's best for everyone if nobody has to manually clean those again.

If you have suggestions for tags to prune, the alias/implication tool is preferred for that: https://e621.net/tag_alias/new. Nobody's ever got into trouble for suggesting aliases, no matter how bad the suggestions turned out to be. Same cannot be said about users who delete tags without permission, nor about users who keep creating new bad tags.

As for the arts tags, many of those do seem too obscure to keep. Chiaroscuro, for instance. How many even know how to spell it, or have any idea of how to tag it? Tags such as high_contrast do the same job better by being far more accessible to most of the userbase. And I'm not sure if even that one's needed.

I was thinking tags where there has never been more than one post with them, things that seem to be fairly straightforward mistakes.

I'd be more careful if there seems to be a more common theme, or if I simply can't recognize what the tag might mean.

I'll make the alias suggestions in the future though.

I occasionally prune one-count typos and tags that aren't easily aliased, like white_shewolf -> white_fur female wolf. Tags that have been set to nondefault types I leave alone because that shows some intent behind it.