If I wanted to search for Furry as in the genre characters that were involved in zoosexual situations this is especially hard to do with the current tag definitions which put any animal depictions in with feral (the way I use the term is specific to Furry as in the genre just in cases with more non-human animal anatomy).

This would make a little bit more sense if there were a Furry tag but considering most the site is Furry it would be rather redundant.

Furthermore this could be accomplished in reverse with Anthro except that its usage is limited for practical purposes. When Anthro is used on a post seems to be rather vague.

I'd like to discuss this. My proposal:
Use the tag animal for real-world animal depictions.
Feral only refers to Furry (As in the genre) characters in mostly nonhuman animal-like physical form.
Anthro only refers to Furry (As in the genre) characters in mostly human-like physical form.
These would be an extremely broad tag but its about as useful to me as the gender tags.
Make it imply another tag, Anthropomorphic which includes any anthropomorphic characters including inanimate ones.

Jackal32 said:
My proposal:
Use the tag animal for real-world animal depictions.

I don't think that'd work. Many users ignore the wiki. And therefore it'd constantly get tagged for mythological creatures, Pokemon, etc.

Feral only refers to Furry (As in the genre) characters in mostly nonhuman animal-like physical form.
Anthro only refers to Furry (As in the genre) characters in mostly human-like physical form.

How does that differ from how those are currently split? Because as far as I can see, you just described the current usage.

If you're talking about humanoids getting tagged as anthro, and ferals getting overtagged... well, mistags happen. Especially when there are users who don't understand what 'furry' means.

Besides that, feral mistags often result from users overtagging 'bestiality'. Which automatically implies feral.

I honestly have no idea what you are proposing, but I'd recommend checking out the list of tags that Qmann mentioned to see if some of them help you find what you are looking for.

Jackal32 said:
Use the tag animal for real-world animal depictions.

real feral

I don't have a specific proposal because I have no idea how to approach the problem yet.

@Qmannn I appropriate being helpful with searching but I was only giving an example.

@parasprite The real tag is basically for photos. I just mean natural depictions instead of anthropomorphic animals. Feral for all meaningful purposes is a Furry term and always applies to anthropomorphic animals. It would then be more useful to have a tag (I proposed "animal") to mean naturally depicted.

But let me be more specific. On Not_Furry's wiki it mentions Feral as indicating that it is Furry and therefor should not be included in the Not_Furry tag. However bestiality implies Feral by its definition on this site which includes stuff like this: post #876389. So which is it?

Then Anthro takes the vague stance of everything anthropomorphic while in the same wiki noting its common usage as to being mostly human or bipedal. So if we include inanimate objects some don't even have legs so it is vague.

So then we come full circle what is Not_Furry? Not_Furry's wiki is incredibly obvious to me and would include posts like this post #876414 or this post #875641. The feral category is full of such posts. If feral wasn't defined so over-broad then no one would have ever thought to make bestiality imply feral.

Jackal32 said:
However bestiality implies Feral by its definition on this site which includes stuff like this: post #876389. So which is it?

There's a feral horse, therefore it's considered furry enough. Not_furry is only tagged if there's no furry(ish) characters at all. You can add -human and -humanoid search modifiers to exclude most non-furry characters.

Then Anthro takes the vague stance of everything anthropomorphic while in the same wiki noting its common usage as to being mostly human or bipedal. So if we include inanimate objects some don't even have legs so it is vague.

The anthro wiki entry has needed rewriting for a long while. Living objects belong in the inanimate category (and possibly also in humanoid, for ones such as post #239980), not in anthro.

Genjar said:
There's a feral horse, therefore it's considered furry enough. Not_furry is only tagged if there's no furry(ish) characters at all. You can add -human and -humanoid search modifiers to exclude most non-furry characters.

The anthro wiki entry has needed rewriting for a long while. Living objects belong in the inanimate category (and possibly also in humanoid, for ones such as post #239980), not in anthro.

All I see are the lower quarters of two very large horses. So I a disagree there but I missed the fact that they are catgirls, damn. Thats still about as low as you go on the Furry meter. Still the other two examples are credible. More importantly there is still going to be exceptions where Bestiality won't be Feral (Furry) characters or anything even Furry-ish.

It's good to know about the anthro wiki. Should I update it?

Jackal32 said:
More importantly there is still going to be exceptions where Bestiality won't be Feral (Furry) characters or anything even Furry-ish.

Not really. Here on e621 bestiality is, by definition, feral on non-feral.

I think the terms are what are being confusing. e621 uses them one way, but you're trying to explain using them to mean something else.

Are you basically trying to say that you want tags that would differentiate between the foxes in these two pictures:

post #778388 and post #474155

...with the first being your "natural depiction" and the second being the "anthropomorphic animal"? Or would the latter designation mean something further along the scale like:

post #124059

Wodahseht said:
I think the terms are what are being confusing. e621 uses them one way, but you're trying to explain using them to mean something else.

Are you basically trying to say that you want tags that would differentiate between the foxes in these two pictures:

post #778388 and post #474155

...with the first being your "natural depiction" and the second being the "anthropomorphic animal"? Or would the latter designation mean something further along the scale like:

post #124059

This is why I didn't have any specific idea at first. Just that the implication of this is certain posts that are Feral can't also be Not_Furry by the definition of its wiki. That's a contradiction.

There is already tags for describing anatomy. Feral and Anthro describe broad approaches to a Furry character they are almost sub-genres. No wonder this is so confusing.

Incidentally the exact point where it is to ambiguous to know if it is Feral (Furry) character or non-anthropomphic animal is when it should NOT be tagged Feral, leave it to the anatomy tags that aren't ambiguous. And that shouldn't be surprising as it is the same ethic applied across the site with Tag What You See.

Jackal32 said:
Incidentally the exact point where it is to ambiguous to know if it is Feral (Furry) character or non-anthropomphic animal is when it should NOT be tagged Feral, leave it to the anatomy tags that aren't ambiguous. And that shouldn't be surprising as it is the same ethic applied across the site with Tag What You See.

Here we use feral/anthro/humanoid/human to depict the purely physical features running from "animal" to "human."

A feral fox has their fur, paws, muzzle, ears, etc - despite any particular intelligent behavior or clothing...or those features being in some way exaggerated (more human/larger eyes for example).

And anthro fox may have hands, stand on two legs, even a more human-shaped face.

A humanoid fox would be effectively human, but with just a few fox features: ears, tail, teeth, and/or whiskers.

I think rather than a new category *instead* of feral, we just need a tag equivolent to anatomically_correct that describes when the entire creature is depicted with real-world accuracy which can be added in addition to the feral tag when applicable.

Wodahseht said:
I think rather than a new category *instead* of feral, we just need a tag equivolent to anatomically_correct that describes when the entire creature is depicted with real-world accuracy which can be added in addition to the feral tag when applicable.

For ones such as these?:
post #559215 post #73037

I've suggested that a couple of times. But different artstyles make it a hard sell.

For example, would any of these be considered 'anatomically correct' feral foxes?:
post #287017 post #284896 post #68128 post #82533

Title said:
Not_Furry not used enough, Feral is over-broad and Anthro is vague

Another interesting topic

Added to forum #189471 - Advanced tag discussion: Mutually-exclusive Body Types/Styles (anthro, feral, human, humanoid, taur, 'semi-anthro' etc.) (Apr. 2016)
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0. Summary of proposed body types:

• forum #190190

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1. For relevant discussion about the broadness of the feral tag, see:

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2. For relevant discussion about the vagueness of the anthro tag, see:

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3. For relevant discussion about the furry/not_furry tags, see:

I've been wondering for a while why the realistic tag isn't used for that.

According to it's wiki page:
"This tag is used when a character is designed in a style more artistic than in its original toon."

Yet the tag is being added to posts like this:
post #784339 post #864886 post #856620

and to be honest, I feel the latter may be a better use for the tag.

I noticed that the tag was originally used for this type of image but it was changed to the current usage about 5 years ago.

What was the reason for the change?

DragonFox69 said:
According to it's wiki page:
"This tag is used when a character is designed in a style more artistic than in its original toon."

Hm, 'more artistic' seems rather vague. So does 'original toon', which assumes the original style is toony.
I think that should probably be changed to something more consistent, either with:

• one of the formal definitions of Realism [wikipedia]) , or
• something more specific to the site
• a combination of those
• something else entirely

If anyone has a suggestion for that, they can mention it here: forum #191799 - Wiki Discussion: Specific articles: Edits, questions, concerns, etc. (Apr. 2016)

Genjar said:
I've suggested that a couple of times. But different artstyles make it a hard sell.

For example, would any of these be considered 'anatomically correct' feral foxes?

I know. Defining and putting such into action would be tricky and I don't know how to really go about it. My point was mostly that we shouldn't be looking at removing the feral tag from those, but rather a tag that lets people sort out those specific ferals if that's what they're after.

Wodahseht said:
I know. Defining and putting such into action would be tricky and I don't know how to really go about it. My point was mostly that we shouldn't be looking at removing the feral tag from those, but rather a tag that lets people sort out those specific ferals if that's what they're after.

This is a good point

I suggested realistic_feral_bodytype in forum #190190, but it's a handful to type

Jackal32 said:
[...]On Not_Furry's wiki it mentions Feral as indicating that it is Furry and therefor should not be included in the Not_Furry tag. However bestiality implies Feral by its definition on this site which includes stuff like this: post #876389. So which is it?

Then Anthro takes the vague stance of everything anthropomorphic while in the same wiki noting its common usage as to being mostly human or bipedal. So if we include inanimate objects some don't even have legs so it is vague.

So then we come full circle what is Not_Furry? Not_Furry's wiki is incredibly obvious to me and would include posts like this post #876414 or this post #875641. The feral category is full of such posts. If feral wasn't defined so over-broad then no one would have ever thought to make bestiality imply feral.

I think some of your issue here may stem from semantics around the terms "not furry" and "furry" on e621. The word is being used in a different sense than you are expecting, I think.

When defining something as "not_furry" for tagging purposes on e621, we are using the term "furry" purely to mean "of interest to the furry fandom". Furry/Not Furry is used in this case more along the lines of how you would use the term when referring to a "Furry Convention" or to a "Furry Art Website". It's a categorization of general interest.

It is NOT based on if the characters in the picture are anthropomorphic animals or have any anthro traits.

The definitions in the not_furry wiki try to clearly define things according to whether or not each thing would be "of interest to a furry fan":

• A Human, Elf, Troll, Orc, Angel, or Robot has no particular special interest to a furry fandom member, so these things are tagged "not_furry".

• Any animal of any sort, whether feral, anthro, or animal_humanoid are considered to be "furry"-or-"of interest to a furry fan". If a picture contains even a single prominent character or creature that falls under this category, it causes the picture to be considered "furry". (and therefore will not receive the not_furry tag)

This is why all three posts that you linked: post #876389, post #876414, and post #875641, do NOT receive the "not_furry" tag - because all three of them contain animals, and therefore are considered to be "furry": of interest to a furry fan.

Oh I sparked a discussion :3
Every one of you make good points.

So first of my issue is totally semantics. But that's what tags are. I'm agreeing more with the specialized use of those terms on e621 now but their wikis are still contradicting.

I totally get that Not_Furry should not apply to things that are not Furry in a strict sense (such as MLP) and that it should apply in cases where it is broadly not Furry in both the genre sense and character sense. But I don't get where the "of interest to the community" comes into it? How do we even define that?

I am very much in favor of the feral+realistic proposal even though thats not entirely doable with the current state of the tags.
I am also in agreement that anthro for the purposes of tagging on e621 can be used only to describe body type.
But this does leave the odd situation where you want to pic out what IS Furry (as in genre) as that is what I am interested in. Also to be clear I don't care that things are zoo that doesn't bother me but I want it to be in the Furry genre. So if anthro pertains to body type many posts fall out of Furry genre and into what I called naturalistic before.

How about naturalistic for the tag since realistic is being used in the realism sense now?

Jackal32 said:
...but I want it to be in the Furry genre.

Honestly, I'm still a bit confused about what you mean when you say "Furry genre."

Wodahseht said:
Honestly, I'm still a bit confused about what you mean when you say "Furry genre."

All that is intended to mean is to distinguish it from Furry as in anything that might be of interest to Furries. Furry genre in the broadest sense would be anthropomorphic animals that are not just cartoons/exaggerations or a trope.

Since feral is being used for body type even though its a term that is generally specific to distinguishing different types of Furries it therefor includes stuff like this:

post #878172

Trying to determine what is "of general interest to Furries" is super ambiguous. It is clear that this site is mostly artwork of interest to at least some Furries and sometimes the work is just related by the artist also being a Furry artist. Therefor Not_Furry's usefulness is in distinguishing what is not Furry in the broad sense and not anything that is definitely not of interest to Furries. If that were true it probably wouldn't/shouldn't be on the site.

Here is another example:
post #873676
My use of mostly zoo as examples just has to do with the content of this site.

Furry here doesn't really mean "of general interest to furries" here. It means the individual/creature is at least somewhat animalistic in nature.

Elf -> not furry
Goo -> not furry
Lizard creature -> furry
RL cat -> furry

Check out not_furry wiki for categorization.

Feral just means a body form equivalent to the real-world creature. Which would obviously also include the real-world creature. In the picture you posted it is for the horse since it's got default body (what we see of it).

Wodahseht said:
Furry here doesn't really mean "of general interest to furries" here. It means the individual/creature is at least somewhat animalistic in nature.

Elf -> not furry
Goo -> not furry
Lizard creature -> furry
RL cat -> furry

Check out not_furry wiki for categorization.

Feral just means a body form equivalent to the real-world creature. Which would obviously also include the real-world creature. In the picture you posted it is for the horse since it's got default body (what we see of it).

I don't think any part of what you said I disagree with. Others in this forum say its for posts that are not of interest to Furries. I disagree.
I agree with the usage of Feral on this site but it has the implication of including non-Furry characters that is what this thread is about.

Example of zoo that is furry:
post #605201

attempt at distinguishing: feral -human -anthro_on_feral
still includes these:
post #867951 post #101582
and would exclude these:
post #529806

Body type tags might help along with proper use of "realistic"/real only because those can cut away more at not Furry. But its heuristic at best.

Jackal32 said:
and would exclude these:
post #529806

Actually, that last was just mistagged. No human at that point in transformation.

Wodahseht said:
Actually, that last was just mistagged. No human at that point in transformation.

heh well the same still applies to transformation while part human.

Jackal32 said:
I don't think any part of what you said I disagree with. Others in this forum say its for posts that are not of interest to Furries. I disagree.
I agree with the usage of Feral on this site but it has the implication of including non-Furry characters that is what this thread is about.

I'm still confused.
What exactly do you want to search for (or exclude), that isn't covered by anthro -transformation?

Wow, completely forgot about this discussion (sorry :c)

@Jackal32; @parasprite; @Genjar; @All:

Genjar said:
I'm still confused.
What exactly do you want to search for (or exclude), that isn't covered by anthro -transformation?

If I'm understanding the OP and rest of discussion correctly, something like this:

https://e621.net/forum/show/200311

Not sure if humans should be under anthro, for a variety of reasons [tba]

Are some definitions of 'furry' are more valid than others?

Really interesting post by @Crispix:

(emphasis in 2nd paragraph mine)
https://e621.net/forum/show/191571

Didn't notice this part, which is an interesting statement;

What exactly would count as "of interest to the furry fandom"?

I ask because I've seen people upload images onto e621 (presumably a 'furry fandom-based' site), only to have it flagged and tagged as not_furry by others

If someone, who is presumably a member of the site, uploads content relevant to their interest, does that mean it's considered furry?
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Basically, what I'm asking is this:

Are some definitions of 'furry' are more valid than others?

• If so, why?
• If not, why do we even have a not_furry tag in the first place?