I mentioned this in another topic, but I think it deserves its own topic.

Right now, we are currently in a state where there are a lot of posts missing basic tags. And I do mean a lot.

This obviously isn't a good state to be in, and it's obvious that this problem is only going to get worse as we continue. But I think there's something that might help.

I think what we need is a new category - perhaps replacing copyright as a category, because the consensus seems to be that copyright isn't all that important as a tag, but that's not necessary. We need a category for those tags that are deemed to be the very basics of characters.

Setting aside a few tags into their own category has a two advantages (as long as it's not overdone). It gives them a special importance in the minds of users - they see "oh, there's a category for this, they must be important to remember". What's more, it makes them easier to remember - if you see an image where that category is blank, it stands out as something that needs fixing.

Right now the jumble that is "general tags" is opaque. It is hard to see without digging through with a fine-toothed comb whether or not these very important tags are missing, and that is not the place we want to be in. We want these to stand out.

The category can't be too huge, or it becomes a mess, but here are the things I think belong, because they are vital to defining who an image will be relevant to, I think.

1) Sex / Gender: cuntboy, female, herm, [male]], etc.
-a) Gender Pairing: dickgirl/male, cuntboy/herm, ect.
2) "Furryness": anthro, feral, semi-anthro, etc.
-b) Furry Pairing: anthro_on_feral, human_on_anthro, etc.
3) Number: solo, duo, group, zero_pictured

1 is where I started. Perhaps the most important of all of these to include. 1a naturally followed from 1.

2 seems to me to be very important as well - defining whether an image contains anthros or ferals is very important for furry art, though this would be a smaller factor on other sides. 2b follows from the existence of 1a. I also think that humanoid ought to be moved into this category, from species.

3 I put in here, both because I think it's important (the number of characters is highly related to what the characters are), but also because having zero_pictured allows for a "blank" to exist in the category if nothing else is applicable, similar to unknown_artist. And if that's in there, it makes sense for the other numbers to be in there as well - though if this one is dropped from the category for not belonging, I get that.

Nonetheless, I think, for the reasons I outlined above, this would be a way of helping users focus on what tags are the most important to tag, and would help them see when those tags are missing.

I haven't read the official site rules yet (the entire list), but I have learned of what is necessary before I made an account over-time. Isn't it required by the uploader to AT LEAST tag the minimum such as male/female/explicit/questionable/safe/ambiguous/etc?

I've seen so many posts where uploaders claim "I didn't have time" or "I'm new to the system so I don't know how" or "I can't edit tags on my mobile device"(which is actually false, you can).

All of these can easily be dealt with by spending at the most, 10 seconds to press the edit button and type in under 10 characters.

If you arn't smart enough to edit tags then how do you know how to upload a picture in the first place.
post #128386
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Spyrox17 said:
I haven't read the official site rules yet (the entire list), but I have learned of what is necessary before I made an account over-time. Isn't it required by the uploader to AT LEAST tag the minimum such as male/female/explicit/questionable/safe/ambiguous/etc?

I've seen so many posts where uploaders claim "I didn't have time" or "I'm new to the system so I don't know how" or "I can't edit tags on my mobile device"(which is actually false, you can).

All of these can easily be dealt with by spending at the most, 10 seconds to press the edit button and type in under 10 characters.

If you arn't smart enough to edit tags then how do you know how to upload a picture in the first place.
post #128386
:I

The rules say that there is a minimum of four tags required on an uploaded post, tagme excluded.

Anyhoo, you seem to think this is a matter of laziness, but I think you're wrong.

Let me modify my previous search a bit to demonstrate:

-ambiguous_gender -male -female -intersex -none_pictured tagcount:>30

These posts all have at least thirty tags, and yet they're missing basic gender / sex tags. There's over two thousand of them in that search right there - and thirty tags is a reasonably respectable number, isn't it?

Laziness plays a part, but I don't think trying to reduce it to the only factor - or even the main factor - is correct.

+1 more tag categories. For a category like number at least one of the following should be selected: zero_pictured, solo, duo, or group. Making it a separate category and making it mandatory (for example a radio button on the upload page) would prevent the 80,000 posts currently without any of these tags.

Spyrox17 said:
I haven't read the official site rules yet (the entire list), but I have learned of what is necessary before I made an account over-time. Isn't it required by the uploader to AT LEAST tag the minimum such as male/female/explicit/questionable/safe/ambiguous/etc?

I've seen so many posts where uploaders claim "I didn't have time" or "I'm new to the system so I don't know how" or "I can't edit tags on my mobile device"(which is actually false, you can).

All of these can easily be dealt with by spending at the most, 10 seconds to press the edit button and type in under 10 characters.

If you arn't smart enough to edit tags then how do you know how to upload a picture in the first place.
post #128386
:I

youd be surprised...

But to note as far as i know as of now those are just advisory, not a requirement. The only existing requirement(that is reportible) is that all uploads must be made with at least 4 tags or more.

Now to the OP i support the idea but were are you going draw the line of whats important and whats not. people are going draw different lines in that regard. I personally consider art styles and art medium as well as body part sizes(eg. huge breasts/small breasts) just as importent but obviously some people wont cart if the art is digital or traditional/ photorealistic, naturalistic or cartoony, minimalist. And mind you but i would like to see this concencus you speak of concerning the copyright tag considering most threads in the past couple months do seem to show the importance of the copyright tag existence for beloved franchises like pokemon, my_little_pony, legend_of_zelda or zootopia to name a couple. if anything i would adjust the copyright requirement for being only allowed on franchises and series, not for individual characters for the propose of searchibility

Is this real? Is it happening? Is that him?!!

Anyway, this has been brought up before. Go to the top of the page and a few posts below mine for the extent of the small exchange of ideas.

This thread needs endorsement or at least comment from e621 staff to properly get the ball rolling.

This would be helpful, I know it took some time for me to get used to tagging solo, duo, and group.

leomole said:
+1 more tag categories. For a category like number at least one of the following should be selected: zero_pictured, solo, duo, or group. Making it a separate category and making it mandatory (for example a radio button on the upload page) would prevent the 80,000 posts currently without any of these tags.

I don't think we should have too many categories or the importance of each seems diminished. That's why I'm suggesting a single new category here, not multiple. I'm not saying that other categories ought not be implemented, but I think each one should be carefully considered.

Ruku said:
Now to the OP i support the idea but were are you going draw the line of whats important and whats not. people are going draw different lines in that regard. I personally consider art styles and art medium as well as body part sizes(eg. huge breasts/small breasts) just as importent but obviously some people wont cart if the art is digital or traditional/ photorealistic, naturalistic or cartoony, minimalist.

Well, sex / gender is the determining characteristic for how people define their orientation, and the anthro / feral spectrum is the key component to what qualifies something as "furry" art or not.

If something were to be proposed to belong in this category, they ought to be of comparable importance to those. And that is a tough bar to reach. I don't think that argument could even start to be made for a lot of tags - body part size tags included. Art style is more about composition than understanding characters, so while I can see the argument being made for that being rather important (since this is an art site), it doesn't belong in a category of "Character Basics".

Clawdragons said:
The rules say that there is a minimum of four tags required on an uploaded post, tagme excluded.

Anyhoo, you seem to think this is a matter of laziness, but I think you're wrong.

Let me modify my previous search a bit to demonstrate:

-ambiguous_gender -male -female -intersex -none_pictured tagcount:>30

These posts all have at least thirty tags, and yet they're missing basic gender / sex tags. There's over two thousand of them in that search right there - and thirty tags is a reasonably respectable number, isn't it?

Laziness plays a part, but I don't think trying to reduce it to the only factor - or even the main factor - is correct.

You have a point. Since i'm assuming you've been on this site longer then I have, you probly have seen more posts then I have, but the amount that I've seen and payed attention to all amount to being lazy.

1) Sex / Gender: cuntboy, female, herm, [male]], etc.
-a) Gender Pairing: dickgirl/male, cuntboy/herm, ect.
2) "Furryness": anthro, feral, semi-anthro, etc.
-b) Furry Pairing: anthro_on_feral, human_on_anthro, etc.
3) Number: solo, duo, group, zero_pictured

So, your aim here is mainly to correct existing bad [inadequately tagged] posts?

I agree with your list of major important tags. I don't agree that a category is the way to do this.

a) it's hard to add categories, from admin accounts
b) this category wouldn't be well-defined, like the others
c) AFAICS there is a way to handle this situation via scripting/HTML only, that IMO would be both easier and more effective.

I'll outline my idea for c.

First, let's review the list:

1) Sex / Gender: cuntboy, female, herm, [male]], etc.
-a) Gender Pairing: dickgirl/male, cuntboy/herm, ect.
2) "Furryness": anthro, feral, semi-anthro, etc.
-b) Furry Pairing: anthro_on_feral, human_on_anthro, etc.
3) Number: solo, duo, group, zero_pictured

1 and 2 depend on 3. if 3 is zero_pictured, then neither 1 nor 2 are applicable.
1a and 2b (why b?) also depend on 3. If 3 is solo or zero_pictured, then neither 1a nor 2b are applicable.
For the sake of completeness, we should also say that 1a doesn't require 1 (because implication) and vice versa, and 2b doesn't require 2, and vice versa.

That defines the constraints of a form for entering this information:

• Initially, show a radiobutton solo|duo|group|zero_pictured. The default should not be zero_pictured, to place a slightly higher barrier to laziness. What it *should* be is down to discussion.
• If the radiobutton is set to something other than zero_pictured:
• ..And it's not solo, show a heading and a set of checkboxes/multiple selection list each for 1, 1a, 2, and 2b
• ..And it is 'solo', show a heading and a set of checkboxes/multiple selection list each for 1 and 2
• Ideally this section can be folded away after(and ONLY after) entering valid information, to add a little satisfaction :)
• Ideally, choosing items in 1a and 2b should update the state of 1 and 2 in accordance with implication (eg. 'anthro_on_feral' implies 'anthro' and 'feral'). Tags should not be automatically -removed- in this manner
• When 1a + 2b are visible, they probably need a scrollbar.
• Submission: The upload submission process would be slightly modified so that the selected tags were appended to the main tag list before submission. Incidental duplication of tags (eg. if 'anthro' was entered in tags list as well as in 1) should be harmless (admins correct me if I'm wrong here)
• Attempting to submit without core tags should give the user an error / warning
• Adding missing tags to an existing post:
• When a /post/12345 page is loaded by your browser, a script should check for missing tags and set a few variables indicating which categories are missing.
• If any categories are missing, add a clickable link next to Edit, in highlight color (red or green). Text something like "Add missing core tags"
• This link should show (in-page, probably) basically the same form as already described, with visibility determined by the variables set earlier.
• Submission of the form should work in the same manner described in the 'upload' case, except that if the user doesn't set any of the core tags, this should be accepted (we don't want to twist the editor's arm as hard as we do for uploaders ;)

Internal admin stuff:

• Don't know the precise details, but "user visible" tag names for the above should be cached from the database, and refreshed say once every 24 hours. An uptodate name should be ensured as long as aliases are processed during this lookup. Obviously this is not strictly necessary, but we shouldn't imply conflicting things about what tag names are canonical.

Visual layout of form:

• Probably horizontal. 1 1a 2 2a (with not-applicable columns taking up no space).

So basically, the above is an actual, reasonably well nailed down design for the 'wizard' idea that has been kicked around occasionally; I regard that as a more correct solution than a [the e621 notion of category]. For a basic implementation, it should be doable entirely via userscript. Admin access is only, AFAICS, needed in order to ensure it is kept up to date in an efficient manner (and of course, that it is available to all users without any special effort).

savageorange said:
So, your aim here is mainly to correct existing bad [inadequately tagged] posts?

I agree with your list of major important tags. I don't agree that a category is the way to do this.

a) it's hard to add categories, from admin accounts
b) this category wouldn't be well-defined, like the others
c) AFAICS there is a way to handle this situation via scripting/HTML only, that IMO would be both easier and more effective.

I'll outline my idea for c.

[snip]

To the first paragraph: Yup. To find a way to make it easier for users to know which tags are the most important to add, and to see when they are missing.

To the rest:

I'm not familiar with the technical aspects that would be required here, so I'm not going to comment on them. I will just say that in order for this to work, it would need to implemented for users by default. Making it easily accessible isn't sufficient. If your solution allows for that, then fine.

The numbers and letters were more for listing what would go in the category. I don't think they need to exist beyond this thread.

1a and 2b (why b?)

Would you believe that I noticed that I wrote b, and tried to change it to a? And yet clearly I failed - here we are with it still as b - and I even refer to it as b later.

Anyway, on the subject of things I missed, I also meant to mention the tag group [gender]_on_feral. Probably belongs up there as a combination of 1a and 2...a.

A userscript is really directly equivalent to a script that the site can run itself (like, for example, blacklisting is a script that e6 runs. All the stuff in e6extend could be added to e621 itself without particular effort, AFAIK).
The point of pointing out userscripts is that, if a feature is scripting-only, then admin privileges are not required to develop and test that feature, only to install the finished script so that it is part of the experience that all users have of the site.

I count having to do anything much as 'special effort' for users (it takes special effort to install e6extend, for example, even though it's easy to do so), so we are agreed about defaultness being necessary.

One oversight I made was the necessity to, for x_on_y or x/y, not just set the given base tag, but lock it (eg. you cannot untick 'anthro' or 'feral' while 'anthro_on_feral' is ticked). Not strictly necessary but would reduce confusion.

Yes, all use of 1/1a/2/2b was symbolic. I didn't intend to imply that they would actually be displayed, they just represent 'items in that category, possibly with a suitable 1-3 word heading'

{male,female,herm,etc}_on_feral .. I guess for easy understanding they would be best as an additional column, to the right of 2b, that only shows when 'feral' is selected.

I'm still not how savageorange's proposal would actually look in practice, but I'm curious if anyone else has any ideas or preferences on this. I do think something ought to be done to put a focus on the most important tags...

I'd consider the character count to be most vital. That, and the body types, because that'd clear up a lot of tags from general.

There's one benefit to keeping the categories narrow: you can search for posts with zero count.

The forms, for example. If there's one thing I've been noticing while tagging anthro_on_anthro, it's that many posts are still missing all form tags. Been stumbling into plenty of anthros and even ferals that hadn't been tagged at all yet.

Being able to search for 'formtags:0' would be useful in getting those tagged. But it becomes less useful if there's more stuff lumped in the same category.

'course, the problem with turning those into a category is that there's some overlap with species... Humanoid, for instance, is both a species tag for generic humanoids, and a form tag.

Genjar said:
I'd consider the character count to be most vital. That, and the body types, because that'd clear up a lot of tags from general.

There's one benefit to keeping the categories narrow: you can search for posts with zero count.

The forms, for example. If there's one thing I've been noticing while tagging anthro_on_anthro, it's that many posts are still missing all form tags. Been stumbling into plenty of anthros and even ferals that hadn't been tagged at all yet.

Being able to search for 'formtags:0' would be useful in getting those tagged. But it becomes less useful if there's more stuff lumped in the same category.

'course, the problem with turning those into a category is that there's some overlap with species... Humanoid, for instance, is both a species tag for generic humanoids, and a form tag.

By body-type, does that include sex / gender, or are you just talking about anthro / feral / etc? To me they both seem incredibly important (and yeah, character count too)... I'm just not sure if you're agreeing with my three major tags categories I suggested for this, or if you think the latter two are much more important than the first.