Ok, so right now we have a huge amount of redundant, overlapping, and confusing tags for tails that have a face or just a mouth on them.

None of these pages of a wiki entry, so the rules are nonexistant. Let's review:

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Tail_mouth, tailmouth_(species), and tail_maw: From what I can see, not any different from each other, but taggers use different terms for their stuff. Some posts have overlap of two of them.

The existence of "tailmouth_(species)" poses questions over whether tail mouths are species or body parts, so there's a possible point of discussion.

In my opinion, these three should be collapsed into one single tag, unless it can be deemed that there's a DEFINABLE difference between.

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Tail_head: Different from tail mouth/maw, this one has a whole face. This one is grossly undertagged, but I'd be more than willing to help out with that once we sort this out in thread.

Now the main question here is: when we have a tail head, is that ALSO a tail mouth? Or should we make a rule that "tail mouth" is required to have no eyes?

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Snake_tail: A type of tail head. Should be implicated.

Girafarig: Worth mentioning because they always have tail heads.

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Definitions to distinguish between tags should go into the wiki entries, obviously.

Discuss!

forum #232785

I do not see tail_mouths as a species in their own right but just as a anatomical feature.

As for tail_heads i tend to just see that as merged with tail_mouth, not a separate tag...

Ruku said:
forum #232785

I do not see tail_mouths as a species in their own right but just as a anatomical feature.

though there is an established species with distinguished features that is called as tailmouth

As for tail_heads i tend to just see that as merged with tail_mouth, not a separate tag...

I would have to disagree, personally. There's far more reason to make the distinction between head, and mouth (one has a face, one is just a mouth)

...than there is to have two separate things for tail maw and tail mouth. They're synonyms.

I could certainly see the heads being the own category, either with no overlap, or a subcategory. Look at the differences between Girafarig and tail-mawed fursonas, for example.

Ledian said:
distinguished features

could you please state what those are please.

I ask because they are tagged to dragons,felines, canines and any number of other species general and specific, with the only uniting feature being a mouth at the end of a tail.

Afterglow said:
I would have to disagree, personally. There's far more reason to make the distinction between head, and mouth (one has a face, one is just a mouth)

...than there is to have two separate things for tail maw and tail mouth. They're synonyms.

I could certainly see the heads being the own category, either with no overlap, or a subcategory. Look at the differences between Girafarig and tail-mawed fursonas, for example.

Didnt disagree with tail_head by the way was just a statement how i saw them so far, i could certainly see applied to snake_tail and girafarig...

As to tail maw and tail mouth, true they are synonyms but as found in the forum(s) i linked to parasprite and others have expressed the point that both are used for a different proposes and are not something that can be aliased.

Ruku said:
could you please state what those are please.

I ask because they are tagged to dragons,felines, canines and any number of other species general and specific, with the only uniting feature being a mouth at the end of a tail.

http://tailmouth.deviantart.com
its the way the tail mouth is drawn. also there is a lot of mistagging in the tag. they are supposed to be humanoids with tail mouth

Ledian said:
http://tailmouth.deviantart.com
its the way the tail mouth is drawn. also there is a lot of mistagging in the tag. they are supposed to be humanoids with tail mouth

well mistaging would be a understatement sense 0nly 5 out of over 80 submissions on the *_(species) tag are humanoid and the generic tailmouth that is only about 2/5th humanoid. How a mouth is drawn by the way is not something that should be a defining trait in regards to tagging on e621 in my opinion, every artist has a different styles in drawing a characters mouth, and artist styles are generally not something we tag on this site.

Ledian said:
http://tailmouth.deviantart.com
its the way the tail mouth is drawn. also there is a lot of mistagging in the tag. they are supposed to be humanoids with tail mouth

You think the Tailmouth_(species) was supposed to refer to the specific creatures we see in this DA?

Question: Is this a species created by this Deviant? Or something else

Afterglow said:
You think the Tailmouth_(species) was supposed to refer to the specific creatures we see in this DA?

That's why it's a species tag instead of a general tag, yes.

Ledian said:
http://tailmouth.deviantart.com
its the way the tail mouth is drawn. also there is a lot of mistagging in the tag. they are supposed to be humanoids with tail mouth

The tail is a parasitic species that can attach to anything and mimics the coloration of its host. They're rather distinct from generic 'mouths on tails': large oblong head, long tongue, usually lacks eyes, and the typical expression resembles a wry smile.

Genjar said:
That's why it's a species tag instead of a general tag, yes.

The tail is a parasitic species that can attach to anything and mimics the coloration of its host. They're rather distinct from generic 'mouths on tails': large oblong head, long tongue, usually lacks eyes, and the typical expression resembles a wry smile.

But THAT would imply that we're talking about the tail creature, and not the biped creature (seen on that DA). So it could really be any and every picture with a tail maw in it. And then we're back to the issue of Tailmouth_(species) and tail_mouth being indistinguishable.

Genjar said:
That's why it's a species tag instead of a general tag, yes.

The tail is a parasitic species that can attach to anything and mimics the coloration of its host. They're rather distinct from generic 'mouths on tails': large oblong head, long tongue, usually lacks eyes, and the typical expression resembles a wry smile.

wry smile is subjective, and the other traits you mention could equally apply to any other characters with "normal" mouths at the ends of their tails as well simultaneously.

Are there any images depicting tailmouths without a host or in the beginning process of taking a host? Just seems like too much twyk to be even remotely manageable. FA is no better ether, they are also applied to anything at all with a mouth at the end of a tail.

Afterglow said:
But THAT would imply that we're talking about the tail creature, and not the biped creature (seen on that DA).

Since they're treated as a single creature by our tagging standards, the species tag includes for both the tail and the host.

So it could really be any and every picture with a tail maw in it. And then we're back to the issue of Tailmouth_(species) and tail_mouth being indistinguishable.

I don't follow. Didn't I just say that they're visibly distinct from generic 'mouths on tails'?

The difference between these...
post #195976 post #524500 post #876648
and this...
post #534336
...is hardly indistinguishable.

Genjar said:
Since they're treated as a single creature by our tagging standards, the species tag includes for both the tail and the host.

I don't follow. Didn't I just say that they're visibly distinct from generic 'mouths on tails'?

The difference between these is hardly indistinguishable:
post #195976 post #524500 post #467606
and
post #534336

the traits you mention are not distinct genjar in addition of a wry smile being all but subjective, thats the problem...

And the counter example you gave is not a good one as it is a full head, not just a mouth u_u

Ruku said:
the traits you mention are not distinct genjar in addition of a wry smile being all but subjective, thats the problem...

I'll just have to disagree with that, since the species seems clearly distinct to me, and easy to distinguish from generic tail maws.

Genjar said:
Since they're treated as a single creature by our tagging standards, the species tag includes for both the tail and the host.

I don't follow. Didn't I just say that they're visibly distinct from generic 'mouths on tails'?

The difference between these...
post #195976 post #524500 post #876648
and this...
post #534336
...is hardly indistinguishable.

What if we compare the three above to four like this?

post #195977 post #1021445 post #885342 post #1113350
(these are not tagged with the species tag)

See how the line becomes fuzzier? When it's a tail with no face except the mouth, how can we tell if it's the parasitic species, OR, a character with a special mouthy tail built-in?

Afterglow said:
What if we compare the three above to four like this?

post #195977 post #1021445 post #885342 post #1113350
(these are not tagged with the species tag)

See how the line becomes fuzzier?

I don't.
First and fourth should have the tag, but the second and especially the third are of the wrong shape. Fourth one might not be intended as this species, but it looks like one and therefore should be tagged as such. Since we tag species by the appearance, not by source.

Genjar said:
I don't.
First and fourth should have the tag, but the second and especially the third are of the wrong shape. Fourth one might not be intended as this species, but it looks like one and therefore should be tagged as such. Since we tag species by the appearance, not by source.

I can agree on the 3rd which does seem to have distinct jaw bones almost akin to a snake_tail but disagree on the second, i see no difference between 1,2 and 4.

You refer to appearance but you are using information only avialible at the source in canon to distinguish between tailmouth and tailmouth_(species) that in visual appearance are not distinct.

Ruku said:
I can agree on the 3rd which does seem to have distinct jaw bones almost akin to a snake_tail but disagree on the second, i see no difference between 1,2 and 4.

The second has a misaligned lower jaw, and seems to have spikes of some kind. Neither of which are characteristic to this species, therefore I'd tag it as a generic mouth maw by twys. Even if it's intended to be a tailmouth.

You refer to appearance but you are using information only avialible at the source in canon to distinguish between tailmouth and tailmouth_(species) that in visual appearance are not distinct.

Which is the case with all fictional characters and species. You couldn't tag any of them without first seeing what they look like in the canon.

I suppose we could limit the tag to the ones that have this characteristic spiral smile...
post #195976 post #453254 post #673683 post #842624 post #876648 post #524500
...but in my opinion that'd exclude too many obvious tailmouths from the tag.

(Well the purple lady in bed, her tail has fangs instead of a curly smile, so I doubt it's the same beast)

Sorry Genjar, but I think Ruku is right. This needs to be distinguishable to a layman -- to any average tagger.

Would it be acceptable to have just one tag for tail mouths that is an umbrella for the symbiote and the non-symbiote and that's it? Do we need to get more specific than that for the purposes of e621 tags?

Actually, I'm curious, do people still upload the curly-mouth variety? Because if new posts aren't being produced, we wouldn't have to worry about anything but correcting retroactively, which would make this plan much more viable:

Genjar said:
I suppose we could limit the tag to the ones that have this characteristic spiral smile

Genjar said:.
Which is the case with all fictional characters and species. You couldn't tag any of them without first seeing what they look like.

And here we come back to distinction and the lack there of, if its not written in the source then there is no way to tell apart from any other random character that happens to have a mouth at the end of a tail. This problem is also expressed in other species tags like Cerberus(mythological being vs canine+multi_head) or Cyclops (mythological being vs human+1_eye+mutation)

PS: does a painting in a realistic style portraying a tailmouth suddenly stop portraying a tailmouth when the style is abstracted? Artist styles in regards to you mentioning misaligned jaws.

Afterglow said:
Actually, I'm curious, do people still upload the curly-mouth variety? Because if new posts aren't being produced, we wouldn't have to worry about anything but correcting retroactively, which would make this plan much more viable:

Dunno if any have been uploaded here, but they're definitely still being drawn. Found a few of them posted within the past two weeks on FA, including these: http://www.furaffinity.net/full/23716201/ and http://www.furaffinity.net/full/23788130/

http://tailmouth-love.deviantart.com/

It is a creature inspired by Capribebe on Furaffinity :icontailmouth: , who started a craze for them, they are distinct by its tail which contains a mouth often with formidable fangs another well used feature is the use of hair ears, though this isnt nessesary. Tailmouths also known as Mouthtails & Facetails can come in all sizes, shapes, genders and most importantly COLOURS.

http://tailmouth-love.deviantart.com/journal/OFFICIAL-RULES-FOR-TAILMOUTH-ADOPTABLES-219095277

first of all, ANYONE CAN MAKE A TAILMOUTH, you don't have to ask me or show me or anything if you don't want. You can change anything you want. It doesn't have to have hair-ears, you don't have to call it a tailmouth, it can be anthro, it can be anywhere on the human-furry scale, it can be a transgender velociraptor for all I care.

http://tailmouth.deviantart.com/journal/How-does-a-tailmouth-work-259645420

First off most of the mentioned traits are not actually mentioned by the original creator,second this species can quite literally be anything, the creator states so themselves and also explicitly encourages new owners to add their own twist to the tailmouth rather then keeping with a specific list of criteria. As such from a tagging standpoint tailmouths just arnt viable as a species

And http://nuclearvacuum.wikia.com/wiki/Tailmouth_naga ?

Ruku said:
As to tail maw and tail mouth, true they are synonyms but as found in the forum(s) i linked to parasprite and others have expressed the point that both are used for a different proposes and are not something that can be aliased.

What different purposes would those be? What makes a maw different from a mouth?

Take, for example, maw_shot. Automatically redirects to mouth_shot, as they're the same thing.

Afterglow said:
What different purposes would those be? What makes a maw different from a mouth?

Take, for example, maw_shot. Automatically redirects to mouth_shot, as they're the same thing.

Again you would do well to read what i linked to in my comments.

tl,dr:
"tail_mouth = specific, (jawed vertebrate type) mouth at the end of a tail, often includes a full head rather then just a mouth.

tail_maw = generic, any kind of opening at the end of the tail that can have some kind of esophagus/tube or can simply be a form of sheath or even pussy."

In detail:
forum #232785
forum #160088
forum #151932

Ruku said:
Again you would do well to read what i linked to in my comments.

tl,dr:
"tail_mouth = specific, (jawed vertebrate type) mouth at the end of a tail, often includes a full head rather then just a mouth.

tail_maw = generic, any kind of opening at the end of the tail that can have some kind of esophagus/tube or can simply be a form of sheath or even pussy."

In detail:
forum #232785
forum #160088
forum #151932

I can't see how the original forum thread is at all defensible, personally. One need only visit a few dictionary websites to find the maw does indeed mean mouth and jaws.

Afterglow said:
I can't see how the original forum thread is at all defensible, personally. One need only visit a few dictionary websites to find the maw does indeed mean mouth and jaws.

Not all tags on e621 are taken literally by the book but rather for what they are most tagged for and in some cases the widespread understanding of the words propose within the community.
Dictionaries are a guideline but not a absolute on e621.

Ruku said:
Not all tags on e621 are taken literally by the book but rather for what they are most tagged for and in some cases the widespread understanding of the words propose within the community.
Dictionaries are a guideline but not a absolute on e621.

See Parasprite's comment from your link of forum 151932.