E621 does not use accurate taxonomy. This is intentional. While the argument can be made that accurate taxonomy could be a better systems, that's not what I'm trying to get at with this topic.

Instead, I just wanted to create a broad topic wherein any deviations from understood taxonomy could be discussed, so that we have a record of all the ways that we knowingly deviate from taxonomic classification. The idea being that future discussions of species implications and aliases can be easily checked against previous discussions...

Group 1: Implications we know are wrong and keep anyway.

Mosasaurus -> Dinosaur
Ichtyosaurus -> Dinosaur
Pliesiosaurus -> Dinosaur
Liopleurodon -> Dinosaur
Pteranodon -> Dinosaur

Group 2: Implications we know are right but ignore.

Human -> Ape
Ape -> Monkey (yes, really)
Bird -> Dinosaur
Snake -> Lizard
Dog -> Wolf
Dolphin -> Whale

Group 3: Mythological and Furry-Specific Supergroups.

Avian
Includes birds and mythological feathered creatures.
Scalie
Includes reptiles, amphibians (?) scaled dragons, and scaled dinosaurs.
Pokemon
Pokemon are not given species-level categorizations.

Group 4: Things we don't want to deal with.

Reptile
Reptile as a classification is a huge mess that we probably don't want to get into.
Fish
See above.
Ungulate
Aliased to mammal - would be useful as a classification for hooved animals, except that it would also include whales.

Group 5: Things I'm not sure on.

Panther -> Feline
These are sister clades - Panthers are not felines. The group which includes both panthers and felines is Felidae, members of which are called felids.
Saber-Toothed_Cat -> Feline
As above, they are felids, but not felines.
Tick -> Arachnid
Ticks are arachnids, though this implication doesn't exist. An oversight, perhaps? Or just too small to bother with.
Mammoth -> Mammal
As above, no implications for this. Might be worth considering. Mammoths and elephants both belong to proboscidea, but ain't nobody ever gunna search that.

---

Again, it seemed useful to categorize all this together. If you've got anything to add, or any other oddities to question, I'll try to keep this updated.

Clawdragons said:

Snake -> Lizard
Dog -> Wolf

Not at all.

I) snakes belong to a specific group inside the order squamata (clade serpentes), anything else inside this order is either a lizard or limbless lizard (both polyphyletic denominations).

II) some do consider dog a subspecies of wolf, but many consider it an apart species due to influence on artificial selection (which is "faster" than the natural selection).

Clawdragons said:

Panther -> Feline
These are sister clades - Panthers are not felines. The group which includes both panthers and felines is Felidae, members of which are called felids.
Saber-Toothed_Cat -> Feline
As above, they are felids, but not felines.

The terms 'feline' and 'felid' are vulgarly treated as synonyms, but the former is just more popular; that is why we use 'feline' as a tag for the felidae family.

Clawdragons said:
Tick -> Arachnid
Ticks are arachnids, though this implication doesn't exist. An oversight, perhaps? Or just too small to bother with.

Implication already suggested at forum #218675 along with many other implications for arthropods.

Clawdragons said:
Mammoth -> Mammal
As above, no implications for this. Might be worth considering. Mammoths and elephants both belong to proboscidea, but ain't nobody ever gunna search that.

The creation of a tag for elephantids (group less broad than proboscids, but that ultimately works in the same way regarding e621) was "suggested" at forum #224237, forum #224238, forum #224239 and also discussed at forum #235011.

Clawdragons said:
Human -> Ape

I was going to go through the whole "we just come from the same ancestor" deal, but after a lot of digging. And I mean a lot. From both sides. Turns out we are.

Though, to be fair, we do go by TWYS, and while we see something that is technically an ape when we look at a human, we register it as something else.

As for the thing with mammals, I thought it was just any species that would, ignoring what the Internet does to them for a moment, have breasts and nipples. Isn't that why we have a tag for non-mammals that have breasts and/or nipples?

cat -> hippo

I still find it weird that Pokemon are not TWYS, and are instead barred from having the correct species tag (forum #216888). Are Digimon similarly restricted?

Should [color=character]Milftails[/color] get tagged as a Ninetales but never as a fox?
Should [color=character]Haley_(NightFaux)[/color]) get tagged as a Renamon but never as a fox?
Should [color=character]Laura_(Twokinds)[/color]) get tagged as a Keidran but never as a fox?
Should [color=character]Ajani_Goldmane[/color] get tagged as a Leonin but never as a lion?
Should [color=character]Alt[/color] get tagged as a Worgen but never as a werewolf?

O16 said:
I) snakes belong to a specific group inside the order squamata (clade serpentes), anything else inside this order is either a lizard or limbless lizard (both polyphyletic denominations).

II) some do consider dog a subspecies of wolf, but many consider it an apart species due to influence on artificial selection (which is "faster" than the natural selection).

Polyphyletic categorizations are not considered valid in cladistics. Neither are paraphyletic ones. It is not possible to define "lizard" such that it is neither of those, and yet still includes everything recognized as a lizard, without also including snakes.

It doesn't matter whether you consider it a subspecies or a separate species. Dogs descended from wolves, and it is not possible to evolve out of one's ancestry. That means that they are still wolves, in the same sense as they are still canids, caniforms, mammals, chordates, and animals. To suggest otherwise would create a paraphyletic grouping, which are not valid.

kamimatsu said:
As for the thing with mammals, I thought it was just any species that would, ignoring what the Internet does to them for a moment, have breasts and nipples. Isn't that why we have a tag for non-mammals that have breasts and/or nipples?

Mammals are chordates with hair, mammary glands, a neocortex, and maybe some other traits too. However, it's a bit more complicated than that... Fundamentally, from a cladistic view of things, a mammal could most accurately, but least helpfully, be described as any creature which was born of a mammal. That is, fundamentally it is a matter of ancestry.

A creature could have every single trait associated with mammals, and yet not be a mammal, if it were, say, some sort of oddly similar alien. Likewise, an organism could lose every trait associated with mammals, but as long as it has a mammal somewhere in its evolutionary history, it would still be a mammal.

leomole said:
I still find it weird that Pokemon are not TWYS, and are instead barred from having the correct species tag (forum #216888). Are Digimon similarly restricted?

Should Milftails get tagged as a Ninetales but never as a fox?
Should Haley_(NightFaux) get tagged as a Renamon but never as a fox?
Should Laura_(Twokinds) get tagged as a Keidran but never as a fox?
Should Ajani_Goldmane get tagged as a Leonin but never as a lion?
Should Alt get tagged as a Worgen but never as a werewolf?

Do you want me to answer you? I've put this argument into practice, and believe it or not the answer is very similar (almost eerily) to another that others agreed with...

But it's also long winded and quite possibly over-the-top, and I don't feel like causing something I can't stop. So, do you want me to answer you?

Please do. The only argument I've heard in favor of the Pokemon exception to TWYS is that one guy doesn't like Ninetales showing up when he's browsing fox posts. titanmelon pointed out that a fictional/real species distinction could be useful but also recognized that many fictional species (like Ninetales or Leonin) clearly resemble real species and should usually be tagged as such under TWYS.

UnusualParadox argued that Vulpix can breathe fire so clearly it should never be tagged as a fox. I trust I don't have to explain why that's stupid. He's also going to remove the fox tag from all Renamon posts. Then BlueDingo suggested implicating fictional species tags to real species tags and I just left the thread since apparently we have given up all pretense of following the TWYS policy.

leomole said:
Please do. The only argument I've heard in favor of the Pokemon exception to TWYS is that one guy doesn't like Ninetales showing up when he's browsing fox posts. titanmelon pointed out that a fictional/real species distinction could be useful but also recognized that many fictional species (like Ninetales or Leonin) clearly resemble real species and should usually be tagged as such under TWYS.

UnusualParadox argued that Vulpix can breathe fire so clearly it should never be tagged as a fox. I trust I don't have to explain why that's stupid. He's also going to remove the fox tag from all Renamon posts. Then BlueDingo suggested implicating fictional species tags to real species tags and I just left the thread since apparently we have given up all pretense of following the TWYS policy.

Sounds like someone is still butthurt that he lost an argument. Just to clarify the admins made the ruling long before I asked the question, they just couldn't enforce it due to sheer amount of posts submitted on a daily basis that were mistagged. My issue wasn't that pokemon got tagged as fox, cat, or whatever. My issue was that it was very inconsistent. Some meowth posts were tagged cat, but others weren't. For realistic looking pokémon (as opposed to the more cartoony versions), I left the appropriate animal tag or even added it.

P.S. FYI, Ninetails resembles a kitsune, which is a mythological creature based on the real-life fox. But there is a distinction between a kitsune and fox, just like there's a distinction between a unicorn and a horse.

leomole said:
Please do. The only argument I've heard in favor of the Pokemon exception to TWYS is that one guy doesn't like Ninetales showing up when he's browsing fox posts. titanmelon pointed out that a fictional/real species distinction could be useful but also recognized that many fictional species (like Ninetales or Leonin) clearly resemble real species and should usually be tagged as such under TWYS.

UnusualParadox argued that Vulpix can breathe fire so clearly it should never be tagged as a fox. I trust I don't have to explain why that's stupid. He's also going to remove the fox tag from all Renamon posts. Then BlueDingo suggested implicating fictional species tags to real species tags and I just left the thread since apparently we have given up all pretense of following the TWYS policy.

Since I have a spare moment: my internet is choppy at best, and I haven't been able to much on site (and across everywhere else). Give me some time so I can continue fixing this, and then I'll type my argument out.

UnusualParadox said:
Sounds like someone is still butthurt that he lost an argument.

I'm not angry, I just think this ruling should be changed.

UnusualParadox said:
P.S. FYI, Ninetails resembles a kitsune, which is a mythological creature based on the real-life fox. But there is a distinction between a kitsune and fox, just like there's a distinction between a unicorn and a horse.

FYI, there is no distinction between kitsune and fox for our tagging purposes. Did you just ... not read anything I posted in the last thread? This is literally one of the points I made.

UnusualParadox said:
Just to clarify the admins made the ruling long before I asked the question

For easy convenience, could you link to the original post where the admins made the ruling?

Clawdragons said:
Polyphyletic categorizations are not considered valid in cladistics. Neither are paraphyletic ones.

That is how it is supposed to work, but still, biology accepts multiple taxa that are known to be paraphyletic or polyphyletic (e.g. polychaeta, crustacea etc.).

Clawdragons said:
It is not possible to define "lizard" such that it is neither of those, and yet still includes everything recognized as a lizard, without also including snakes.

To be clear, I know that there is no taxon specifically for lizards, that is why I said "polyphyletic denomination", and this "denomination" is more popular than biological (like 'slug' or 'wasp'). Can be considered a "lizard" anything inside the order squamata that is neither a snake (clade serpents) nor a limbless lizard, hence snakes aren't lizards.

Clawdragons said:
It doesn't matter whether you consider it a subspecies or a separate species. Dogs descended from wolves, and it is not possible to evolve out of one's ancestry. That means that they are still wolves, in the same sense as they are still canids, caniforms, mammals, chordates, and animals. To suggest otherwise would create a paraphyletic grouping, which are not valid.

I guess I understand what you mean, but it isn't right.
In biology, cladogenesis happens when a common ancestor diverges originating two new clades, and that is exactly what happened to wolves and dogs.
There was the ancestor of modern wolves and dogs, a wolf; when the mentioned divergence happened group_A was subjected to natural selection, in contrast, group_B was subjected to artificial selection; both lineages accumulated new characteristics, however the characteristics that group_A accumulated were infinitesimal, in such a way it is still composed by wolves, however group_B (due to the speed of artificial selection) accumulated enough to be considered a new species, dog.

Dogs and wolves are both memners of the genus Canis, however are distinct in such way dogs aren't wolves and vice versa.

leomole said:

Should [color=character]Milftails[/color] get tagged as a Ninetales but never as a fox?

The last decision was to use species tag above genus, so it should be tagged as 'fox' (unamed informal group within family canidae that encompasses multiple genera).

leomole said:
FYI, there is no distinction between kitsune and fox for our tagging purposes. Did you just ... not read anything I posted in the last thread? This is literally one of the points I made.

I'm aware of the alias kitsune -> fox, although the reasoning given is "kitsune means fox in Japanese". This is a moot point. My unicorn ≠ horse example remains valid though. A unicorn is certainly equine in nature, but not a horse (despite being little more than a horse with a horn). The point here is fictional species such as unicorns, dragons, etc. should supersede and replace comparable species in real life. They can still belong to the same class (such as canine, equine, scalie, etc.) by sharing a set of similar characteristics, but aren't necessarily the same species.

I could argue this all day, but frankly I don't have the patience to waste my time with that. Let's see what Siral_Exan has to say.

Ok, before I start (as I'm still relatively busy), why not just take what is given? Pokémon, Digimon, and etc., can be tagged up to vagues, like Canine, Feline, Snake, Rodent, and others? This is honestly a real good occurrence, so why not just take it?

I say again, I'm still busy. Expect me to start actually making arguments at 10PM PST, or in 1 hour.

Strikerman said:
For easy convenience, could you link to the original post where the admins made the ruling?

https://e621.net/forum/show/217234

This is where I heard about the ruling. Where it was initially discussed, I don't know. Also, keep in mind I'm using my phone for this. Digging through individual forum posts seems like a lot of work without a working desktop.

Siral_Exan said:
why not just take what is given? Pokémon, Digimon, and etc., can be tagged up to vagues, like Canine, Feline, Snake, Rodent, and others?

The fewer exceptions to TWYS the better. The site policy should be consistent and simple to understand. This is also important for future proofing.

Let's say a new user uploads something like post #1097342. Should they really be expected to know that it's the fictional species Leonin and not a lion? Of course not. They're going to tag it as a lion. And that's why we have the TWYS policy!

Let's say a new user wants to find a picture of a nine tailed fox. They search for solo fox multiple_tails and get 2500 results. Only later do they realize that there are another 700 pictures of solo foxes with multiple tails, but because they're Vulpix or Ninetales they didn't show up. They are, understandably, annoyed and confused.

Strikerman said:
For easy convenience, could you link to the original post where the admins made the ruling?

It was forum #193471.

leomole said:
I still find it weird that Pokemon are not TWYS, and are instead barred from having the correct species tag (forum #216888).

I can look at a pokemon such as braixen or lucario and instantly recognize them as Pokemon, instead of a real animal such as fennec or jackal. So how is that not TWYS?

We don't tag species by resemblance. For instance, sergals may resemble sharks, but they should not be tagged as such. Same principle applies to all fictional species.

Genjar said:
I can look at a pokemon such as braixen or lucario and instantly recognize them as Pokemon, instead of a real animal such as fennec or jackal. So how is that not TWYS?

You're using outside information. A naive observer would call post #28525 a fox for example. When you look at post #1097342 what do you see? If you lack outside information, you call it a lion and not its actual fictional species. That's TWYS.

Genjar said:
We don't tag species by resemblance. For instance, sergals may resemble sharks, but they should not be tagged as such. Same principle applies to all fictional species.

Sergals don't usually look enough like sharks to warrant tagging them as such. Consider instead the displacer beast, a fictional species that often ALSO gets a real species tag, panther. For obvious reasons. Or would you have us remove the panther tag from post #1259949?

leomole said:
Let's say a new user wants to find a picture of a nine tailed fox. They search for solo fox multiple_tails and get 2500 results. Only later do they realize that there are another 700 pictures of foxes with multiple tails, but because they're Vulpix or Ninetales they didn't show up. They are, understandably, annoyed and confused.

What about pokémon such as eevee? Is eevee a dog, cat, fox, or something else? An argument can be made for any one of the "species" tags I suggested. That's where your system gets confusing and leads to pointless arguments like this one, only in the comments instead of the forums.

And then you've got argonians, that resemble lizards on a superficial level, yet possess gills that allow them to breath underwater. Last I checked, reptiles don't possess gills (visible or not).

UnusualParadox said:
What about pokémon such as eevee? Is eevee a dog, cat, fox, or something else?

They're supposed to be cabbits, according to their creator. The resemblance can be seen in the official art: rabbit-like ears, muzzle, etc.

Trying to tag Pokemon 'by twys' was a complete mess. Typhlosion, for instance, was spread all over various tags such as weasel, badger, bear, etc. Some of those aren't even in the same family. So we got tired of constantly having to sort them, and decided that they should just be tagged as Pokemon. A lot of tagging decisions are made based on how it affects the workload.

UnusualParadox said:
What about pokémon such as eevee? That's where your system gets confusing.

It's not that confusing, just tag what you see (and don't tag what you don't see). In most Eevee pics there's no identifying anatomy to pin it down as a particular species, so it gets the canine tag. It will show up in searches for canines along with other unidentifiable canines like post #482834, post #639988, post #841853, etc. It's hardly unprecedented.

UnusualParadox said:
And then you've got argonians, that resemble lizards on a superficial level, yet possess gills that allow them to breath underwater.

A cat with wings is still a cat (post #285024, post #400042, post #1013920). Even if it's another species as well. Even if it's a fictional species.

Generalization of this basic principle is left as an exercise for the reader.

Genjar said:
Trying to tag Pokemon 'by twys' was a complete mess. Typhlosion, for instance, was spread all over various tags such as weasel, badger, bear, etc. Some of those aren't even in the same family. So we got tired of constantly having to sort them, and decided that they should just be tagged as Pokemon.

I don't think that's a good solution. An artist could conceivably draw a Typhlosion that looks just like a badger. And in that case it should be tagged as such. The average user searching for badgers will want to see anthro badgers, purple badgers, and yes, even badgers on fire.

Yes, most Pokemon should not get species tags, but a few Pokemon are functionally identical to real species and should be tagged as such.

Genjar said:
A lot of tagging decisions are made based on how it affects the workload.

New users are going to keep tagging their Ninetales uploads as foxes, I guarantee it. This doesn't fix the workload problem.

leomole said:
It's not that confusing, just tag what you see (and don't tag what you don't see). In most Eevee pics there's no identifying anatomy to pin it down as a particular species, so it gets the canine tag. It will show up in searches for canines along with other unidentifiable canines like post #482834, post #639988, post #841853, etc. It's hardly unprecedented.

So, if your fine with leaving those cases with family tags rather than species tags, then why are you fighting so much against keeping tagging that simple? The more this goes on, the more it seems you're just arguing for the sake of arguing.

The current system produces relevant results without pointless arguing in the comments. Because eevee is just one example of species ambiguity. There's rattata, zangoose, every "eeveelution" ever, and so on that can be debated on for species similarities and inspirations.

leomole said:
A cat with wings is still a cat (post #285024, post #400042, post #1013920). Even if it's another species as well. Even if it's a fictional species.

Generalization of this principle is left as an exercise for the reader.

So, a pegasus should be tagged as a horse since it's "just a horse with wings"?

Genjar said:
They're supposed to be cabbits, according to their creator. The resemblance can be seen in the official art: rabbit-like ears, muzzle, etc.

Trying to tag Pokemon 'by twys' was a complete mess. Typhlosion, for instance, was spread all over various tags such as weasel, badger, bear, etc. Some of those aren't even in the same family. So we got tired of constantly having to sort them, and decided that they should just be tagged as Pokemon. A lot of tagging decisions are made based on how it affects the workload.

Agreed. There are still some exceptions, as follows:

post #1255835 post #949280 post #308271

These make their species similarities obvious and apparent.

UnusualParadox said:
So, if your fine with leaving those cases with family tags rather than species tags, then why are you fighting so much against keeping tagging that simple?

I'm arguing against the current ruling which disallows those few Pokemon that should get real species tags from being tagged as such.

UnusualParadox said:
The more this goes on, the more it seems you're just arguing for the sake of arguing.

I am arguing passionately, rationally, and (mostly) amicably for a ruling that I think will better e6 and hopefully prevent a terrible move, one that you describe yourself doing (forum #216927), the removal of the fox tag from hundreds of Ninetales posts and thousands of Renamon posts.

It would be very easy for someone to, right now, go remove that tag from all 3,424 solo Renamon fox posts. I could do it in an hour. It would be perfectly in line with the current rules. And I think that would be a mistake on par with the one that got GameManiac demoted and created a huge amount of work for the mods. That's my concern. Please don't assume I'm just arguing for the sake of arguing. I care about this site, and your dismissal of my concern is insulting.

UnusualParadox said:
So, a pegasus should be tagged as a horse since it's "just a horse with wings"?

A horse with wings is still a horse (post #270954, post #739532, post #786476). Even if it's a pegasus as well.

leomole said:
Let's say a new user wants to find a picture of a nine tailed fox. They search for solo fox multiple_tails and get 2500 results. Only later do they realize that there are another 700 pictures of solo foxes with multiple tails, but because they're Vulpix or Ninetales they didn't show up. They are, understandably, annoyed and confused.

Let's see if I have your basic argument straight. Are you saying if one thing bears enough resemblance to another thing, it should be tagged as both?

leomole said:
I am arguing passionately, rationally, and (mostly) amicably for a ruling that I think will better e6 and hopefully prevent a terrible move, one that you describe yourself doing (forum #216927), the removal of the fox tag from hundreds of Ninetales posts and thousands of Renamon posts.

I never removed a fox tag from any renamon posts, mostly because I was preoccupied with pokémon. I did mention how it seems hypocritical to say pokémon can't be tagged by species (except in very limited circumstances) while digimon got a free pass.

I went into the subject unbiased, just wanting an answer on what should be the rule of thumb regarding pokémon posts. Once I got my answer, from NotMeNotYou no less, I chose my side. There are countless examples of pokémon that defy simple classification, so deciding a few species can ignore that rule does an immense disservice to the rest.

Tagging pokémon by a larger group such as canine, rodent, bird, scalie, marine, and so on should be enough without making assumptions. Your argument seems to suggest that because a casual observer unfamiliar with the subject should get preferential treatment with tags, instead of the logical conclusion that in some cases the fictional species should replace the slight similarity to a real creature.

Also, apologies if I offended you, but you had your chance to argue about this back on the forum I started. Instead, you've chosen to unbury the hatchet here to revive an argument i wouldve preferred to leave behind. The policy against tagging pokémon as real species has already taken some ground. It's been a while since I've seen a real species tagged on my posts with just pokémon. In most cases, simply telling new or inexperienced users that we don't tag specific species like fox or seal but keep more generic tags like canine and pinniped via PM is enough to correct that behavior.

leomole said:
The average user searching for badgers will want to see anthro badgers, purple badgers, and yes, even badgers on fire.

No, they didn't. That was one of the major complaints about the old system: animal tags were getting flooded with pokemon, and users had to jump through hoops to find what they're looking for. By adding -pokemon to the search, which had the downside of also excluding all posts where the said animal is paired with a pokemon.

When someone searches for badger, they expect to see badgers. Not some yellow vaguely mustelid creatures that are on fire and which are only tagged as badger because bulbapedia says that that's what they're based on.

Allowing pokemon to be tagged as real species resulted in massive amount of twys violations, and numerous cases of mass-tagging where someone (for instance) tagged every single image of Lucario as jackal. Trust me, the current system requires far less work.

Genjar said:
No, they weren't. That was one of the major complaints about the old system: animal tags were getting flooded with pokemon, and users had to jump through hoops to find what they're looking for.

When someone searches for badger, they expect to see badgers. Not some yellow vaguely mustelid creatures that are on fire, and are only tagged as badger because bulbapedia says that they're supposed to be based on badgers.

Allowing pokemon to be tagged as real species resulted in massive amount of twys violations, and numerous cases of mass-tagging where someone (for instance) tagged every single image of Lucario as jackal. Trust me, the current system requires far less work.

Pretty much what I've said in the past: thing resembles something =/= thing is something. Just because vulpix and renamon were designed to resemble foxes, that doesn't mean they actually are foxes.

Clawdragons said:

Reptile
Reptile as a classification is a huge mess that we probably don't want to get into.
Ungulate
Aliased to mammal - would be useful as a classification for hooved animals, except that it would also include whales.
Panther -> Feline
These are sister clades - Panthers are not felines. The group which includes both panthers and felines is Felidae, members of which are called felids.
Saber-Toothed_Cat -> Feline
As above, they are felids, but not felines.

Ffs. E621 is a porn site an image board, not an online taxonomy guide. E621 deals with fictional creatures, depicted by artists who rarely give a flying f about biology, logic or common sense. It's choke full of birds with dicks, snakes with boobs, well anything with boobs really, sharks with legs, dragons, pokemons, body part that just don't belong there, color that don't happen in real life and that's not even counting the stuff I have blacklisted.

Tag feline for anything that looks cat-like. Tag ungulate for anything hooved because that's what the word means. Make distinction between dolphin and whale if they get depicted so that the distinction is justified. Think of search requests, not of biology.

Taxonomy is all about tagging what you know, even if it goes against what you see. Taxonomists go great length to ensure TWYS does not get in their way because looks are confusing in the nature. E6 is the opposite.

Also of note, the branch of knowledge that makes distinction between felines and felids has got definitions for male and female that are incompatible with the way E6 uses these terms.

Sincerely, people; I don't want to sound impolite or anything, but we should continue this pokémon discussion at forum #216888, otherwise this thread will become completely burried in it, and really fast.

Directed to:

• UnusualParadox
• leomole
• BlueDingo
• Genjar
• Anyone interested.

Edit: I also have some arguments regarding this subject, however would prefer to start them at the aforementioned thread. Does Everyone agree? (I will consider ≥ 6 hours of silence as a 'yes')

O16 said:
Sincerely, people; I don't want to sound impolite or anything, but we should continue this pokémon discussion at forum #216888, otherwise this thread will become completely burried in it, and really fast.

Directed to:

• UnusualParadox
• leomole
• BlueDingo
• Genjar
• Anyone interested.

Edit: I also have some arguments regarding this subject, however would prefer to start them at the aforementioned thread. Does Everyone agree? (I will consider six or more hours of silence as a 'yes')

No, I agree. I believe bringing this back up would've been more appropriate at the thread dedicated to it.

UnusualParadox said:
No, I agree. I believe bringing this back up would've been more appropriate at the thread dedicated to it.

Ok then.

Clawdragons said:
Dog -> Wolf

1. If this were approved, how would you exclude wolves from images of dogs? dog -wolf would return nothing, and the wolves wouldn't have a tag dedicated to them once other species imply wolf.
2. I doubt anyone would ever call either of these a wolf.
3. Dingoes are closer to wolves than dogs are.

BlueDingo said:
1. If this were approved, how would you exclude wolves from images of dogs? dog -wolf would return nothing, and the wolves wouldn't have a tag dedicated to them once other species imply wolf.
2. I doubt anyone would ever call either of these a wolf.
3. Dingoes are closer to wolves than dogs are.

I think you've misunderstood.

That is part of the "implications we know are right but ignore". To put it another way, taxonomially speaking, that would be a valid implication, but we don't want it to be implied, so we don't.

You seem to think I'm proposing this as an implication, but what I'm saying is quite the opposite.

Your second point is a good illustration of precisely why it is in the "technically valid but we don't care" category.

Your third point is just false. Dogs are wolves. It is not possible to be closer to a wolf than a dog is, for the same reason that it is not possible to be closer to a mammal than a porpoise is, or closer to a bird than a chicken is.

hslugs said:
Ffs. E621 is a porn site an image board, not an online taxonomy guide. E621 deals with fictional creatures, depicted by artists who rarely give a flying f about biology, logic or common sense. It's choke full of birds with dicks, snakes with boobs, well anything with boobs really, sharks with legs, dragons, pokemons, body part that just don't belong there, color that don't happen in real life and that's not even counting the stuff I have blacklisted.

Tag feline for anything that looks cat-like. Tag ungulate for anything hooved because that's what the word means. Make distinction between dolphin and whale if they get depicted so that the distinction is justified. Think of search requests, not of biology.

Taxonomy is all about tagging what you know, even if it goes against what you see. Taxonomists go great length to ensure TWYS does not get in their way because looks are confusing in the nature. E6 is the opposite.

It sounds like you're trying to disagree with me, but what you said is more or less in agreement with what I said, so I'm confused.

Are you just trying to clarify my original point, or do you think what I'm saying is in conflict with what you're saying?

Clawdragons said:
Are you just trying to clarify my original point, or do you think what I'm saying is in conflict with what you're saying?

Reacting to arguments I got tied of seeing in other threads. Yeah it was a bit too harsh for this thread.
Clarification on what I think should be done about the points raised:

Group 4: Things we don't want to deal with.
reptile, fish, ungulate — all four tags are correct and should be used on par with the furry-specific supergroups. In particular I think ungulate alias should be deleted, it's a useful tag on its own. Arguments appealing to scientific taxonomy should be ignored as invalid.

Group 5: Things I'm not sure on.
panther, saber-toothed_cat as well as felid(7) should be implied to feline, which should be treated like ungulate and the furry-specific supergroups. Taxonomical arguments should be ignored.

tick should not imply arachnid. Instead, I'd argue that arachnid should get invalidated in favor of more specific spider, scorpion and tick, or something less specific like arthropod or even insectoid. Regardless of taxonomy, spiders, scorpions and ticks aren't really a group in art, just three independent kinds of creatures.

Group 2: Implications we know are right but ignore.
None of those should be implied, or even considered for implication.
They aren't "right" for tagging purposes, neither is the appeal to scientific taxonomy.

hslugs said:
Group 2: Implications we know are right but ignore.
None of those should be implied, or even considered for implication.
They aren't "right" for tagging purposes, neither is the appeal to scientific taxonomy.

I maybe ought to have named that group better, because that's precisely what it means for something to be in that group. It might be correct from a taxonomic perspective, but we ignore it because it is unhelpful for searching. Seems like that intent was not gotten across very well with that title.