I have a question that's been bugging me for quite some time and since I've taken a fair amount of interest in tagging, I believe I should ask for some quick clarification. When tagging Poképosts, should pokémon be tagged only by their canon name or should they also be tagged by what they resemble in the real world? Pardon me if this subject has been asked and answered before, but I notice that many posts vary on what tags are used. Some Poképosts tag the subject only by the pokémon's name like "Lucario", "Primarina", "Pikachu", etc. While others add the species that they're based on like "jackal", "seal", and "mouse", respectively. It's very confusing and mildly frustrating for me to decide which way is correct. Obviously, some pokémon, like Lickitung and Snorlax, defy categorization since they don't particularly resemble any known species. And yet, Vulpix almost always is tagged as a fox.

Also, while I'm on the subject, tagging pokémon by their species resemblance seems counterproductive in my opinion. Say I decide to search for posts containing "fox" and "anthro". 90% of the time, I'm not looking for pictures of Delphox, Braixen, Zoroark, and so on, so I have to either ignore those posts or filter them out with dashes in front. I could just enter "-pokémon" every time I want to do a search, but I only have six terms that I can look up at once, so doing so limits what I can look up at any given time. Granted, I could blacklist "pokémon", but there are times when I want to see Pokémon post, especially if I'm just browsing for nothing in particular. It just seems like a waste of time and effort from my perspective.

So, honestly, how does this work? Do we really tag what we see or should there be a limitation on that when dealing with special cases like Pokémon?

Shouldn't six terms be more than enough though?

My policy is that I generally don't use the specific, but the generic. I don't tag fox/dog/wolf, but I use "canine", I don't use "crocodile", but I will use scalie/reptile as appropriate and so on.

I'm given to understand that except for some humanoid ones (e.g. Machamp), "normal" pokemon forms should not be tagged or treated as anthro (o.e. for the purpose of X_on_anthro tags). This is poorly followed because everyone, me included, is all "how the hell is Lucario not anthro?!" but it results in things like post #968102 getting the bestiality tag and despite plenty of discussion, no solution has been agreed over.

That's why semi-anthro exists now (even though I originally created it for the smaller pokes like Squirtle or charmander), but is at best a kludge, because no one actually wants to add another series of X_on_X tags. And so the tagging problem remains widespread.

I've argued elsewhere and I say it again, bestiality is the root of all evil erm... of all these troubles about pokeon and anthro tags and it needs to go either by being renamed or just invalidated altogether.

I prefer not to use species terms for creatures that are not that species. Resemblance to a species doesn't mean they are that species.

In other words, if it's not a fox, don't tag it as one.

A long time ago, I remember being told that Pokemon shouldn't be tagged with any real life species, and since that time I've stopped doing that, like tagging Furret with ferret or Ninetales with fox. However it seems fine, as told before, to use a generic/broad species term like weasel? or canine, I just use them on more obvious cases like Lucario and Ninetales and not on too cartoony ones like Pikachu and Furret

Circeus said:
My policy is that I generally don't use the specific, but the generic. I don't tag fox/dog/wolf, but I use "canine", I don't use "crocodile", but I will use scalie/reptile as appropriate and so on.

Which is how they're supposed to be tagged.

There's just always some users who go on tagging sprees, and we don't have time to constantly clean those.

Circeus said:
I'm given to understand that except for some humanoid ones (e.g. Machamp), "normal" pokemon forms should not be tagged or treated as anthro (o.e. for the purpose of X_on_anthro tags). This is poorly followed because everyone, me included, is all "how the hell is Lucario not anthro?!"

That was ages ago. If it looks like an anthro, tag it as such. That includes Zoroark, Lucario, Braixen, Greninja, etc.

That Machamp evolution line is among the the hardest to tag. They're too borderline. Machop has a tail and could maybe pass off as an anthro lizard. Machoke sometimes also looks kind of reptilian. But Machamp is more human-like, more humanoid..

Let's see if I can present some examples:

Post 1062113 Tagged as "fox" and "canine" while featuring "fennekin" and "umbreon" and tagged as such.

Post 1077237 Tagged only as "primarina".

Post 609668 Tagged as "dog" as well as "growlithe".

Post 1078286 tagged as "togepi", "togekiss", and "togetic".

Those are just a few that I found in the span of a minute and a half. This sort of inconsistency is what confuses me. If we only tag pokémon by their assigned names (i.e. "Meowth") then the ones with specific species names should be fixed, right? That's what I seem to be getting from this thread. If that's true, then I would quite happily remove those tags on every post I come across. It would be time consuming, yes, but it's not like I have anything else going on.

Also, when it comes to the tags "anthro", "semi-anthro", and "feral" (not to mention "humanoid"), I don't mind those as much as long as it was consistent. The problem with being consistent on those sorts of tags is the subjectiveness of the tags themselves. What appears to be "anthro" to one person, may appear to be "semi-anthro" to another. I've always relied on my instinct on those cases.

UnusualParadox said:
Post 1078286 tagged as "togepi", "togekiss", and "togetic".

Oh hey, that's one of mine.

UnusualParadox said:
Those are just a few that I found in the span of a minute and a half. This sort of inconsistency is what confuses me. If we only tag pokémon by their assigned names (i.e. "Meowth") then the ones with specific species names should be fixed, right? That's what I seem to be getting from this thread. If that's true, then I would quite happily remove those tags on every post I come across. It would be time consuming, yes, but it's not like I have anything else going on.

Yes. The ones with dog, cat, fox, etc. should be fixed if a cat, dog, fox, etc. is not present.

UnusualParadox said:
If that's true, then I would quite happily remove those tags on every post I come across. It would be time consuming, yes, but it's not like I have anything else going on.

Sure, as long as you keep in mind that broad categories are okay to keep. Arcanine are canine, Zebstrika are equine, Mareep are caprine, etc. As for Primarina, the only other applicable species tag for them that I can think of is marine.

Also, when it comes to the tags "anthro", "semi-anthro", and "feral" (not to mention "humanoid"), I don't mind those as much as long as it was consistent. The problem with being consistent on those sorts of tags is the subjectiveness of the tags themselves. What appears to be "anthro" to one person, may appear to be "semi-anthro" to another. I've always relied on my instinct on those cases.

I've said it many times in the past, but that is why I think semi-anthro was a bad idea. I don't think we can ever get everyone to agree on what's the exact difference between anthro and semi-anthro, and three subjective categories (anthro, semi-anthro, feral) is harder to keep consistent than two.

Genjar said:
Sure, as long as you keep in mind that broad categories are okay to keep. Arcanine are canine, Blitzle are equine, Mareep are caprine, etc. As for Primarina, the only other applicable species tag for them that I can think of is marine.

Fair enough. "Scalie", "mammal", "marine", and tags like those don't particularly bother me since, technically, these are all true when used correctly. Plus, when you search for such a broad tag, one should expect to find a broad result. However, and this is mostly irrelevant, on "primarina" and it's evolutionary line, I keep finding the term "pinniped" used, which I suspect falls under the "canine" and "equine" spectrum. So I'm going to get rid of the specific species tags and keep the broader ones.

Genjar said:
I've said it many times in the past, but that is why I think semi-anthro was a bad idea. I don't think we can ever get everyone to agree on what's the exact difference between anthro and semi-anthro, and three subjective categories (anthro, semi-anthro, feral) is harder to keep consistent than two (anthro and feral).

Perhaps it could be defined like this:

Humanoid: Mostly human with one to three inhuman features (i.e. wings, horns, ears, claws, etc.) not necessarily based on real-life animals.

Anthro: Human-like posture and proportions with obvious animal features such as fur, scales, feathers, wings, horns, claws, fangs, etc.

Semi-Anthro: More animal-like than human-like. Lacking human proportions and posture. Pikachu would be fine example of a semi-anthro (stands on two legs, but lacks human thumbs).

Feral: Any creature that lacks any discernable human-like traits.

UnusualParadox said:
Fair enough. "Scalie", "mammal", "marine", and tags like those don't particularly bother me since, technically, these are all true when used correctly.

Well... By definition, mammals have mammary glands. Only one pokemon, Miltank, has those.

BlueDingo said:
Well... By definition, mammals have mammary glands. Only one pokemon, Miltank, has those.

Visibly, at least. Plus, (correct me if I'm wrong, but) tags like canine, feline, etc. automatically imply mammal since those groups are inherently mammals, and if they don't, they should.

UnusualParadox said:
Visibly, at least. Plus, (correct me if I'm wrong, but) tags like canine, feline, etc. automatically imply mammal since those groups are inherently mammals, and if they don't, they should.

For real animals, yes. Technically, pokémon are not animals. They often resemble animals, which is why some animal terms are being used on them, but they're actually monsters.

Genjar said:
Sure, as long as you keep in mind that broad categories are okay to keep. Arcanine are canine, Zebstrika are equine, Mareep are caprine, etc. As for Primarina, the only other applicable species tag for them that I can think of is marine.

The popplio, spheal and seel lines are pinnipeds.

BlueDingo said:
For real animals, yes. Technically, pokémon are not animals. They often resemble animals, which is why some animal terms are being used on them, but they're actually monsters.

True. But griffons are also mythical beasts (A.K.A. "monsters") yet tagging griffon automatically implies avian. If we tag pokémon by the groups they appear to belong to (i.e. canine for growlithe) then it only makes sense to call them mammals. You could make the argument that pokémon hatch from eggs and are, therefor, not mammals, but you'd be wrong because monotremes are a classifaction of mammals that lay eggs. It would be like saying "Pigeottos aren't avians because they're technically monsters rather than normal birds." Broad tags like that aren't the issue, it's how people are misinterpreting the "tag what you see" rule. They see a fox because they know "Vulpix" is the "fox pokémon". That's wrong. That falls under "tagging what you know".

UnusualParadox said:
You could make the argument that pokémon hatch from eggs and are, therefor, not mammals, but you'd be wrong because monotremes are a classifaction of mammals that lay eggs.

Actually, I wouldn't make that argument because the majority of animal groups lay eggs.

UnusualParadox said:
True. But griffons are also mythical beasts (A.K.A. "monsters") yet tagging griffon automatically implies avian.

Avian isn't an actual animal group. It's a term used here to basically mean anything vertebrate that flies, with most entries being birds, an actual animal group. This one is broad enough to cover things that aren't animals.

BlueDingo said:
Actually, I wouldn't make that argument because the majority of animal groups lay eggs.

So is the argument about whether pokémon have teats or not? A solid majority of questionable and explicit posts with pokémon have nipples, breasts, teats, or what-have-you while safe posts neglect those details for obvious reasons. I find your argument a bit hard to understand. Why is it okay to tag canine but not mammal?

BlueDingo said:
Avian isn't an actual animal group. It's a term used here to basically mean anything vertebrate that flies, with most entries being birds, an actual animal group.

And yet, pegasus doesn't imply avian, even though they're vertebres with wings.

UnusualParadox said:
So is the argument about whether pokémon have teats or not? A solid majority of questionable and explicit posts with pokémon have nipples, breasts, teats, or what-have-you while safe posts neglect those details for obvious reasons. I find your argument a bit hard to understand.

That's a side effect of anthropomorphising creatures, adding breasts to the female ones whether the species normally has them or not. This is why the non-mammal_breasts tag exists.

Why is it okay to tag canine but not mammal?

I didn't say it was or wasn't. All I said was most of them don't fit the definition of mammal. Whether they should be tagged as such is not up to me.

UnusualParadox said:
And yet, pegasus doesn't imply avian, even though they're vertebres with wings.

They're under equine because they're basically winged horses.

Pokemon posts should be tagged with their canonical species as well as any real-life species they resemble, in accordance with TWYS. post #832012 is a Ninetales and gets tagged as such. It's also clearly a fox so that gets tagged too. Pokemon often do not resemble any single real-life species, so they get broader tags like mustelid for post #898701.

Edit: Vindication! The current ruling (forum #254362) is

notmenotyou said:
If a <insert fictional species here> actually looks like <insert real world species here> it can be tagged as both <insert fictional species here> as well as <insert real world species here>.

leomole said:
Pokemon should be tagged with their canonical species as well as any real-life species they resemble, in accordance with TWYS. post #832012 is a Ninetales and gets tagged as such. It's also clearly a fox so that gets tagged too. Pokemon often do not resemble any single real-life species, so they get broader tags like mustelid for post #898701.

But then you run into OP's problem. Can't exclude all of them due to the six tag search limit, excluding pokémon would exclude all pokémon, blacklisting all of them is impractical as well.

BlueDingo said:
That's a side effect of anthropomorphising creatures, adding breasts to the female ones whether the species normally has them or not. This is why the non-mammal_breasts tag exists.

But not all of those are anthropomorphic. I've seen plenty of feral pokémon with normal mammary glands that one would expect on a creature of its type, like post 329685. Nipples, but no humanoid breasts. Non-mammal_breasts is supposed for creatures like reptiles, avians, and whatnot that don't inherently have breasts yet do for whatever reason.

BlueDingo said:
They're under equine because they're basically winged horses.

BlueDingo said:
Avian isn't an actual animal group. It's a term used here to basically mean anything vertebrate that flies, with most entries being birds, an actual animal group. This one is broad enough to cover things that aren't animals.

Error: invalid_logic.

leomole said:
Pokemon should be tagged with their canonical species as well as any real-life species they resemble, in accordance with TWYS. post #832012 is a Ninetales and gets tagged as such. It's also clearly a fox so that gets tagged too. Pokemon often do not resemble any single real-life species, so they get broader tags like mustelid for post #898701.

Genjar and the admins seem to disagree. They aren't "clearly a fox". You know that because a pokédex entry says it is. That's "tagging what you know". Take tagging an all female species like kangaskhan for example. There do exist male versions of those in porn and fan art despite being canonically all female in the pokémon universe. If we tagged based on outside information like that, the whole system falls apart. Therefor, if we see a kangaskhan with a penis rather than a vagina, they get tagged as male (not female, not crossgender, or anything like that).

I'm not trying to be an ass about this, I just can't find the logic you're using. I think I'll just leave it to the admins and janitors to decide. Genjar says that broad terms like those are fine and I'm happy with that answer. If you're not, you're free to take it up as a separate issue. I'm just here for whether vulpix deserves to be tagged as fox. The answer I got was no.

UnusualParadox said:
But not all of those are anthropomorphic. I've seen plenty of feral pokémon with normal mammary glands that one would expect on a creature of its type, like post 329685. Nipples, but no humanoid breasts. Non-mammal_breasts is supposed for creatures like reptiles, avians, and whatnot that don't inherently have breasts yet do for whatever reason.

That's more to do with the artists choosing to put those body parts on whether the creature is supposed to have them or not. All creatures that bear resemblance to real ones go through this at some point. They also eventually end up with horsecocks for some reason.

Error: invalid_logic.

Protip: "Basically" is a weasel word. I said avian consists of flying vertebrates. I didn't say all flying vertebrates fall into this category.

I think we're getting away from the main issue. Bottom line is: pokémon don't get tagged as real life animals, whether they remotely resemble one or not.

This is my crusade and I'll continue to work at it until I'm told to stop.

UnusualParadox said:
I think we're getting away from the main issue. Bottom line is: pokémon don't get tagged as real life animals, whether they remotely resemble one or not.

This is my crusade and I'll continue to work at it until I'm told to stop.

Go get 'em, tiger.

BlueDingo said:
Go get 'em, tiger.

Thank you. And, as I said, I didn't mean to come off as rude or confrontational, I just wanted to get a solid opinion on the matter. Have a glorious day/night/week/whatever to everyone who dropped in to give their two cents.

edit: p.forum #217234

UnusualParadox said:
[..]
So, honestly, how does this work? Do we really tag what we see or should there be a limitation on that when dealing with special cases like Pokémon?

Personally, I'd rather we not tag fictional species as non-fictional ones unless the resemblance is obvious

but then you get into what counts as obvious or not, and degrees of obviousness, and how that affects twys etc..

So until that's sorted out, the next simplest thing to do is tag what you see (which is what people do now, presumably) in the way @Circeus mentioned,

if the fictional species looks like an avian, tag it avian
if it looks like a canine, tag it with canine,
if it looks like a fish, fish
etc.

-----

Related: forum #193471 - Pokemon tagged as real species? (cat, fox, etc) (may 2016)

That's kind of what I was getting at. I've already been going through old pokémon posts tagged fox and removing that tag (as well as any others that specify a particular type of creature (like dog, dragon, cat, etc.)), unless that post had a non-pokémon character that was one of those species. That includes digimon (which I'll admit, seems a bit hypocritical, but I suggest tackling that another day). I just get tired of seeing pokémon everytime I look up any species like fox, dragon, dog, etc. And, as I mentioned before, I could blacklist pokémon, but doing so may cause problems for me when performing light browsing sessions or attempting to tag incoming posts. I've been lead to believe that specific species like fox should not be applied to pokémon because of all the reasons listed above. I'm keeping the overarching tags like canine, avian, insect, and so on, while removing the more specific ones. If I'm doing bad or wrong, please stop me before I get too carried away with it.

BlueDingo said:
OP's problem. Can't exclude all of them due to the six tag search limit, excluding pokémon would exclude all pokémon, blacklisting all of them is impractical as well.

The blacklist is for things you don't want to see, not things you sometimes want to see. If OP wants the tag limit raised, s/he should submit a feature request. I would +1 that. But this has no bearing on how posts should be tagged.

UnusualParadox said:
They aren't "clearly a fox".

They are. Please take a look at the example I gave. Look at the muzzle, ear and tail shape.

UnusualParadox said:
I just can't find the logic you're using.

I'm using TWYS.

UnusualParadox said:
I'm just here for whether vulpix deserves to be tagged as fox. The answer I got was no.

The answer you got is that Vulpix should not be auto-tagged as fox. This does not however mean that a Vulpix cannot be a fox.

UnusualParadox said:
I've already been going through old pokémon posts tagged fox and removing that tag

So please don't do this unless you're evaluating each one and asking yourself, "If I had no exposure to Pokemon, would I classify this as a fox?" You removed fox from post #28525, which is clearly and obviously a fox. Are you going to remove the fox tag from all Renamon posts too? Characters can be classified as more than one species you know.

leomole said:
They are. Please take a look at the example I gave. Look at the muzzle, ear and tail shape.

The answer you got is that Vulpix should not be auto-tagged as fox. This does not however mean that a Vulpix cannot be a fox.

So please don't do this unless you're evaluating each one and asking yourself, "If I had no exposure to Pokemon, would I classify this as a fox?" You removed fox from post #28525, which is clearly and obviously a fox. Are you going to remove the fox tag from all Renamon posts too? Characters can be classified as more than one species you know.

1. So? Canine, yes, maybe. Fox? Perhaps, if that's what you want to interpret it.

2. Vulpix is the species name. A fox is a real world animal. Very different. Vulpix can spit fire. Normal foxes cannot. Vulpix has many tails, foxes do not except when severely mutated.

3. Here's my reasoning: On my blacklist, I have only six terms that I do not want to see under any circumstances: vore, hyper, hyper_penis, hyper_breasts, gore, and diaper. Everything else is generally fine and I want to be able to tag those images as they come in. Blacklisting pokémon would be an issue for me, since I don't want to fap to pokémon everytime I browse for fox, cat, or bird (for example), but I still want to see those pictures tumble in through the Posts tab so I can help tag them.

4. So, the way I see it, is the pokémon should be tagged by their species name (like lucario), their group (canine), and finally the broadest term of all (mammal). A vast majority of the lucario posts I've seen already do this, and that's perfect. Lucario is clearly a jackal in facial construction, yet everyone seems content to just call it a canid and call it a day. Basically, what I'm getting at is that a pokémon name should replace the specific species. Vulpix instead of fox, that way all pokémon posts are uniform when tagging. There's a reason (as explained above) furret is no longer tagged ferret despite "obvious" similarities. It can be tagged mustelid, but not ferret.

5. As for Digimon, I mentioned earlier that I'm leaving those at the moment because I'm focusing on pokémon. It's hypocritical at best, yes, but I can only do so much. Also, the janitors explained that it's been a rule, but can't easily be enforced due to the sheer amount of submissions made with those tags.

Circeus said:
My policy is that I generally don't use the specific, but the generic. I don't tag fox/dog/wolf, but I use "canine", I don't use "crocodile", but I will use scalie/reptile as appropriate and so on.

Genjar said:
Which is how they're supposed to be tagged.

There's just always some users who go on tagging sprees, and we don't have time to constantly clean those.

UnusualParadox said:
On my blacklist, I have only six terms that I do not want to see under any circumstances: vore, hyper, hyper_penis, hyper_breasts, gore, and diaper.

hyper_penis and hyper_breasts both imply hyper, so you don't need them on your blacklist.

UnusualParadox said:
5. As for Digimon, I mentioned earlier that I'm leaving those at the moment because I'm focusing on pokémon. It's hypocritical at best, yes, but I can only do so much. Also, the janitors explained that it's been a rule, but can't easily be enforced due to the sheer amount of submissions made with those tags.

It's not hypocritical to takes things one step at a time.

BlueDingo said:
hyper_penis and hyper_breasts both imply hyper, so you don't need them on your blacklist.

Didn't know that, but I still prefer to be safe.

UnusualParadox said:
So? Canine, yes, maybe. Fox? Perhaps, if that's what you want to interpret it.

It's a fox. If the post were tagged by someone who had never heard of Pokemon, it would be tagged with fox. Again, note specifically the characteristic tail and ear shape.

UnusualParadox said:
Vulpix is the species name. A fox is a real world animal. Very different. Vulpix can spit fire. Normal foxes cannot. Vulpix has many tails, foxes do not except when severely mutated.

Foxes should be tagged as foxes, even if they have multiple tails and can summon fire. In fact, this particular combination is quite common as the mythological kitsune. Consider post #13697, post #78354, post #132598, post #274496, post #1051866, etc.

UnusualParadox said:
Blacklisting pokémon would be an issue for me, since I don't want to fap to pokémon

Again, your viewing preferences have no bearing on how tagging is done.

UnusualParadox said:
a pokémon name should replace the specific species. Vulpix instead of fox

No, you should tag what you see. If you see a fox, tag fox. If it has multiple tails, tag multiple_tails. If there's fire, tag fire. If it's a Ninetales, tag ninetales.

leomole said:
It's a fox. If the post were tagged by someone who had never heard of Pokemon, it would be tagged with fox. Again, note specifically the characteristic tail and ear shape.

Foxes should be tagged as foxes, even if they have multiple tails and can summon fire. In fact, this particular combination is quite common as the mythological kitsune. Consider post #13697, post #78354, post #132598, post #274496, post #1051866, etc.

Again, your viewing preferences have no bearing on how tagging is done.

No, you should tag what you see. If you see a fox, tag fox. If it has multiple tails, tag multiple_tails. If there's fire, tag fire. If it's a Ninetales, tag ninetales.

post #1057794

I see a crocodile. I should tag crocodile.

BlueDingo said:
post #1057794

I see a crocodile. I should tag crocodile.

I see an alligator, and it is tagged alligator. But, here is a source telling you the difference.

Siral_Exan said:
I see an alligator, and it is tagged alligator. But, here is a source telling you the difference.

I know that. It was meant to be a test for leomole.

@leomole

Dude. Seriously. Enough is enough. Another forum thread back in May of this year determined the same thing I did. You can tag feline, pinniped, rodent, canine, lagomorph, etc. But NOT more specific species like fox, jackal, mouse, seal, rabbit, etc. because they are fictitious creatures distinct from real animals.

Your argument practically says "oh, hey, brionne looks like a seal, so I'm just gonna tag it seal." No. Tag it pinniped and brionne and move on with your miserable life.

And for the last time, no vulpix and ninetails do not inherently resemble a fox. Assuming I was a complete idiot and had been living under a rock for the last 20 years, with absolutely no prior knowledge of pokémon, I would not say that vulpix looks like a fox. I'd say canid, yes, but that's it. On the same note, I would say scalie for charizard but not dragon.

[All of this was wrong because I failed at reading.]

NotMeNotYou said:
Pokemon, and any sort of fandom created character, should be tagged as closely to rl animals as is reasonable.
A vulpix or ninetales does have enough traits that resemble a fox, so it should get that tag. A lucario on the other hand shouldn't get the jackal tag because it's not close enough to actual jackals, but it does resemble a canid so it gets that tag.

The import part here is that this needs to work for more than just Pokemon, under UnusualParadox' logic there wouldn't be any anthro mouse characters tagged as mouse because those simply don't exist in real life. This is impractical for searching because people expect those to show up under mouse. The same goes for Pokemon.

Then what about the posts that contain pokémon like meowth, vulpix, and popplio that constantly vary between tagging just the pokémon species and tagging both the pokémon species and its supposed real-life "equivalent"? Should I tag them as cat, fox, and seal respectively just because they resemble these creatures? And then you've got stranger ones like honedge, klefki, and exeggutor that resemble a sword, keychain, and tree. Do those get the same treatment? My suggestion is that the pokémon name replaces their real-life "equivalent".

Edit: Okay, f*** it, then. I give up. I'll just blacklist pokémon and focus on other tasks. Although it wouldn't have hurt to drop in earlier, ya know. Have a fine day.

Edit to the previous Edit: I rescind my statement about giving up. I'll resume my mission under the title "Paradox's Second Crusade". Also, while I've got it in mind, about NotMeNotYou second paragraph, if I remember correctly TWYS works for anthro or other fictitious characters to be tagged as mouse or what-have-you as long as there is no conflicting evidence. What I mean is, posts containing anthro characters can be tagged mouse and such because the artist says so, it looks like a mouse albeit with humanoid proportions, and most importantly there's no conflicting evidence to suggest otherwise. So I guess that about sums it up. I'll also be sure to reference this forum thread in PMs to other taggers should they argue when I remove certain tags, add other ones, or if I happen to notice them adding tags like fox, seal, dog, et cetera repeatedly on numerous posts. Let's keep e621 great!

It's mildy entertaining for me to watch how many different ways folks tend to tag the eeveelutions considering they are supposed to take traits from several different species. Vaporeon for example tends to get tagged with canine and sometimes scalie, when it is not drawn as such. Umbreon is based off the Moon Rabbit but tends to be tagged with canine a lot when it isn't drawn in such a way. Espeon is probably the easiest to tag since it doesn't appear to take traits from other things.

I understand if they are drawn in a particular style that makes them look like one IRL species, but the whole gimmik is that they are a mish-mash of things.

UnusualParadox said:
vulpix and ninetails do not inherently resemble a fox.

I think you're approaching this issue the wrong way. It's not about what a Pokemon species "inherently resembles," it's about what a character looks like in a particular post.

UnusualParadox said:
what about the posts that contain pokémon like meowth, vulpix, and popplio that constantly vary? Should I tag them as cat, fox, and seal respectively just because they resemble these creatures?

If a character strongly resembles a species then tag it as that species. If it doesn't then don't. That's TWYS. This applies to real-life species like cat and dog and also fictional species like alien and renamon. And again, sometimes characters resemble more than one species.

So, it appears I made a mistake.

The current status for species tagging on pokemon is to only go down as far as family, not to specific species.
In effect, this means Pikachu gets rodent but not mouse, vulpix gets canine but not fox, etc. etc.

I apologize for any confusion this has caused.

NotMeNotYou said:
So, it appears I made a mistake.

The current status for species tagging on pokemon is to only go down as far as family, not to specific species.
In effect, this means Pikachu gets rodent but not mouse, vulpix gets canine but not fox, etc. etc.

I apologize for any confusion this has caused.

Oh, and here I thought we'd changed how we were handling it.

In that case I'm sorry everyone for misinterpreting TWYS and causing confusion.

So post #28525 is not a fox? post #289320?

And if mons aren't supposed to have a species tag, do we need to retag all 3300 results for solo renamon fox?

leomole said:
So post #28525 is not a fox?

That's right.

NotMeNotYou said:
I apologize for any confusion this has caused.

No worries, mate. We all make mistakes every now and then.

What about hybrid posts like post #1083957 ?

'fish'?

titanmelon said:
What about hybrid posts like post #1083957 ?

'fish'?

No. Not fish, doesn't even remotely look like one. It can have fish_tail though, perhaps even scalie or marine, but not fish. Posts like post #949280 will keep tags like horse because the artist purposely made the art to resemble that animal as closely as possible. Basically, keep it generic, if possible, unless it might be worthy of the realistic tag.

That is how I understand it and continue to understand the rules.

UnusualParadox said:
No. Not fish, doesn't even remotely look like one. It can have fish_tail though, perhaps even scalie or marine, but not fish. Posts like post #949280 will keep tags like horse because the artist purposely made the art to resemble that animal as closely as possible. Basically, keep it generic, if possible, unless it might be worthy of the realistic tag.

That is how I understand it and continue to understand the rules.

Vaporeon doesn't have scales. Its not even confirmed in any canon if its skin vs fur, but its most likely similar to dolphin skin.

Honestly all of the eeveelutions should be tagged with only mammal unless they are drawn like a canine or feline.

rysyN said:
Vaporeon doesn't have scales. Its not even confirmed in any canon if its skin vs fur, but its most likely similar to dolphin skin.

Honestly all of the eeveelutions should be tagged with only mammal unless they are drawn like a canine or feline.

I did say maybe. If vapereon is depicted underwater, then by all accounts it should be tagged marine since it already has fins and a fish_tail. As for scalie, it might get that if the vaporeon is depicted with scales, which I have seen before just not often. Point is, vaporeon doesn't get the fish tag, even though it has a few traits similar to fish.

NotMeNotYou said:
The current status for species tagging on pokemon is to only go down as far as family, not to specific species.
In effect, this means Pikachu gets rodent but not mouse, vulpix gets canine but not fox, etc. etc.

So, if I understood, pokémon should be tagged: pokémon's name + related taxon/taxa above genus (if exists) + complements (if needed).

Examples:

• donphan + elephant (family elephantidae) + ∅.
• pyukumuku + sea_cucumber (class holuthuroida) + ∅.
• goodra + gastropod¹ (class gastropoda) + dragon.
• caterpie + caterpillar (larval form of the order lepidoptera) + ∅.
• torterra + turtle (order chelonii) + flora_fauna and tree.
• ditto + ∅ + goo_creature.
• cryogonal + ∅ + mineral_fauna, ice and snowflake.
• toxapex + starfish (class asteroida) and sea_urchin ( group that encompass multiple orders inside the class echinoidea) + hybrid.
• roserade + ∅ + humanoid, not_furry, flora_fauna and flower.

Notes:

• 1) "slug" and "snail" are really dificult to position, since both encompass multiple taxa of different levels.

O16 said:
So, if I understood, pokémon should be tagged: pokémon's name + related taxon/taxa above genus (if exists) + complements (if needed).

Examples:

• donphan + elephant (family elephantidae) + ∅.
• pyukumuku + sea_cucumber (class holuthuroida) + ∅.
• goodra + gastropod¹ (class gastropoda) + dragon.
• caterpie + caterpillar (larval form of the order lepidoptera) + ∅.
• torterra + turtle (order chelonii) + flora_fauna and tree.
• ditto + ∅ + goo_creature.
• cryogonal + ∅ + mineral_fauna, ice and snowflake.
• toxapex + starfish (class asteroida) and sea_urchin ( group that encompass multiple orders inside the class echinoidea) + hybrid.
• roserade + ∅ + humanoid, not_furry, flora_fauna and flower.

Notes:

• 1) "slug" and "snail" are really dificult to position, since both encompass multiple taxa of different levels.

Sounds about right. Of course, there are certain outliers that may still be tagged as certain species. Titanmelon provided a few examples and I also found one. As for goodra, I don't think it should get the dragon tag because it doesn't really look like one. When I first told that goodra was a dragon type, I refused to believe it. Charizard and dragonite at least look vaguely like dragons, but even they don't quite make the cut, if I'm understanding it right. After all, if goodra gets tagged as dragon then so should dragonair, dratini, and gyarados, since the first two are called dragon-type and the latter one is based on the Chinese water dragon. Everything else seems right to me. And we're still unsure about pokémon like snorlax and lickitung, I believe. Some pokémon are going to defy categorization because they're a mish-mash of various species.

Perhaps someone should make a definitive list of what each pokémon receives automatically in terms of broad tags and genus/family types. I could do it and have the admins and community review it, make corrections, adjustments, and suggestions. In fact, I think that might be the best solution. Afterwards, we could have approved pokémon automatically imply certain species tags like lucario implies canine and mammal. I may be overthinking it and getting too ambitious. But the point of this thread/discussion is to help create a firm decision on how critters like pokémon should be tagged, right?

P.S. Feel free to point out any errors in logic or misinformed opinions I might have.

O16 said:
So, if I understood, pokémon should be tagged: pokémon's name + related taxon/taxa above genus (if exists) + complements (if needed).

Pretty much.
There are quite a few less obvious species, though. Absol, for example, has been tagged as various animals in the past. Including dog, cat, wolf, even goat. If it's not obvious at a glance, the taxon should be left completely untagged.

Genjar said:
Pretty much.
There are quite a few less obvious species, though. Absol, for example, has been tagged as various animals in the past. Including dog, cat, wolf, even goat. In such cases it's best to leave the taxon completely untagged.

Well, we could at least tag it as mammal. It does have fur, looks vaguely like a canine or feline, and, in a significant amount of posts, breasts and/or a navel; all of which are traditional mammalian traits (although not all mammals have fur).

Here's an example of what I have in mind for a definitive list of how to make a concise guide on tagging pokémon. It's a very early design and needs work, but I figure I should at least showcase what my brain is capable of producing in about 30 minutes.

So, I have a few things to clarify for those curious. I'll list them below.

1. In my plan, I'll personally list every known pokémon by generation and have collapsible sections for each generation within a collapsible section for pokémon by number (in that national pokédex). So it would look like this:

I could also make it so each pokémon has their own collapsible section to reduce clutter and make it easier to read, however, I worry that there might be too many sections if I do that. Thoughts?

2. The next form of organizing would be by kingdom, class, and family. It might look something like this, although I'll probably miss a lot of them since I'm writing this on the fly.

You'll notice it's not filled out because I haven't gotten that far yet. But it gives a rough idea of what it would entail.

Note: I haven't finished yet, because it's getting late and I'm tired. However, what are the thoughts on it? It may take weeks or even months to complete and that's only for what I specifically have in mind. Of course, I could be wasting everyone's time with this. I'm just wondering how it might fare and if anyone else is interested in helping.

I really like the idea of tagging them by generation. Definitely support that!

There has been a voice of disagreement on this before, on tagging generations of Pokemon.

Siral_Exan said:
There has been a voice of disagreement on this before, on tagging generations of Pokemon.

I'm not talking about tagging generations, though, I'm just using the generations to organize the pokémon. The purpose of my outline would be to list what pokémon should be tagged by and then what they may tagged by under certain circumstances, when it comes to species (which is what this thread is about). I started with bulbasaur. It should always be tagged with bulbasaur and flora_fauna. Only specific posts would take that classification deeper such as reptile and/or scalie. Is that clearer?

UnusualParadox said:
Is that clearer?

I wasn't meaning that to *specifically* you, as you were specific enough. WolfTacos, on the other hand, sounded identical to the forum thread. But that is not the blame game, since I won't assume that's what they meant; I just clarified something that'd been touched up on already.

I think the first order of business would be to just clean up the current wiki entries. Quite a few of them are simply copied from Bulbapedia. Such as the old entry for Absol: Absol (Japanese: アブソル Absol) is a mammal and a Dark-type Pokémon that resembles a wolf or goat.

Absol: wolf or goat... Can't blame users for tagging them as such if it's in the wiki. I was planning to remove such references, but never got further than letter A. There's always too much other work.

I didn't realize it had been brought up before and that there were arguments against it. Looked at the other thread, thank you for the link!

Just personally, I would like the ability to filter by generation, but now I recognize that there are downsides.

Siral_Exan said:
I wasn't meaning that to *specifically* you, as you were specific enough. WolfTacos, on the other hand, sounded identical to the forum thread.

Oh, I jumped to conclusions then. I'm still new at this tagging game. Sorry about that.

Genjar said:
I think the first order of business would be to just clean up the current wiki entries. Quite a few of them are simply copied from Bulbapedia. Such as the old entry for Absol: Absol (Japanese: アブソル Absol) is a mammal and a Dark-type Pokémon that resembles a wolf or goat.

Absol: wolf or goat... Can't blame users for tagging them as such if it's in the wiki. I was planning to remove such references, but never got further than letter A. There's always too much other work.

I would do it, but I know little to nothing about writing quality wiki articles, even on this site. That being said... does Bulbapedia really claim that absol looks like both a canine and goat? Wow. That's very odd. Absol should probably be described as a "pokémon from the third generation video games, typically covered in white fur with a blue face and known for its distinct crescent-shaped horn. Its shiny variety also possess thick, white fur but its face appears red instead. See also: shiny_pokémon" Or something along those lines, with example images for each type (a normal absol, a shiny absol, and an anthrofied absol).

I must say, this turning out to be a much bigger project than I originally thought it would be. That's fine of course, because I asked the question and offered to help.

UnusualParadox said:
Oh, I jumped to conclusions then. I'm still new at this tagging game. Sorry about that.

Not a problem.

I would do it, but I know little to nothing about writing quality wiki articles, even on this site. That being said... does Bulbapedia really claim that absol looks like both a canine and goat? Wow. That's very odd. Absol should probably be described as a "pokémon from the third generation video games, typically covered in white fur with a blue face and known for its distinct crescent-shaped horn. Its shiny variety also possess thick, white fur but its face appears red instead. See also: shiny_pokémon" Or something along those lines, with example images for each type (a normal absol, a shiny absol, and an anthrofied absol).

I must say, this turning out to be a much bigger project than I originally thought it would be. That's fine of course, because I asked the question and offered to help.

It can be relatively easy, but not so easy to execute. Use Dtext, try to include relevant information, and keep irrelevant (to e621, an example is counting the # of pikachu seen in the series) to a minimum.

However, @Genjar, do you think the Pokemon wiki pages need an overhaul? I noticed lucario's wiki page, and it is not that useful for tagging. I suggest:

All examples with lucario is not specific to them, it is to demonstrate how a wiki page could be organized in comparison.

Siral_Exan said:
However, @Genjar, do you think the Pokemon wiki pages need an overhaul? I noticed lucario's wiki page, and it is not that useful for tagging. I suggest:

Pokemon name

• basic description with thumbnails to the OA of the Pokemon, the shiny variant, and commonly used description tags (like spikes with lucario)
• lore description, including the link to bulbapedia
• irrelevant information, again kept at a minimum, IE people who've caught lucario in the show
• family the Pokemon is in, IE riolu, lucario, mega lucario

All examples with lucario is not specific to them, it is to demonstrate how a wiki page could be organized in comparison.

Yeah, that Lucario entry is nearly useless.
But while a complete overhaul would be useful, there's over 800 Pokemon. Plus the alternate forms. That'd be quite a project.

I'd consider the first bullet point to be the most important one. Thumbnail, description of the appearance (including shinies), related tags... Wiki is mainly intended to be used as a tagging tool, so outside information is not of high priority. Though it wouldn't hurt to include some things such as the national pokedex number and the type(s), I suppose. Maybe breeding groups, those might be of interest to some users.

The main pokémon entry already includes the list for easy reference, but it's missing the latest generation.

Siral_Exan said:
I suggest:

Pokemon name

• basic description with thumbnails to the OA of the Pokemon, the shiny variant, and commonly used description tags (like spikes with lucario)
• lore description, including the link to bulbapedia
• irrelevant information, again kept at a minimum, IE people who've caught lucario in the show
• family the Pokemon is in, IE riolu, lucario, mega lucario

All examples with lucario is not specific to them, it is to demonstrate how a wiki page could be organized in comparison.

So I more-or-less described the first one, but for the second, I'm not sure what you mean by lore. Do you mean pokédex entries, at least, one of them?

BTW, here's a wiki article I made on this site. It's bare bones at best.

The lore point is to point out what we do not tag, like gender ratios, region, list of moves, and stuff that follow suit.

It'd be a long project, but it is not going to be hard. Even with just basic information, it shouldn't take you an obscene amount of time, or digging through the dark side of the Internet. And, to be frank, I'd probably be the one who'll do it purely because I hate shifting through shiny_* and the Pokemon name to find out what the shiny Pokemon looks like.

Pretty sure "taxon" was the do not tag bit: caterpie is an arthrpod, not a caterpillar, for example.

Furrin_Gok said:
[...] caterpillar is an arthrpod, not a caterpillar [...]

You wanted to say "caterpie", don't you?

O16 said:
You wanted to say "caterpie", don't you?

Yes. Phones.

Furrin_Gok said:
Pretty sure "taxon" was the do not tag bit: caterpie is an arthrpod, not a caterpillar, for example.

Caterpie is a caterpillar because this term is used to the young members of the order lepidoptera.

Taxonomic levels with those that should be used for pokémon highlighted:

Domain > Kingdom > Phylum > Class > Order > Family > Genus > Species

O16 said:
Caterpie is a caterpillar because this term is used to the young members of the order lepidoptera.

Taxonomic levels with those that should be used for pokémon highlighted:

Domain > Kingdom > Phylum > Class > Order > Family > Genus > Species

Caterpillar is as specific as you can get about any caterpillar though.

Quick question,

are pocket monsters pokemon considered monsters for tagging purposes?

pokemon -monster -human has 80 000+ posts

titanmelon said:
Quick question,

are pocket monsters pokemon considered monsters for tagging purposes?

pokemon -monster -human has 80 000+ posts

Not to sound rude, but did you read the monster wiki? I think it contains your answer.

monster solo ~humanoid ~anthro has about 1500+ posts or so

titanmelon said:
Quick question,

are pocket monsters pokemon considered monsters for tagging purposes?

pokemon -monster -human has 80 000+ posts

I wouldn't think so. Siral Exan's reply makes sense. But it should be case-by-case, just like tagging pokémon by certain species. It shouldn't apply everywhere, but there may be exceptions depending on how the pokémon are presented in the image.

Post 918927 should only be tagged as yungoos, because it has more in common with pokémon than with normal animals.

Post 919763 should be tagged mongoose because it looks more like one of those and is only vaguely comparable to yungoos.

Post 1065141 shouldn't be tagged monster because it appears more like a common animal and is true to its original design.

Post 1000235 should be tagged monster, because it is intentionally designed to induce fear or unease in viewers.

Another example of a non-monstrous pokémon is post 1086388 which is just a standard gardevoir. That's the opinion have on the matter anyways.

I have a question. Should the broad species tags like marine, avian, scalie and flora_fauna have applicable pokémon species implicated to them?

As much as I am against tagging animal-specific group terms for things that aren't technically animals, the more generic terms can apply to anything that fits their definition, animal or otherwise.

Examples:

• sharpedo I-> marine
• moltres I-> avian
• gabite I-> scalie
• bellossom I-> flora_fauna

BlueDingo said:
I have a question. Should the broad species tags like marine, avian, scalie and flora_fauna have applicable pokémon species implicated to them?

As much as I am against tagging animal-specific group terms for things that aren't technically animals, the more generic terms can apply to anything that fits their definition, animal or otherwise.

Examples:

• sharpedo I-> marine
• moltres I-> avian
• gabite I-> scalie
• bellossom I-> flora_fauna

Yes, we've already established that. It can also be taken one step further with family groups like canine, feline, rodent, etc. As for scalie, I'm hesitant to apply it unless the pokémon has visible scales present in each image, but perhaps I'm using the scalie tag wrong. The only thing to avoid are the specific species names like fox, cat, mouse, and so on.