Topic: Micro on Macro Tag

Posted under Tag/Wiki Projects and Questions

So, Micro on Macro, understandably, automatically applies both the Micro and Macro tags. But in practice, it seems this usually causes Micro to be applied in situations where it's, by definition, inaccurate:

In these posts, the smaller character is roughly human sized based on the surroundings, but were automatically tagged with Micro:

post #1327531 post #1327544

I don't frequently browse Macro, so I don't how much it leads to issues there, but with Micro I have to constantly fix tags. The problem might seem... small, but the Macro fetish and the Micro fetish are about two very different things.

Micro on Macro also seems kind of redundant when we already have Size Difference. I do understand that people might want to search for pairings with very large differences in size, so I'm not suggesting that Micro on Macro be removed or anything. I'm just wanting to point out the issue, mostly, and maybe see if anyone has any ideas to fix it. I'm not super well-versed when it comes to Wiki-style database stuff like this.

Updated by cereal catslut

define human sized based on surroundings, the lugia could always be the one that is actually human sized while the lucario is actually residing on a penny sized world. micro and macro are tied to each other because we can only assign the disparity between the 2 sizes we cannot assign a average human size, not to mention from the perspective of a macro a standard real life human would appear as a micro while they see themselves as a regular size, so in terms of characters micro cannot exist without macro and vice versa.

Updated by anonymous

Darou said:
define human sized based on surroundings, the lugia could always be the one that is actually human sized while the lucario is actually residing on a penny sized world.

We tag based on the context of a picture, so if the surroundings are all much larger than a character, that would be micro. If the character is much larger than the surroundings, that would be macro. It's true that there are situations like you've mentioned:

post #1199701

...but these require context outside of the picture itself, which goes against the whole idea of "tag what you see."

Darou said:
we cannot assign a average human size, not to mention from the perspective of a macro a standard real life human would appear as a micro while they see themselves as a regular size, so in terms of characters micro cannot exist without macro and vice versa.

I wouldn't have brought up basing these tags on the size of an average human if the wiki didn't already specifically mention that micro should be tagged based on the size of an average human. It does say that a character doesn't have to be macro to get the micro_on_macro tag, which makes it even weirder that both micro and macro are automatically tagged with it. I think the micro_on_macro tag is misleading.

Also, Micro characters absolutely can exist without Macro characters. In general, it's not the size of the character relative to the other characters in the picture, but relative to the environment. That does mean that if it's just two characters without a background, then their sizes would be much more unclear.

It feels like there are two conflicting ideas behind tagging micro and macro right now.

cfgv said:
Try size_play or maybe start tagging things exreme_size_difference?

I think that's a bit closer to a solution, but size_play covers a very large range, a lot of which seems to overlap with size_difference. I like the idea of extreme_size_difference, though maybe there's too much subjectivity in that. Not sure.

I really wouldn't make such a big deal about all of this, but searching through micro pictures and repeatedly seeing giants crushing cities is really, really annoying.

Updated by anonymous

Genjar

Former Staff

Yeah, micro_on_macro is overtagged. Just because there's macro, doesn't automatically make the other character a micro. And vice versa.

And the same applies to micro and macro tags in general. I tried to keep those cleaned a couple of years ago, then gave up. They're overtagged so much that I couldn't keep up with it.

Updated by anonymous

Macro on Micro should only be tagged when it's obvious both characters are on opposite sides of "regular" based on the scenery. Where one character looks appropriately sized, or scenery isn't available to judge, it should just be size play, and maybe micro or macro.

Updated by anonymous

Genjar

Former Staff

Yeah, posts such as...
post #1327544
...are not micro. But they sure get tagged as such all the time. Not sure if reporting the mistags would help a lot, because of how many users mistagged those. Even if a few get slapped, there's plenty more.

Updated by anonymous

Furrin_Gok said:
Macro on Micro should only be tagged when it's obvious both characters are on opposite sides of "regular" based on the scenery. Where one character looks appropriately sized, or scenery isn't available to judge, it should just be size play, and maybe micro or macro.

What confuses me about the micro_on_macro tag is that I have seen maybe a handful of pictures like you've described. I really think the idea of having a tag with extreme size difference would be worth something, but again makes no sense to have micro and macro automatically applied.

Genjar said:
...are not micro. But they sure get tagged as such all the time. Not sure if reporting the mistags would help a lot, because of how many users mistagged those. Even if a few get slapped, there's plenty more.

It's super frustrating too. I can see why you'd have given up trying to keep the micro and macro tags neat, especially when some of the issues are caused automatically now!

I guess for now, I'll just keep fixing up incorrect tags as I see them, but it's good to know that I'm not just being overly picky when it comes to tagging.

Updated by anonymous

Genjar said:
Yeah, posts such as...
post #1327544
...are not micro. But they sure get tagged as such all the time. Not sure if reporting the mistags would help a lot, because of how many users mistagged those. Even if a few get slapped, there's plenty more.

That is likly because your concept of what is micro and macro is wrong genjar, environment is not a reliable determinant for defining what is micro and macro. Examples of this problem are among other things the city districts in Zootopia that do change scale depending on majority inhabitant or the "Jack and the giant Beanstalk" fable and BFG among others that feature giant and human sized structures sometimes overlapping in the same place...

As has been made clear to me in some of my own suggestions in the past, a wiki is not always reliable, mention of human size in the wiki can and probably is outdated considering how by genjars own omission the tags were majorly being used.

Size_play contends with sex and bdsm were both characters are at diferent scales for the explicit propose of arousal or fetish, size_difference is general.

Regular and appropriate size are again subjective and unreliable terms in defining what is macro and what is micro.

Updated by anonymous

cfgv said:
Try size_play or maybe start tagging things exreme_size_difference?

+1 to 'Extreme_size_difference'. It seems a good option, since describes exactly what the 'micro_on_macro' tag (apparently) is supposed to be, but without being misleading.

Genjar said:
Yeah, micro_on_macro is overtagged. Just because there's macro, doesn't automatically make the other character a micro. And vice versa.

To be fair, having a tag specifically for macro and micro characters interacting seems useless; how often do we see an actual micro character and an actual macro character interacting with each other? Apparently the 'micro_on_macro' tag is meant to be just a extreme version on 'size_difference', hence its usage is mostly accurate, however we can't say the same about the implications.

Genjar said:
And the same applies to micro and macro tags in general. I tried to keep those cleaned a couple of years ago, then gave up. They're overtagged so much that I couldn't keep up with it.

Probably a considerable chunk of these mistags are related to the 'micro_on_macro' implications to 'micro' and 'macro'.

Additionally the 'macro' tag Isn't so mistagged, differently of the 'micro' tag.

Korbaut said:
What confuses me about the micro_on_macro tag is that I have seen maybe a handful of pictures like you've described. I really think the idea of having a tag with extreme size difference would be worth something, but again makes no sense to have micro and macro automatically applied.

Indeed.

Darou said:
That is likly because your concept of what is micro and macro is wrong genjar, environment is not a reliable determinant for defining what is micro and macro. Examples of this problem are among other things the city districts in Zootopia that do change scale depending on majority inhabitant or the "Jack and the giant Beanstalk" fable and BFG among others that feature giant and human sized structures sometimes overlapping in the same place...

Everioment isn't 100% reliable, but is our most reliable tool. Taking Zootopia as an example: if a "regular" rhinoceros is walking over that really small district (*search* "little rodentia"), then the 'macro' tag would be applicable by TWYS, unless the context made clear that the district is small.
Also, having tags for undersized and oversized structures doesn't seems a big deal at all.

If you think that everioment isn't a good criterion, then what would be your suggestion?

Updated by anonymous

Darou said:
That is likly because your concept of what is micro and macro is wrong genjar, environment is not a reliable determinant for defining what is micro and macro. Examples of this problem are among other things the city districts in Zootopia that do change scale depending on majority inhabitant or the "Jack and the giant Beanstalk" fable and BFG among others that feature giant and human sized structures sometimes overlapping in the same place...

As has been made clear to me in some of my own suggestions in the past, a wiki is not always reliable, mention of human size in the wiki can and probably is outdated considering how by genjars own omission the tags were majorly being used.

Size_play contends with sex and bdsm were both characters are at diferent scales for the explicit propose of arousal or fetish, size_difference is general.

Regular and appropriate size are again subjective and unreliable terms in defining what is macro and what is micro.

I feel like the reasons you gave that using the environment to determine micro and macro tagging are rare enough that it's not that big of a deal. I could easily argue a counter-point by asking you what are you supposed to do if there's only one character? Not tag size? Tag both just in case?

Of course you'd use the environment. In any case, my main complaint still is that micro_on_macro makes little sense in its current state. I really like the idea of extreme_size_difference, but that's also pretty subjective. Where would the line between extreme_size_difference and size_difference be?

Updated by anonymous

Korbaut said:
I feel like the reasons you gave that using the environment to determine micro and macro tagging are rare enough that it's not that big of a deal. I could easily argue a counter-point by asking you what are you supposed to do if there's only one character? Not tag size? Tag both just in case?

Of course you'd use the environment. In any case, my main complaint still is that micro_on_macro makes little sense in its current state. I really like the idea of extreme_size_difference, but that's also pretty subjective. Where would the line between extreme_size_difference and size_difference be?

I would say where one is more than twice the size of the other. Size_difference is used to describe height differences of even a few feet.

Updated by anonymous

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