I don't have too much of a plan in mind, but this is definitely a large scope project, so I figure I'd share so that people can jump in and help out a bit if they want, or offer opinions.

The goal is to get rid of some of the extra rabbit-squirrel-frog-tiger tags, as well as the dragon_wolf, dragon-wolf, dragonwolf, wolfdragon etc etc etc posts.

This isn't about obliterating everything but base species. Just sweeping things up a bit. Tagging the dragonbunnies as dragon rabbit hybrid and polishing the sparkle off the sparkledogs that are the only representative of tigerflies out there. (though I've been trying to edit the wiki for those characters and mentioning what their 'preferred' species names is in that circumstance. (see also: tarke and justin)

I've started on *tiger*. (also, am skimming through the 'non-species' tags, but not reading very closely. a lot of people name themselves "tiger" in some respect... Yes, I recognize the irony.)

Feel free to hop in if you'd like. Just speak up if you'd like to claim a species/word/whatever

So, uh.. TL;DR Goals:

• Reduce redundant SpeciesASpeciesB tags
• Tidy up the wiki maybe, especially if there's anything complicated.
• Remember: Mentioning common species features in the wiki can help ensure that they're tagged in the future. :)
• Make sure that tags for said features-- are represented.

I have intention of doing some spot-related clean up too. Hmm.. is it really a cheetah if it has jaguar spots?

I don't think subspecies like bengal_tiger are worth keeping. Most artists and viewers won't know the difference and it's not dramatic enough for people to distinctly want to seek out or avoid. Also a lot of people think siberian tigers are white for some reason? lol
I'm not certain that specific morphs outside of ones that are practically treated as their own species (white tigers, for example) are particularly useful, especially when talking about fantasy/theoretical colour morphs. I do think that a catch-all tag for unusual/unnatural colours and patterns might be useful.

regsmutt said:
I don't think subspecies like bengal_tiger are worth keeping. Most artists and viewers won't know the difference and it's not dramatic enough for people to distinctly want to seek out or avoid. Also a lot of people think siberian tigers are white for some reason? lol
I'm not certain that specific morphs outside of ones that are practically treated as their own species (white tigers, for example) are particularly useful, especially when talking about fantasy/theoretical colour morphs. I do think that a catch-all tag for unusual/unnatural colours and patterns might be useful.

well, as far as the color morphs go, I wouldn't want to do that for just any color or any species. But It is kinda a big thing in tiger-land. Both Snow and Golden tigers are white tiger mutations. Maltese and black tigers are more hypothetical. More importantly, there are a lot of 'em.

26,000 tiger posts
2132 white tigers
272 maltese tigers
65 black tigers
45 golden Tigers
7 snow tigers

Those were what I tagged off of a casual hour or two while on the phone listening to my dad talk about moon landing conspiracies. 9_9 I'm pretty much positive I could easily get black and maltese up to several hundred, and add at least 1000 more to white tiger. (also, most of those already had established tags--I just added more. :)

There's not really an easy way to find, say, a tiger with a black coat of fur. many pictures don't have fur tags. Those that do? probably tagged the stripe colors. So tiger black_fur will get you basically any tiger. tiger -white_tiger -maltese_tiger -black_tiger -golden_tiger will get you, on most any page, a random assortment of tigers of all sorts of colors.

Plus, I like blue tigers :D

But, that's just my opinion.

That said, I do think snow_tiger's pushing it. That one's pretty rare. As for maltese and black, I"m not sure about the border between them. blue_tiger was a tag before I mushed it in with Maltese, haha c_c

But, jsut my 2 cents. It's not hard to get rid of 'em, if people agree.

Also a lot of people think siberian tigers are white for some reason? lol

Yeah that's actually what started this. I found a tag called white_siberian_tiger and it make me see red haha. Yeah, siberia's cold, but WTF guys. c_c

I do think that a catch-all tag for unusual/unnatural colours and patterns might be useful.

I really agree with this. I know that stuff can be fun to see. :) I love it myself :D

I also think a 'realistic' color/markings tag might be nice too.

Finished with Cheetah.

Only thing of note is that people are REALLY bad at understanding what kind of spots go on what sort of cat. Oh my god. As a spotaholic, This gives me keep internal pain.

Cheetahs come in two flavors: cheetah and king_cheetah King cheetah basically have a lot more black/brown on them, stripes down the big and big blotchy spots. I cleaned all the the regular cheetah out of king_cheetah. Both now have more comprehensive wiki pages. :)

Unfortunately, I don't have the time right now to get all of the tigers, leopards and jaguars and king_cheetah out of cheetah. (Seriously. Hmm.. this cat is white with black stripes... IT'S A CHEETAH! :D Some people fail at sesame street so hard.)

Other biggest problem is that the artist king-cheetah occasionally is tagged instead of king_cheetah, and I imagine it happens the other way around too. Not sure what to do about that, though.

There is a single spotless_cheetah I left tagged as it was--she's pretty clearly a cheetah without spots and maybe I"ll find enough inside cheetah to make it worth keeping around. Maybe if we get that unusual patterns tag going, she can go there instead. Dunno. cute picture, needs a way to be found.

Also, this bitch gives me anxiety: Fuli the Lion Guard cheetah who looks like a fucking jaguar.

Also, gonna edit the table to include a 'more work needed' area. If someone wnats to go do some catty tagging.

SnowWolf said:
Also, this bitch gives me anxiety: Fuli the Lion Guard cheetah who looks like a fucking jaguar.

This is really really wanky but you started it. XD It has bugged me since I first saw her but she has a border-line humanoid face. Like her profile silhouette looks more like the Frozen chicks' than any feline. Her nose even sticks out from her muzzle in profile. https://i.pinimg.com/736x/36/46/ac/3646acd8a9ba580117b6de979f20f18a.jpg It wouldn't be bad if she was like... a sphynx or manticore or something, but it's jarring as a design for a normal animal.

regsmutt said:
This is really really wanky but you started it. XD It has bugged me since I first saw her but she has a border-line humanoid face. Like her profile silhouette looks more like the Frozen chicks' than any feline. Her nose even sticks out from her muzzle in profile. https://i.pinimg.com/736x/36/46/ac/3646acd8a9ba580117b6de979f20f18a.jpg It wouldn't be bad if she was like... a sphynx or manticore or something, but it's jarring as a design for a normal animal.

Eh, if the wank fits.

Holy shit, that is kinda rage inducing. I mean, it's not TERRIBLE. Like, it could work as a style if you really wanted it to. Y'know, like, if it was consistent with everyone else. (or if the top part of her nose was, like, dark yellow...) But. That picture literally looks like someone took a screenie of not-simba and not-nala and drew in their own OC. Like, nothing about them is the same style. Especially the eyes. The lion's have some sort of eye shadow, mighter region thing going on, with mild dark lashes, yellow sclera and stuff, meanwhile not-jaguar has like, flat anime eyes, and WHY are not-nala's eyes looking in two different directions? TT_TT

Geeze. I really kinda hope this thing looks better in the actual show... like, with movement and what not.

(hmm, I'm seeing some opinions that Fuli might be intended to be a king cheetah, which... could make sense...

Man.. I know I've seen records handed out for that "deer" from animal crossing. Could I get some admin opinion on this not-jaguar?

not a cheetah: post #920213 post #1299813

Actually a cheetah: post #1160194

(oh my gosh, that picture is SO much better. )

...Considering that alternate color tigers strains are not a species, why are they being tagged as a species? This is what we have fur color tags for; we typically try to avoid "color_species" tags. All of them are the same species, just varying levels of inbreeding. With cats and dogs you can at least assume there'll be differences between breeds aside from paletteswapping.

This would be like trying to tag all of these as their own species when they are simply not.

Ratte said:
...Considering that alternate color tigers strains are not a species, why are they being tagged as a species?

Well, they were that way when I found it? I just kinda added posts to already pre-existing tags, blending several tags together (we didn't need golden_tiger and golden_tabby_tiger or blue_tiger and maltese_tiger and maltese-tiger)

I mean, white_tiger had over 2000 posts and a wiki page written by paraspite already, y'know?

This is what we have fur color tags for; we typically try to avoid "color_species" tags. All of them are the same species, just varying levels of inbreeding. With cats and dogs you can at least assume there'll be differences between breeds aside from paletteswapping.

Well, yes, except basically every tiger has white fur. and black stripes. Which basically means that searching for a black tiger with white stripes and a white tiger with black stripes look identical, and both searches also get the blue tiger with black stripes and a white belly.

(not to mention, fur colors are not always tagged consistently. Tag every color of fur? only the major color? tiger orange_fur only gets about 4300 results...

Would they be better suited as general tags? I mean, they were all species tags when I found them, but general tag is probably more correct.

(also, in technicality, we do tag panthers and king_cheetah, which are also jsut color variations...)

This would be like trying to tag all of these as their own species when they are simply not.

That's very true. There are not 700+ tiger morphs, though. And there are not dozens to hundreds of christmas_cornsnake pictures on the site. That said, I'd support a cornsnake_color_morph tag, if there enough pictures of that type.

*shrugs* I don't know what the best solution is, but if yellow_snowleopards made up a significant portion of all snow leopard uploads, I wouldn't object to tagging them, especially if people want to hide them, y'know?

That said, I dunno what the best answer is: I just know that I took what already existed and tidied it up a bit. If other people think that it's best to get rid of it all, then that's everyone else's decision. I know I'd be bummed not to find my blue tigers easily, though.

I would personally like an alternate color tag (no, not the alternate_color tag) that could be used for deviations from the norm when it comes to species. Currently that that tag is for characters and/or fictional species like Pokemon. It would have to be distinct enough to not be easily confused with alternate_color or unnatural_colors.

People not using the tools at their disposal isn't a shortcoming of the tool. If people aren't made aware of its existence, then it isn't likely to get tagged. This includes both fur and marking colors, as we have tags for things like colored spots and stripes (and general markings) like we do with fur.

I'm not a fan of the king_cheetah or panther tags, either. The former is not a species and the latter is just really vague. The latter at least narrows the possibilities down to big cats instead of just all the crap feline covers and does not say anything about color.

You entirely missed my point regarding corn snakes, that being that this is still not a species, it is just a paletteswap of the same animal, similar to how cross_fox needs to be nuked as it is just a partially melanistic red fox, not a species. Species tags should be used for classification that's a bit less superficial than "well, this one is a different color". This would be like tagging anything albino or melanism as a color species when that's not how it works.

To start, sorry if I'm unclear ever--I'm pretty tired, but can't sleep because my lungs are making rubber ducky noises. :( ...and my cats think the best way to help is to lay on my chest to try and squish the duck.

Ratte said:
I would personally like an alternate color tag (no, not the alternate_color tag) that could be used for deviations from the norm when it comes to species. Currently that that tag is for characters and/or fictional species like Pokemon. It would have to be distinct enough to not be easily confused with alternate_color or unnatural_colors.

Hmm.. atypical_color, unusual_color, nonstandard_coloration ... maybe 'coloration' is a good word... unusual_fur_palette?

There's a good tag around here somewhere.

People not using the tools at their disposal isn't a shortcoming of the tool. If people aren't made aware of its existence, then it isn't likely to get tagged. This includes both fur and marking colors, as we have tags for things like colored spots and stripes (and general markings) like we do with fur.

That's fair, to a point! It doesn't mean that there couldn't be improvements, but it's very fair. Maybe a wiki page on 'how to tag bodies' might be beneficial, hmm..

Cuz, like, right now the fur page discusses fur color, but not when to apply said tags--and doesn't touch on anything like markings or countershading. Yikes.

I'm not a fan of the king_cheetah or panther tags, either. The former is not a species and the latter is just really vague. The latter at least narrows the possibilities down to big cats instead of just all the crap feline covers and does not say anything about color.

Well, I had typed a lot here to the tone of 'ACTUALLY,' but wow. I didn't realize until just now that we had a panther tag and a black_panther tag. ...wow.

I meant the black_panther tag. By definition. y'know, melanistic leopards and jaguars. Not 'big cats in general'. Wow. I'm still kinda boggling over that one.

I mean, I"m not opposed to a 'big cat' tag-- just naming it after a specific *type* of big cat (panther, not panthera) seems like a terrible idea. O_o

Sorry, this is just baffling me a bit --There's no alias or implication support for the idea that it's supposed to be 'any member of panthera' ... someone just... changed the wiki and didn't DO anything else to make it work. Heck, I was even browsing through Panther the other day to look for something in particular, and didn't even catch on to the fact that it's supposed to be "all big cats'. It's basically 99% black_panthers. I mean, whoa.

You entirely missed my point regarding corn snakes, that being that this is still not a species, it is just a paletteswap of the same animal, similar to how cross_fox needs to be nuked as it is just a partially melanistic red fox, not a species. Species tags should be used for classification that's a bit less superficial than "well, this one is a different color". This would be like tagging anything albino or melanism as a color species when that's not how it works.

Actually, I did understand the point-- I just personally have the opinion that taxonomic species is a good guideline but not the end all in organization. :)

My general point is... there are a lot of cornsnake morphs. They're neat! If there was a whole subsection of furries who make cornsnake-sonas and they were pumping out huge numbers of pictures of their cornsnakesonas that were being uploaded, I'd support some basic tagging of these snakemorphs, even if only a single tag to cover all cornsnakemorphs.

It's not that I think that cornsnake color morphs are separate species, just that they're visually distinct enough to warrant a tag for easier searching. (assuming we had hundreds of them, etc etc. That said, that's *my* opinion, and mine alone. :)

Just like I'd be very sad to see black_panther go away. It serves a unique single tag search to allow people to further refine their search, or their blacklist (dang cornsnake purists...)

As for Cross fox... I'm not sure! It's certainly not a species of it's own, but when it is actually colored, it's a distinct color pattern: black and silver and orange. It'd be hard to isolate 'cross fox' type foxes using just the typical search tools. It probably shouldn't be a *species* though. and some of the pictures tagged with it shouldn't be tagged with it, because they're black and white c_c;

(mostly jokingly) Clearly, the best solution is to use tags like cross_fox_fur_pattern, or cross_fox_color :P

I dunno. I'm gonna head to bed now. I hope I"m not coming off as belligerent or anything, just thinking out loud, mostly and trying to put sleepy, cough-covered thoughts into words.

.... that said, melanistic is woefully undertagged. Sigh. there's another project...

I would be willing to entertain some things if kept as a general tag (which is finally doable with tag type locking), but then there comes the potential issue of people abusing it and adding it to everything they see that deviates from the norm in some way. This is something that stands to be done regardless of the tag type, which just makes it an even dumber problem. I see random character owners and commissioners doing this a lot since they are not as likely to be familiar with our tagging system.

As for cross foxes, I would rather lump them in with melanistic/melanism since that's still what they are. I just can't see a reason to consider morphs on-par with species as far as our tagging system goes as well as how real life works.

It bugs me a lot to use systems meant for the average person for all of these reasons and then some.

I think having particularly well known "breeds" of species as a sort of additional tag in the general category might be a good compromise between accuracy and tagging convenience. We'd just have to ensure that people don't abuse the tags. Fur tags and can still be added on top of those, to give people even more flexibility.

NotMeNotYou said:
I think having particularly well known "breeds" of species as a sort of additional tag in the general category might be a good compromise between accuracy and tagging convenience. We'd just have to ensure that people don't abuse the tags. Fur tags and can still be added on top of those, to give people even more flexibility.

As long as people actually bother to report these, sure.

Accidentally did Penguin because of penguin awareness day. Whoops.

Stuck a bit on panthers and leopards and whatnot due to discovering that we tag panthers in a really... interesting way. That's gonna require a long individual post and some implications and aliases rejiggered.

Also the flu. Man, fuck the flu so much. Guys, wash your hands a lot, and don't touch your face.

--

Oh also: with the kind discussion about subspecies of animals, Could I please have a mod convert the following tags into general tags?

• maltese_tiger
• white_tiger
• King_cheetah

Thanks :D