Topic: Trouble with Pandaren (World of Warcraft)

Posted under Tag/Wiki Projects and Questions

People are tagging pandaren, from World of Warcraft, along with either panda or red_panda, which goes against my understanding of the policy of not tagging fictional species as real world counterparts. (Quoted below)

I might suggest adding the tags pandaren_(panda) and pandaren_(red_panda) then migrating any posts as follows;

pandaren + panda => pandaren + pandaren_(panda)
pandaren + red_panda => pandaren + pandaren_(red_panda)

I don't know if this can be done automatically or not, though it would be great if so, as there are 300 posts involved...

October 18th: Since it has come up recently: Please do not tag Pokémon or Digimon as their real world counterparts, but only as the family. Eg persian is not a cat but a feline, renamon is not a fox but a canine, etc.

This is purely to ensure that actual "real" animals can be found without having all those fantasy animals show up as well.

Updated

The problem with pandaren is that they are basically pandas. They aren't stylized foxes like a renamon is, or a stylized cat like persian is. They're just straight up anthropomorphized animals.

Personally I wouldn't give them the fantasy species exclusive treatment.

Updated by anonymous

NotMeNotYou said:
The problem with pandaren is that they are basically pandas.

Pandaren aren't at all like red pandas though, red pandas aren't bears.

Pandaren 'red pandas' have stubby tails, white faces and v markings over the eyes, light colored fronts, rounded ears, generally chubby.

Red pandas have long bushy tails, red with tufts of white on the face, dark streaks under the eyes to below the chin, dark to black colored fronts, and pointed ears, generally slim when feral though anthro can vary greatly.

Updated by anonymous

Basically I'm saying I have a problem with pandaren being tagged as real red pandas~ :3

Updated by anonymous

Perhaps we could tag them as "red_pandaren" and have that imply pandaren (which in itself needs a mammal implication or even panda implication, since they're pretty much pandas) to help separate them from actual red pandas, when red pandaren look more like red tinted pandas? That's my thoughts anyways

Updated by anonymous

DiceLovesBeingBlown said:
Perhaps we could tag them as "red_pandaren" and have that imply pandaren (which in itself needs a mammal implication or even panda implication, since they're pretty much pandas) to help separate them from actual red pandas, when red pandaren look more like red tinted pandas? That's my thoughts anyways

That might work better

Pandaren already implies bear which implies mammal, though.

Updated by anonymous

Acru said:
That might work better

Pandaren already implies bear which implies mammal, though.

ahhhh gotcha! didn't realize they implied bear already.

anyways! having red_pandaren as a subspecies of pandaren could definitely work imho

Updated by anonymous

DiceLovesBeingBlown said:
ahhhh gotcha! didn't realize they implied bear already.

anyways! having red_pandaren as a subspecies of pandaren could definitely work imho

-1 to this
pandaren red_fur should be more than enough, we don't need to create subspecies tags for every single pandaren coloration

Updated by anonymous

mabit said:
-1 to this
pandaren red_fur should be more than enough, we don't need to create subspecies tags for every single pandaren coloration

There is only the one alternate subspecies, though, and its not just a palette swap. (afaik)

Updated by anonymous

SnowWolf

Former Staff

Acru said:
Pandaren aren't at all like red pandas though, red pandas aren't bears.

Pandaren 'red pandas' have stubby tails, white faces and v markings over the eyes, light colored fronts, rounded ears, generally chubby.

Red pandas have long bushy tails, red with tufts of white on the face, dark streaks under the eyes to below the chin, dark to black colored fronts, and pointed ears, generally slim when feral though anthro can vary greatly.

Well, just to say, not ALL red pandaren have stubby tails. You'll have to forgive the "PLEASE RESUB" box, but I wasn't willing to spend a wow token for you guys lol. Here.

Anyway, my character choices aside...

I actually went in a few months ago and cleaned up a bit over there. If I recall correctly.. I removed 'panda' and 'bear' from a whole lot of red_panda images...

and in all honesty..

As I look through red_panda panderan I see a LOT of images that don't really LOOK like world of warcraft at all, except in that there are some familiar hairstyles and a heavier set. and most of THOSE have at least moderate tails.

Most everything I see SEEMS like it should be of interest to someone looking for red pandas, just slightly shorter on the tail side of things.

DiceLovesBeingBlown said:
Perhaps we could tag them as "red_pandaren" and have that imply pandaren (which in itself needs a mammal implication or even panda implication, since they're pretty much pandas) to help separate them from actual red pandas, when red pandaren look more like red tinted pandas? That's my thoughts anyways

The problem with that is...

Red pandas are not pandas. Red pandas are not bears. They're kinda over on skunk/weasel/raccoon branch of the tree, rather then bears.

So.. if Pandaren implies bear or panda, then the red_pandaren images would be very incorrectly placed.

mabit said:
-1 to this
pandaren red_fur should be more than enough, we don't need to create subspecies tags for every single pandaren coloration

Yeah, the problem is, no one tags fur color.

pandaren red_fur results in 44 images, where pandaren red_panda has 225... and honestly, since pandaren has 1294 posts, I suspect a lot of them are not tagged.

and that red_fur can often look brown, tan, yellow, or orange. In fact, most of these I"d tag as brown_fur

Updated by anonymous

Acru said:
Basically I'm saying I have a problem with pandaren being tagged as real red pandas~ :3

"Original" red pandaren, as in they look like Blizzard designed them, deserve to be treated as a hybrid between actual pandas and red pandas. Even if red pandas aren't bears red pandaren certainly are.
However, this depends entirely on how they're drawn, if a red pandaren looks entirely like a red panda they shouldn't be tagged as pandaren to begin with.

Updated by anonymous

SnowWolf said:

The problem with that is...

Red pandas are not pandas. Red pandas are not bears. They're kinda over on skunk/weasel/raccoon branch of the tree, rather then bears.

So.. if Pandaren implies bear or panda, then the red_pandaren images would be very incorrectly placed.

Yeah I know red pandas aren't bear related, I was more trying to solve the issue with red pandaren being tagged as red pandas despite looking more like pandaren and not like red pandas

NotMeNotYou's solution seems to probably be our best bet on fixing this issue, aka "if it looks red panda-ish, maybe we should tag as both pandaren and hybrid red_panda. and if t doesn't look like a pandaren we should remove the pandaren tag altogether and just leave it with a red panda tag"

Updated by anonymous

NotMeNotYou said:
"Original" red pandaren, as in they look like Blizzard designed them, deserve to be treated as a hybrid between actual pandas and red pandas. Even if red pandas aren't bears red pandaren certainly are.
However, this depends entirely on how they're drawn, if a red pandaren looks entirely like a red panda they shouldn't be tagged as pandaren to begin with.

I would argue against red pandaren as being considered hybridized with a red panda, as they have unique identifying features not associated with either red_pandas or pandaren, like stripes on the arms and legs and the triangle marks on the face.

Those images that look hybrid can still be marked as such of course, but I think the bulk of the images would be better suited with a red_pandaren tag, as suggested by DiceLovesBeingBlown.

Updated by anonymous

SnowWolf said:
Most everything I see SEEMS like it should be of interest to someone looking for red pandas, just slightly shorter on the tail side of things.

This is not the case for me anyway, the differences stand out as glaringly wrong~ Blizzard didn't know what a red panda actually looks like when they designed the red variant of pandaren.

The same issue applies to kung fu panda's master_shifu. Dreamworks called him a red panda but he is clearly not, and I have always agreed with 'tag what you see'~

post #1469578

I have to search "red_panda -pandaren", though this does filter out images that have a properly tagged red panda and a pandaren in the same image.

Updated by anonymous

Are red panda-hybrid pandaren showing up in the red_panda tag really much worse than stuff like this:
post #1422911post #1424353post #1490989post #1484523post #1375742post #1348944post #1352889
(None of these are hybrids, btw, but hybrids get even more wild with markings)
TWYS is significantly less strict with species, especially when it comes to hybrids cuz lbr, be it wacky markings or else falling into what post #610271 is about, a lot of furry art isn't super strict with species accuracy.

Updated by anonymous

regsmutt said:
Are red panda-hybrid pandaren showing up in the red_panda tag really much worse than stuff like this

Of those, one appears to be a ferret hybrid and another shouldn't have been tagged as red panda at all. There will always be outliers that are hard to judge, to be considered on an individual basis.

The main issue with pandaren though is the quantity, and it is easier to make a judgement overall as they all have the same source.

Updated by anonymous

Acru said:
I would argue against red pandaren as being considered hybridized with a red panda, as they have unique identifying features not associated with either red_pandas or pandaren, like stripes on the arms and legs and the triangle marks on the face.

Those images that look hybrid can still be marked as such of course, but I think the bulk of the images would be better suited with a red_pandaren tag, as suggested by DiceLovesBeingBlown.

The triangle marks are actually a part of the red pandas, though only of the ailurus fulgens fulgens sub species, only the Ailurus fulgens styanis have the more better known markings like your avatar has.

Updated by anonymous

Acru said:
Of those, one appears to be a ferret hybrid and another shouldn't have been tagged as red panda at all. There will always be outliers that are hard to judge, to be considered on an individual basis.

The main issue with pandaren though is the quantity, and it is easier to make a judgement overall as they all have the same source.

No, it's not supposed to be a hybrid. Interesting that you got a specific species out of it. The one you untagged still has red panda belly and ear markings as well as triangular facial markings that are common in furry red panda characters. Frankly though I'd tag none of them 'red panda' without outside information/under a strict TWYS.

Updated by anonymous

leomole

Former Staff

I'd like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that making fictional species exempt from TWYS was a mistake.

post #786967 looks like a panda not just a pandaren.
post #453500 looks like a panda not just a pancham.
post #1097342 looks like a lion not just a leonin.
post #1259949 looks like a panther not just a displacer beast.
post #1484091 looks like a tiger not just a keidran.
post #400042 looks like a cat not just a pegacat.
post #274496 looks like a fox not just a kitsune.
post #132598 looks like a fox not just a kitsune or kyubimon.

Tagging should facilitate the searching of the average user, who doesn't know every fictional species and will call a spade a spade if it looks like one. TWYS should be from that perspective.

Updated by anonymous

Do I seriously have to repeat this every single thread?

Fictional species are exempt from TWYS and can be tagged in addition to standard species of whatever is displayed, IF they actually look like their real world species.

If a pandaren looks like a panda tag panda as well.
If a kitsune actually looks like a real life fox tag fox as well.
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>.

This is done on a case by case basis, depending on that particular image alone. However, if the image looks like a fictional species and not an actual real world species they do not deserve the real world tag.

post #786967 is straight up a regular panda with a fat face
post #453500 has differences (notably lower body fur) setting it apart from a regular panda
post #1097342 is a lion, has the lion tag, and deserves to have it
post #1259949 looks like a generic black, big cat with 4 arms and strange tails, none of which are inherently panther traits
post #1484091 anthro tiger down to the last stripe
post #1484091 cat with wings, tagged as such
post #274496 that is a dog with multiple tails because falvie can't draw anything besides dogs
post #132598 that is a also a dog with multiple tails and not a fox

Updated by anonymous

SnowWolf

Former Staff

NotMeNotYou said:
Fictional species are exempt from TWYS and can be tagged in addition to standard species of whatever is displayed, IF they actually look like their real world species.

See also:

post #1500524 post #1471695 <-- Not mice
Mouse: Link (rat, actually, but Japanese actually doesn't distinguish between the two--both are 'nezumi')
Also Mouse: Link

post #577604 <-- Not a shrew
post #1324621 <-- Shrew

post #1454989 <-- Very Good Boys, but not tigers or wolves
post #98907 >-- Exception
(they'd be canines, or MAYBE a dog, depending on the artist.
post #571309 <-- Not a dog, not even a canine

Updated by anonymous

leomole

Former Staff

NotMeNotYou said:
Fictional species can be tagged in addition to standard species of whatever is displayed, IF they actually look like their real world species.

This is done on a case by case basis, depending on that particular image alone.

That seems very sensible. It's what I've been arguing for a long time (forum #216914, forum #217038). This is the first I've heard that policy though. forum #193476 says Pokemon should not be tagged with a real species. forum #217234 says Pokemon get family tags but not species tags. What you're telling me now is that they can have a species tag if a particular posts looks like a particular species.

Updated by anonymous

NotMeNotYou said:
The triangle marks are actually a part of the red pandas, though only of the ailurus fulgens fulgens sub species, only the Ailurus fulgens styanis have the more better known markings like your avatar has.

They still read as tear markings to me, though weaker contrast.

I'm glad to see someone knows the about the two subspecies though~

Updated by anonymous

leomole said:
That seems very sensible. It's what I've been arguing for a long time (forum #216914, forum #217038). This is the first I've heard that policy though. forum #193476 says Pokemon should not be tagged with a real species. forum #217234 says Pokemon get family tags but not species tags. What you're telling me now is that they can have a species tag if a particular posts looks like a particular species.

i think that it means that if i make a literal plain old anthro rabbit that has absolutely no differences from regular anthro rabbit but i say that its my original alien species called Flap Ear From Uranus, it still should be tagged as rabbit.

Updated by anonymous

leomole said:
That seems very sensible. It's what I've been arguing for a long time (forum #216914, forum #217038). This is the first I've heard that policy though. forum #193476 says Pokemon should not be tagged with a real species. forum #217234 says Pokemon get family tags but not species tags. What you're telling me now is that they can have a species tag if a particular posts looks like a particular species.

The problem is that pokemon don't look like actual species, but are based on those. Unless people deviate from the standard design enough to actually have them appear like real world species they're simply not those real world species.

Updated by anonymous

So, what does this mean for the other anthropomorphic races in WoW? The Vulpera is my immediate concern, but I can make a list if needed.

Updated by anonymous

Siral_Exan said:
So, what does this mean for the other anthropomorphic races in WoW?

I'm just going to start crying now.

Updated by anonymous

NotMeNotYou said:
I'm just going to start crying now.

Ever heard of "better safe than sorry"? Or, that I might be asking before I assume?

Updated by anonymous

Siral_Exan said:
Ever heard of "better safe than sorry"? Or, that I might be asking before I assume?

It is literally possible for you to answer your own question, because this question has been answered as best as we are able to answer it.

It is very literally impossible for me to further refine the answer to give an all encompassing list of all races in WoW, or any other lore, that would be able to answer your question beyond what we have written above.

NotMeNotYou said:
Fictional species are exempt from TWYS and can be tagged in addition to standard species of whatever is displayed, IF they actually look like their real world species.

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>.

This is done on a case by case basis, depending on that particular image alone. However, if the image looks like a fictional species and not an actual real world species they do not deserve the real world tag.

This is all the information I am able to give you. If you give me a list, all I will be able to tell you that "This is done on a case by case basis, depending on that particular image alone."
The races do not matter, the source of the races do not matter, the lore does not matter, their defining traits do not matter, their concept art does not matter.
All that matters is how the artist drew any given character in any given image that is judged, by itself, on it's own merits and shortcomings.

In order to adequately answer your question I would not need a list of the wow races, I would need a comprehensive list of all art of every race of every artist; past, present, and future.
Then I would need to manually judge every single image, to see if they qualify or not.

Updated by anonymous

NotMeNotYou said:
It is very literally impossible for me to further refine the answer to give an all encompassing list of all races in WoW, or any other lore, that would be able to answer your question beyond what we have written above.

In my effort to match pokémon to body types, I strictly referred to the art from the official pokedex as a base for comparison. That's not directly helpful for tagging, but it's instructive as a discrete point on a sliding scale of [feral] <=> [anthro] <=> [humanoid]. One expects faithful pokémon fan art to feature the same body type as official art, which still sometimes depends on the portrayed pose.

Anyway, my point is that we can ID the species of official base video game models or highly public official art. If fan art matches the body pigmentation patterns and features (e.g., whiskers) of the ID'd official art, then that fan art probably features the same species. This effort isn't wasted. That's much better than having users guess at what is and isn't a, for instance, red panda. Just say, "we would tag this (link to official art) standard [lore species] from [franchise] as [species + body type] if it were uploaded to e621. Those tags only apply to that specific art, meaning it may be correct to tag other art of [lore species] differently. Tag What You See."

red panda vs red pandaren

My understanding of the central issue is that users don't know the difference between red pandas, red pandaren, and when a character is both, and I don't think that's been answered. I've seen "this is a [species]" "no, this is a [species]" so far. What's what?

Practically speaking, answering this means selecting some firm wiki examples of red pandas that look like pandaren but aren't, red pandaren that look like red pandas but aren't, and characters that are both. Better is to include true-to-life and artistic license feral and anthro examples, except pandaren have no official feral form (?). Best is to also list distinguishing features and note where the species differ.

I'm quite garbage at identifying (real) species, and every species wiki I've bothered to check for guidance has either been completely useless or just hasn't said enough. Saying a species has such and such pattern somewhere without a precise description or example art isn't very helpful because I can probably find a dog or cat with that pattern...

Setting aside major pigment variations, accurate red pandas seem to have reverse_countershading (blackish front with orangish back) whereas accurate red pandaren have countershading (whitish front with orangish back). The most telling red pandaren facial marking is circular eye_markings that seem to mimic pandas/black pandaren, whereas the wide range of individualized (anthro) red panda facial markings seem to avoid that design. One prerequisite for both is their ringed tail, probably intentional by Blizzard. Are those good starting points?

With a few more features identified, we can say that a given character is biased strongly toward one species and tag just that one. Without conclusively red pandaren features beside those both species have, a given character cannot credibly be tagged pandaren. Whether the character is a red panda or, in all likelihood, some other ringed_tail + facial_markings furred mammal is another question.

post #1173519
red pandaren with countershading and (nearly) circular eye markings

post #1487359
red panda with reverse countershading and more traditional facial markings

FWIW, only female pandaren are supposed to be "red", I think, and chopsticks are a common fixture in their hair.

Updated by anonymous

SnowWolf

Former Staff

abadbird said:
FWIW, only female pandaren are supposed to be "red", I think, and chopsticks are a common fixture in their hair.

Nice analysis! :D

As for pandaren...

You can customize fur color. The fur comes in shades of black, gray, brown, white and red, in various combinations.

Females have 14 combinations. Of these, 5 have a long tail and are "red" or red-brown. 12.7 MB Gif

One has dark brown markings, (front ... back ) but not reverse countershading. All black/brown morphs have a short tail.

Face has 20 variations: All have a white muzzle. They, too, have much variation: 7.5 MB Gif

The males DO have a red color morph: https://i.gyazo.com/8b0284d7daf913747cf3852dfee97fc1.png but no long tail option. They, too, have about 20 facial variations, which have a little more 'range' than the female's do.

As for female hair... ironically: 10 hairstyles, only one has chopsticks. Double buns/ponytails are way more common. Go figure.

Updated by anonymous

But that's a pointless generalisation with extra steps. Something being anthro or not has no bearing on species tags. We tag anthro foxes and feral foxes as the exact same species. The only proper way to go about this is to have a look at how an artist draws a character, compare that to real world images of the supposed species, then decide whether or not it's close enough to warrant the tag or not.

Whether or not the official art might qualify has absolutely no bearing because barely any other artist is able to perfectly emulate official artwork. And even then whether or not official artwork would deserve a real world species tag might change between individual official pieces.

Those are red pandaren, those are red pandas. Here's a list of all hairstyles in WoW. All of those 3 links were exactly one Google search for each.

The step by step procedure is to now look at your image you'd like to tag, compare it to all of those images, and if it looks close enough to either you tag it as such.

If I make a "list of features" that list will be completely taken out of context, everybody will ignore the "judge it on the real deal", ignore the "judge every image by itself", and we're left with 300,000 mistagged images ala GameManiac and have more people up in arms when we ban someone who did basically nothing but blindly mistag things by the thousands. It's been more than a year and we're still finding problems caused by GM.

Just for record, all tagging should be done as a best faith effort. If something is on the border of anything, we will not give records if your best faith decision differs from ours. Art is subjective and sometimes artists make things that fit neither perfectly, and in those cases we may disagree with another, but we're not going to give out records.

Updated by anonymous

Siral_Exan said:
The Vulpera is my immediate concern, but I can make a list if needed.

Out of curiosity, how do Vulpera differ from anthro fennec?

abadbird said:
I'm quite garbage at identifying (real) species, and every species wiki I've bothered to check for guidance has either been completely useless or just hasn't said enough.

Part of the problem is there are aspects that can't easily be described, or observed from reference photos if you aren't an artist. Things like head/muzzle shape, or hints at hidden bone structure, etc. For your own part I would say just do your best and hopefully others will fix any errors.

Sometimes I see raccoons, tanuki, lemurs, and other species with facial markings or ringed tails marked as red pandas if they also have red fur, and try to fix as I see them.

(Good analysis though~)

NotMeNotYou said:
The step by step procedure is to now look at your image you'd like to tag, compare it to all of those images, and if it looks close enough to either you tag it as such.

If there are no further objections, I will try go though the pandaren tagged images by hand and try my best to tag either red_panda or red_pandaren (or rarely both) where appropriate. I believe I can make a judgement call on this aspect, in most cases.

There is still a question of the tagging for monochrome pandaren vs giant panda, though I won't touch this.

Edit: Should red_pandaren still be tagged panda? In a little random browsing I notice like half are and half aren't, currently.

Updated by anonymous

abadbird said:
My understanding of the central issue is that users don't know the difference between red pandas, red pandaren, and when a character is both, and I don't think that's been answered.

I submitted a basic wiki entry for red_pandaren, which should be sufficient to classify most images. Do you have any suggestions for it?

I've gone through a quarter of the pandaren images so far, though there are a few I left in red_panda red_pandaren that are harder to judge, perhaps they can stay tagged as both. And post #1105060 which was marked pandaren didn't look like a pandaren at all, rather some sort of red_panda red_fox hybrid. Also post #1357464 didn't look pandaren.

Updated by anonymous

Just one last update, I finished separating red_panda and red_pandaren with very little overlap, after going through every pandaren tagged post. Hopefully new posts can be tagged following the criteria as listed on the wiki, but I'll correct if I see any mistagged.

Updated by anonymous

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