So it appears we don't have any solid rule regarding the way we should tag japanese artists' names, which results in having users do whatever they feel right, and sometimes, in having one artist tagged under different names.

First, as anyone who reads this should know, just like FA is the #1 source of "occidental" furry art, Pixiv is the #1 source of japanese furry art (or "kemono" art), therefore, most of the names come from there.

Now, Pixiv has an irritating feature : users registered there have both an ID (which they use to log in), and a displayed name, which appears on their profile page, under their avatar.

While the former is unchangeable, it can only be found by checking an artist's picture URL (the file's URL, NOT the submission's URL)
ex :
http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=29153325
http://i2.pixiv.net/img10/img/dieva/29153325_p0.jpg

In this example, the pixiv ID is "dieva".

As for displayed names, they are often written in japanese characters, and they can change, though I doubt they often do.

And now, you have this lambda user which is going to post a picture from Pixiv, how is he going to tag the artist ?

Here is what I can say about this :

• japanese characters are a no, no, and against NO, DO NOT use japanese characters on E621 : most users cannot type them and cannot easily use them in a search

• do not use google translation on an artist's name ! That just doesn't make it any sense, you don't translate a name, you transliterate it, and this site will do it for you : http://www.romaji.org/ --- Using romanized displayed names is one solution, but sometimes it will give funky results, and the names on the profile can change

• I have noticed that lot of japanese artists who use english speaking galleries (FA, DA...) used their Pixiv "displayed" name to register, but I might be biased

• furries are sheeps, and some artist tags we have here are the result of one guy thinking "hey let's call this artist like that", and other people simply followed ; sometimes they are a porting of gelbooru / danbooru

• most people don't know how to check a Pixiv ID. Additionnally, it is not the way artists want to be known as, otherwise they would put the same name in their profile (and they sometimes do). The IDs are however stable, and are already romanized ; they are also a solution

I do believe you cannot define a policy which does not require constant vigilance about tags (unless you start making massive amounts of aliases) and each case should be examined seperately by considering the following :
- is the transliterated name making any sense ?
- how does the artist wish to be known as ? (you can check their profile infos, twitters accounts, etc, to answer this)
- how is the artist currently known as by us E621 plebeian ?

Discuss.

I generally transliterate the displayed name whenever possible, unless the artist has another site where they use a different name. In those cases, I use that instead. I rarely ever use the pixiv ID unless the displayed name just wouldn't work all that well as a name. For example, M

If the displayed name is ridiculously long or has too many other foreign characters I tend to use the ID. Otherwise it's the displayed name. That or I do a little research to find the preferred name.

...But since this thread is here I can complain that it's dumb how some people who don't know which to do just don't tag it at all... I mean look! unknown_artist source:pixiv.net If the source is there they should be able to obtain the artist.

I use http://nihongo.j-talk.com/kanji/, but I don't know if that's the same as google translate.

You're the best for bringing this up (again) Kald, there are a whole bunch of Japanese artist names floating around

Like DragonRanger said, I try not to use the pixiv nickname as well, especially since artists can and do change it

As for naming, their real name ([lastname]_[firstname]) takes priority over their username, especially when they have multiple accounts

With regards to the kana/kanji to romaji transliteration, how about a thread for helping people with naming?

Edit: @Raiden: Looks like a transliteration website to me

titaniachkt said:
As for naming, their real name ([lastname]_[firstname]) takes priority over their username, especially when they have multiple accounts

I don't have much time at the moment to really contribute to this thread, but I did want to point out that this is NOT e621's policy anymore (and hasn't been ever since Varka and I arrived in September 2010). I have had several artists complain to me about e621.net showing up in Google search results for their name. We've received several takedown requests because of this as well. We absolutely DO NOT WANT an artist's real name on this site unless that is the name that they actually do want to be known by. Linking all of an artist's online aliases or pictures to their real names here on e621 is a rather huge invasion of privacy just for the sake of "convenience" for our users.

I get at least one or two e-mails a month from artists complaining about their real names showing up on e621. PLEASE don't do this. :(

Char said:
I get at least one or two e-mails a month from artists complaining about their real names showing up on e621. PLEASE don't do this. :(

Oh dear, that does sound serious

Well, I can say for sure that the ones I've asked for permission to post their works have no problem with that, especially when they go by their real names (usually full-time artists or otherwise) but wanting to limit the prevalency of one's real name is more than understandable

As for linking to their other profiles/accounts, it's not done unless they mention their other accounts/ specifically request it

Is there a note of this somewhere in the wiki/ guidelines?