Should I tag species with what I see or what I know? In the case it's "what I know" can I take a guess if it's a custom species and the artist didn't state the name of said species?

sieghelm_lockayer said:
Should I tag species with what I see or what I know? In the case it's "what I know" can I take a guess if it's a custom species and the artist didn't state the name of said species?

Tag what you see.
but imo, what you see will most likely be what you know half the time.
unless it's a hybrid.
then you just guess based on its animal features.
Why ask something you already know, Sieg?

I feel that there is some leeway to tagging species on posts, based on TWYS.
Don't try to take guesses on the species depicted if conditions make it difficult to identify (e.g., very simplistic/cartoony art style, just a disembodied body part/paws/legs/tail/etc.), you can tag based on what the character owner says (specific species) or use a very broad species tag like canine, reptile, etc.
If you still cannot identify the species in the post because nobody gave a clue as to what they are really, then you can tag unknown_species or ambiguous_species.

Technically species is TWYS. But species is often a little ambiguous anyway, so it's not uncommon to look at the artist's tags and see if their applicable. If there is actually zero evidence of it being the claimed species, you can move up the taxonomic ladder and tag the family instead (if applicable).

Another almost exception to TWYS is about fictional species. If they look basically identical to a real species, then you can tag the real species as well (for example most pandaren are also pandas). But if they're even slightly different, then you should tag the fictional species only (for example most Toucannon do not count as toucans). This is evaluated on a post by post basis of course (see forum #254362).

thegreatwolfgang said:
[...] you can tag based on what the character owner says (specific species)

No, you cannot.
You can look up the name of the species if you don't know it (can't expect everyone to be familiar with every single species — real and fictional), but it still needs to be recognizable as that species. If it isn't, use a higher tier tag instead (canine) or (ambiguous_species).
Example: The artist says that the creature is an eevee. But it doesn't look like an eevee. Therefore, it does not get tagged as such on e621.

Directly from tag what you see: The special exception below to TWYS is ONLY for tagging character NAMES. YOU CAN NOT USE EXTERNAL INFORMATION TO TAG GENDER, SPECIES, OR VIRTUALLY ANYTHING ELSE. That should be clear enough.

genjar said:
No, you cannot.
You can look up the name of the species if you don't know it (can't expect everyone to be familiar with every single species — real and fictional), but it still needs to be recognizable as that species. If it isn't, use a higher tier tag instead (canine) or (ambiguous_species).

The issue is, artists tend to draw rather generic looking species. The stylization can also muddy what the species could be. Not to mention when the character is partially off-screen or covered, the species it could be it entirely up in the air. Just looking at the wolf tag, for example, I couldn't tell you what makes one a "wolf" instead of some dog breed or even a fox. post #610271 is a bit of hyperbole, but there is a kernel of truth to it.

The way I tend to do it is, I look at the image and determine for myself for what it is. If I have trouble because of the lack of detail or stylization or something, I look at what the source says, and see if there's anything contradictory in the image (e.g. if they say it's a lion, but it has a fluffy tail or pointy ears, then I wouldn't call it a lion since a lion doesn't have those traits). If I still don't know, I'd go with a generic species like canine or scalie or avian if I can at least distinguish that much, or ambiguous_species if it's that ambiguous with nothing to go on.

All in all, can I at least tag with what I see with real world species families on fictional species too? For example can I tag: Sergal, Hylian (which is a TWYK tag)) and some of the Furred_Dragon as being mammals?

I still stand by what I said all those months ago: species tags are (in most cases) functionally lore.

genjar said:
No, you cannot.
You can look up the name of the species if you don't know it (can't expect everyone to be familiar with every single species — real and fictional), but it still needs to be recognizable as that species. If it isn't, use a higher tier tag instead (canine) or (ambiguous_species).
Example: The artist says that the creature is an eevee. But it doesn't look like an eevee. Therefore, it does not get tagged as such on e621.

Directly from tag what you see: The special exception below to TWYS is ONLY for tagging character NAMES. YOU CAN NOT USE EXTERNAL INFORMATION TO TAG GENDER, SPECIES, OR VIRTUALLY ANYTHING ELSE. That should be clear enough.

I did not say you can randomly just tag what the character owner says, I said in the context of when circumstances make it difficult to identify the species easily (e.g., very generic features that can be interpreted as two or more different species).
It wouldn't make sense to tag two different species on a solo post because "Hey, it looks like a canine and a feline at the same time because I see a pair of generic paws/pawpads."
In that case, you can refer to what the artist or character owner has tagged to get a hint of the actual species of the character.

I avoid using unknown_species or ambiguous_species as much as possible, because in most cases you can still identify discernable features of a known species.
But if you have to resort to guessing to find out what they are, then it would be much better to reference what the artist or character owner has said instead.

sieghelm_lockayer said:
?????? What's the difference between these two????? Doesn't this make species tags both TWYS and TWYK? What model should be the main and preceding in this case, shouldn't it be TWYS? I see a Toucannon as a toucan, why I can't tag it? What if I tag untagged Toucannon posts with toucan on a big amount of posts would it be seem as a reasonable error or I would get slapped with tag abuse?

I don't fully understand the difference myself. But yes, fictional species are kind of an exception to TWYS where you need outside knowledge of fictional species to decide if a character looks like a real species, a fictional species or both. If you just use TWYS and you don't know anything about Pokémon you might tag post #453500 as a panda, but it's actually supposed to be tagged as a Pancham only. The mods are pretty reasonable so I don't think you'd get a negative record for this kind of mistake unless it took a lot of work to fix.

sieghelm_lockayer said:
?????? What's the difference between these two????? Doesn't this make species tags both TWYS and TWYK? What model should be the main and preceding in this case, shouldn't it be TWYS? I see a Toucannon as a toucan, why I can't tag it? What if I tag untagged Toucannon posts with toucan on a big amount of posts would it be seem as a reasonable error or I would get slapped with tag abuse?

^{I'm not sure about the toucan example, as toucans are a group instead of a species.}
The principle is to only tag one species per character, unless it is a hybrid. Toco toucans are not toucannon, and toucannon are not toco toucans. One is a real species, the other is fictional species that resembles it but is clearly meant to be different. So it gets tagged as such.

It's largely for the sake of searchability: overtagging makes it impossible to find images that feature both. Tagging pegasus as horse is a classic example: if that were allowed, it'd be impossible to separate posts that contain two pegasus from posts that feature a pegasus and a horse.

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