Topic: [APPROVED] An Extremely Controversial One-line BUR: Revalidate Tail

Posted under Tag Alias and Implication Suggestions

The bulk update request #2240 is active.

change category tail (1364042) -> general

Reason: Look… we’re all furries, right? That’s sorta the whole point of this website, isn’t it? So, how can it be that we aren’t able to search for one of the most important furry features? That’s one of the few things that most animals (and by extension, anthros) have that humans lack. Yet, we can’t search for it on a furry-centric website. That’s like being unable to search for fur. Frankly, it’s absurd. The decision to invalidate tail while leaving literally every other animal-specific feature valid was a huge mistake.

Who would use this tag? I, for one, and I’m sure many others would like to as well. As it turns out, the tail is one of my favorite features on anthro characters. I’m often running into the fact that I simply can’t search for tails and having to use stupid workarounds to approximate what I’m looking for instead. Especially as an artist, I often use this site for finding references for specific species or characters that I want to draw, whether to see the different ways other artists have drawn a particular character’s/species’ tail, or to gain inspiration for a character design. However, having to sift through a bunch of posts where the tail isn’t visible makes this much harder. This is even more the case with some characters that sometimes don’t have tails anyway, like tohru_(dragon_maid). In-universe lore states that she is a shapeshifter who can have a tail or not at will. However, this makes a mess of trying to specifically find posts where her tail can be seen. Whether or not the tailless tag applies in the tailless examples is questionable since she’s a humanoid, which often don’t have tails anyway. But even if it does apply, everyone seems to forget that that tag exists, so it’s severely underused (especially on humanoids, if it does indeed apply to them). And even so, it can’t apply to images where the tail could be there, but simply isn’t visible, such as in many half-length_portraits and front_views and the like. Indeed, the major flaw with that tag is that it can’t be applied to cases where there might be a tail that simply isn’t visible; only to cases where you can specifically see that there is no tail where there normally would be one. Searching -tailless is virtually useless for finding tails because of that. And even so, a post might contain both a tailless character and a tailed character, meaning that -tailless may actually filter out things that I do want as well.

Another point: revalidating this tag would be keeping in line with other tags on the site. As I stated above, literally every other animal-specific feature is still valid. Allow me to list some of the most prominent examples:

Shall I go on? No, I think you get the point. There’s no reason to invalidate tail while leaving all these others valid.

The current workaround is to use a crapload of ~ modifiers in a search to find posts that have been tagged with tails of any specific kind. For example, ~big_tail ~short_tail ~long_tail ~thick_tail ~raised_tail ~tail_grab ~tail_between_legs ~red_tail ~green_tail ~blue_tail ~white_tail ~black_tail ~countershade_tail etc. etc. etc… and this doesn’t work as well simply because there’s no way you could include every single *tail* tag. you’ll miss out on many posts because of this, which may actually make a big difference when combining this search with a less common species or character tag. Also, this is just an absurd workaround for a very basic tag that should have been searchable in the first place.

The other “solution” (not really a solution) is to search *tail*. But this simply does not work because there are several non-tail tags that happen to contain those four letters in that order. The worst offender by far is detailed_background, which outnumbers every tail-related tag by a huge margin. Other major offenders include ponytail, pigtails, detailed, detailed_bulge, and little_tail_bronx. This would also include pages upon pages of artist, character, species, and copyright tags that don’t have anything specifically to do with tails. Oh, not to mention the tailless tag itself will be included in the results - essentially the exact opposite of what you’re looking for. The pollution of this search with other irrelevant results effectively makes it useless.

Even still, tail is just one of those tags that’s very frequently applied by more casual users of the site who probably wouldn’t believe that such a standard furry part as a tail wouldn’t be a valid tag. Often, these users don’t think to add more specific types of tail tags, and often the tail tag just gets removed in its current invalid state without any replacement. While the combination of the many *tail* tags returns plenty of results, invalidating this tag means we’re missing out on many more.

Really, look. The site stops calculating results after 750 pages, so there are even more pages than that full of tail being removed, with several new results every day. And the vast majority of the time, they’re not being replaced with a more specific tail-related tag, leaving most of these posts completely unfindable even using the above methods. The sooner this tag can be revalidated, the better.

Now, I understand that the main justification for invalidating this tag in the first place is presumably because most characters on the site will have them. However, this is not really a valid argument for several reasons, all of which I’ve mentioned already, but I’ll reiterate for clarity:

  • Most of them will also have paws, claws, and snouts, and yet these are still valid tags. Should we invalidate these, too?
  • The tail often simply isn’t visible in the image. What if you want to filter out all the posts where the characters’ tails aren’t visible? Sorry, pal, you’re SOL.
  • Humanoid often just don’t have tails. Maybe you want to specifically find the ones that do. Tailed_humanoid exists, but it comes very far from covering all the posts on the site featuring humanoids with tails.
  • How about anthros of things that can’t have tails in the normal sense, like aeromorphs and flora fauna? Plants don’t have tails, but drawn as anthros, they often do. And while aircraft do have tails, they’re not the same kind of tail we’re talking about. A regular, non-animate aircraft would not get tagged with tail. As anthros, however, they may or may not be depicted with an animal-like tail depending on the artist’s whim. In these cases, not only does tailless not apply, but there’s no standard expectation for these species to either have tails or lack them. So, being able to simply search tail in addition to these particular species would be incredibly useful. Personally, I don’t really care to see either of these depicted without tails. As I said above, tails are one of my favorite anthro characteristics. Species such as these are vastly less interesting to me if they lack tails, or even if the tails aren’t visible.

Now, once this BUR is approved (I have faith that our lovely admins will see the light), the tail tag can be repopulated with at least a few hundred thousand results by implications from all the other tail tags that we already have. Fortunately, since these are broken up among many smaller tags, this can be done with several separate BURs across several days to avoid overburdening the site with too many implications all at once.

Arise, O Great Tail Tag!

EDIT: The bulk update request #2240 (forum #330609) has been approved by @gattonero2001.

Updated by auto moderator

Tails arent even always visible, and some characters dont have them so... I mean its a valid request. Theres quite a few "invalid tags" that dont make sense.

demesejha said:
Tails arent even always visible, and some characters dont have them so... I mean its a valid request. Theres quite a few "invalid tags" that dont make sense.

Any others that catch your eye? This "Extremely Controversial One-line BUR" doesn't seem to be generating much controversy atm, might as well spin up some discussion.

I clicked this expecting to downvote but the argument is actually convincing enough. Apparently it was less controversial than me suggesting that fisting is penetration.

surprised the armpits tag hasn't been mentioned yet

faucet said:
surprised the armpits tag hasn't been mentioned yet

I was going to mention that earlier as being the more "controversial" one but decided against it since it would potentially derail the thread and throw votes into the opposite side.

strikerman said:
Any others that catch your eye? This "Extremely Controversial One-line BUR" doesn't seem to be generating much controversy atm, might as well spin up some discussion.

I was gonna say Armpit but theres tons of others

Monster_cock should be aliased to penis
Implied_digestion seems like a reasonable tag esp considering lots of vore art that include stomach noises but no internal shot
Neuter should be aliased to Nullo
Ruined Orgasm had a massive debate but it is a kink that exists that you cant search for bc its invalidated
Graphic, for violent images that dont feature gore
Transgender should alias to trans_(lore)

Theres a few more but those are big ones for now

demesejha said:
Neuter should be aliased to Nullo

Neuter can just mean having the testicles removed with the penis remaining, but nullo means both the penis and testicles were removed.

demesejha said:
Graphic, for violent images that dont feature gore

Too ambiguous. A graphic can mean just a visual image (a graphic novel is a novel/story told with images, i.e. a comic). In other contexts, it can mean explicit imagery. Graphic nudity is nudity with clear depictions of genitalia. In terms of violence, I'd say it's actually the opposite, with graphic violence meaning there's violence with gore.

strikerman said:
Any others that catch your eye? This "Extremely Controversial One-line BUR" doesn't seem to be generating much controversy atm, might as well spin up some discussion.

I’ve seen people argue against this tag before, so I wasn’t really expecting to get this far without any pushback.

demesejha said:
Ruined Orgasm had a massive debate but it is a kink that exists that you cant search for bc its invalidated

Isn’t that just orgasm denial?

scaliespe said:
The other “solution” (not really a solution) is to search *tail*. But this simply does not work because there are several non-tail tags that happen to contain those four letters in that order. The worst offender by far is detailed_background, which outnumbers every tail-related tag by a huge margin. Other major offenders include ponytail, pigtails, detailed, detailed_bulge, and little_tail_bronx. This would also include pages upon pages of artist, character, species, and copyright tags that don’t have anything specifically to do with tails. Oh, not to mention the tailless tag itself will be included in the results - essentially the exact opposite of what you’re looking for. The pollution of this search with other irrelevant results effectively makes it useless.

As for this problem, try this search instead: tail_* *_tail. It covers pretty much every tail tag without any irrelevant ones. Though I hope this BUR will get approved and make things easier.

scaliespe said:
Isn’t that just orgasm denial?

No, they're related but different. Orgasm_denial means someone can't have an orgasm until they get permission. It often involves getting edged by a partner with no orgasm at the end. A "ruined orgasm" is when stimulation is stopped exactly at the point of no return, causing a much weaker than usual orgasm. However, some users were tagging ruined_orgasm for "anything that could cause the orgasm experience to be less pleasant" (example: cock_and_ball_torture), so rather than getting cleaned up, it got invalidated and got replaced with the interrupted_orgasm tag (118 posts). There's also a coitus_interruptus tag (14 posts), which I think is used for the same thing.

demesejha said:
Neuter should be aliased to Nullo

We... still need to figure out what to do with the null and nullo tags first. In theory, those words SHOULD be synonyms, but they're confusingly defined differently on e621 (in practice, the definitions are often ignored, unsurprisingly).

  • Nullo is defined as a character HAD genitals, but they were removed, and now they just have a urethra and maybe some stitches.
  • Null is defined as a character canonically lacking genitals. They weren't removed, but rather they were never present. Unlike characters that had their genitals removed, null characters don't have a urethra or stitches.

A long time ago, before featureless_crotch was a common/established tag, I started tagging featureless_crotch for null pictures (no urethra, no stitches...) in part to try to resolve the confusion, but it seems that might have been insufficient. Featureless_crotch can be used for when the lack of genitals is an artistic choice rather than relevant to the picture. Then again, how do we even know when the lack of genitals is an artistic choice or "canon"? It's for that reason someone once suggested on the forums that null should be a lore tag... But, again, should we even have tags called "null" and "nullo" that are unintuitively defined differently...?

Updated

crocogator said:

We... still need to figure out what to do with the null and nullo tags first. In theory, those words SHOULD be synonyms, but they're confusingly defined differently on e621 (in practice, the definitions are often ignored, unsurprisingly).

  • Nullo is defined as a character HAD genitals, but they were removed, and now they just have a urethra and maybe some stitches.
  • Null is defined as a character canonically lacking genitals. They weren't removed, but rather they were never present. Unlike characters that had their genitals removed, null characters don't have a urethra or stitches.

A long time ago, before featureless_crotch was a common/established tag, I started tagging featureless_crotch for null pictures (no urethra, no stitches...) in part to try to resolve the confusion, but it seems that might have been insufficient. Featureless_crotch can be used for when the lack of genitals is an artistic choice rather than relevant to the picture. Then again, how do we even know when the lack of genitals is an artistic choice or "canon"? It's for that reason someone once suggested on the forums that null should be a lore tag... But, again, should we even have tags called "null" and "nullo" that are unintuitively defined differently...?

Yeah its kinda cut and dry actually.
Nullo is its own tag for post op nullified characters. This would normally be an issue but the nullo crotch has very specific look to it with a hole for urination and scarring. This makes it twys compatible.

Null is a meaningless tag thats ok to be aliased away into featureless_crotch. It started as a pushback concept but was co opted into a very specific fetish community's definition. The main issue is that Null and Featureless crotch mean the same thing.

Furthermore, Null and Nullo are actually gender tags. The irl eunuch and nullified community shares a lot with the trans community and exists in that same gummy messy gender spectrum.

Normally I wouldnt get rid of a gender tag but in this case, much like us not being allowed to tag transness outside of lore, keeping the tag null and featureless_crotch (and other now invalidated, no_genitals, empty crotch etc) makes no sense.

Nullo stays for visibly altered bodies that have had their genitals ablated. Null should be aliased to featureless_crotch.

I can't respond properly for a few hours but I had to drop something.
This is also a far better place for this discussion

demesejha said:
Yeah its kinda cut and dry actually.
Null is a meaningless tag thats ok to be aliased away into featureless_crotch.
Null should be aliased to featureless_crotch.

No
Even without diving into everything right now, there is a large difference between stylistically-featureless crotches and when nothing being there is an intentional aspect of character design in an otherwise explicit context.
Not to mention, for better or worse many null posts feature null_bulge which is a crotch feature and will continue to be applied along with null by taggers.

But I want to ask does this come down to being an "I choose to discard fictional content in favour of keeping it away from the real-world issues I care about" issue?
Your post is very flavoured.

Updated

I was about to start collecting tags for implications, but the tail wiki is actually already really well fleshed out. Just using those I think it would be very easy to repopulate the tag.

If this ever gets accepted, a LOT of tags will have to be implicated, like I'm talking so much, I might make a list later...

cutefox123 said:
If this ever gets accepted, a LOT of tags will have to be implicated, like I'm talking so much, I might make a list later...

Are there any tags that should implicate tail that would not belong on the tail wiki? Rather than a personal list, it may be better to expand that.

oozeenthusiast said:
Are there any tags that should implicate tail that would not belong on the tail wiki? Rather than a personal list, it may be better to expand that.

I mean yeah, the list is basically the wiki itself

oozeenthusiast said:
I was about to start collecting tags for implications, but the tail wiki is actually already really well fleshed out. Just using those I think it would be very easy to repopulate the tag.

cutefox123 said:
If this ever gets accepted, a LOT of tags will have to be implicated, like I'm talking so much, I might make a list later...

Save yourselves the effort… I’ve already written the entire BUR with every tail tag I could find. It’s in a .txt file sitting on my desktop waiting for this to get approved. And yeah, it’s a lot of tags.

scaliespe said:
Save yourselves the effort… I’ve already written the entire BUR with every tail tag I could find. It’s in a .txt file sitting on my desktop waiting for this to get approved. And yeah, it’s a lot of tags.

It's time to release the tail.txt beast

trevortheyeen said:
It's time to release the tail.txt beast

Working on that now.

I wrote it way back when you could have BURs of unlimited size, so I need to split it into chunks of 25 now. :v

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