So, I’ve noticed that the “cute” tag is now in the “invalid tag” category in which really confuses me as to why that is. I’m sure there’s plenty of people here who would still like to take a break from all the pornographic stuff and look at stuff that’s just supposed to be cute and innocent. And it’s a VERY popular thing for people to wait to find. The biggest problem I have with this is the fact the tag has been a “valid tag” for a long time on the site and the fact that it’s now “invalid” doesn’t make much sense to me.

Anyone else get what I’m saying here?

It was invalidated a long time ago because a lot of people were tagging it on porn stuff that wasn't really all that cutesy. There is a daww tag for cute stuff at 3k posts though, and from a quick glance, it seems everyone who's tagging it is tagging it correctly.

crocogator said:
It was invalidated a long time ago because a lot of people were tagging it on porn stuff that wasn't really all that cutesy. There is a daww tag for cute stuff at 3k posts though, and from a quick glance, it seems everyone who's tagging it is tagging it correctly.

There’s also a thing called “cute porn”. Not sure if this site already has a tag like that. But a lot of other sites do.

Isn't "cute" subjective? Like if you find something cute, others might not necessarily agree?

pheagleadler said:
Isn't "cute" subjective? Like if you find something cute, others might not necessarily agree?

welcome to the invalidation reason. The only cute tag that I'm aware of that still exists is cute_fangs and that's because it actually has a criteria that must be met for the tag to be applicable. Despite the second half of the tag description being redundant.

crocogator said:
It was invalidated a long time ago because a lot of people were tagging it on porn stuff that wasn't really all that cutesy. There is a daww tag for cute stuff at 3k posts though, and from a quick glance, it seems everyone who's tagging it is tagging it correctly.

https://e621.net/forum_topics/29383?page=1#forum_post_320867
the tag has been discussed about being gotten rid of for a while. Subjective opinion tags are useless chaos as far as I'm concerned.

versperus said:
https://e621.net/forum_topics/29383?page=1#forum_post_320867
the tag has been discussed about being gotten rid of for a while. Subjective opinion tags are useless chaos as far as I'm concerned.

But the rules also say “tag what you see, not what you know”. And when you see something where a character is clearly being cute. It should be tagged with “cute”. It shouldn’t really be an opinion tag either. If the character is making a cute face or even doing something cute such as a hug or something. It’s not opinionated since even if it’s not cute to others it IS intended to be.

dragon_soldier321 said:
But the rules also say “tag what you see, not what you know”. And when you see something where a character is clearly being cute. It should be tagged with “cute”.

Everyone has a different idea of what's cute, there are things I'd find cute that you won't and vice-versa, and while there may be some overlap many people may agree to, it would be impossible to define where that overlap is and enforce that people only use it by that definition, instead of "I think this is cute, I'll add the cute tag" that they inevitably will.

watsit said:
Everyone has a different idea of what's cute, there are things I'd find cute that you won't and vice-versa, and while there may be some overlap many people may agree to, it would be impossible to define where that overlap is and enforce that people only use it by that definition, instead of "I think this is cute, I'll add the cute tag" that they inevitably will.

Well if we can’t have a tag that just says “cute”. Then it would still be best if there was a replacement tag for it. Again, there are going to be a lot of people here who are going to want to look for images that would be considered “cute”.

watsit said:
Everyone has a different idea of what's cute, there are things I'd find cute that you won't and vice-versa, and while there may be some overlap many people may agree to, it would be impossible to define where that overlap is and enforce that people only use it by that definition, instead of "I think this is cute, I'll add the cute tag" that they inevitably will.

Another problem I have about this tag being invalid is because I can’t think of any other site that would make such a popular tag that is used on site across the internet that would make “cute” an invalid tag other than this one (and Paheal.net but that’s because they don’t use content tags).

As pointed out above, cute is highly subjective. Despite lots of back-and-forth, we couldn't define cute satisfactorily. With subjective tags like these, every time we try to nail them down, they walk off with the hammer. I'm sure many users would enjoy seeing cute things, but it's up to them to define what "cute" means for them, because no tag is going to satisfactorily do the job for both them and everyone else.

This also wouldn't be the first or only time e621 has used or not used tags common elsewhere. What works on other sites may not work here, and vice versa.

dragon_soldier321 said:
Another problem I have about this tag being invalid is because I can’t think of any other site that would make such a popular tag that is used on site across the internet that would make “cute” an invalid tag other than this one (and Paheal.net but that’s because they don’t use content tags).

Other sites don't have a tagging system that's actually funcitonal.

It's kinda like the sexy tag, literally anything can be sexy depending on who you ask. Likewise, cute also suffers from the same fate.

Instead, you should use alternative tags like daww, toony/chibi, cute_eyes/big eyes, cute_fangs, cute_clothing, etc.

I have mentioned before that I think wholesome should be brought back as a more definable replacement for cute. Something like “rating:safe posts about baby animals and friendship and frolicking in flowery meadows” and so on. It seems more more apparent to me that this tag isn’t applicable just because an artist has a cutesy art style or because the character is chibi or has cute_eyes/cute_fangs etc.

scaliespe said:
I have mentioned before that I think wholesome should be brought back as a more definable replacement for cute. Something like “rating:safe posts about baby animals and friendship and frolicking in flowery meadows” and so on. It seems more more apparent to me that this tag isn’t applicable just because an artist has a cutesy art style or because the character is chibi or has cute_eyes/cute_fangs etc.

catch 22 that's your definition of wholesome which goes right back to subjective tag.

crocogator said:
It was invalidated a long time ago because a lot of people were tagging it on porn stuff that wasn't really all that cutesy. There is a daww tag for cute stuff at 3k posts though, and from a quick glance, it seems everyone who's tagging it is tagging it correctly.

I'm not fully sure how that tag works either. It sounds subjective too, so by TWYS rules I don't use it.
And I know cuteness. Like half my uploads are based on it. Someone else put Daww on this one only post #3215038 .

I think not having YMMV tags helps prevent arguments and edit wars more than it hurts searches.

https://e621.net/forum_topics/23368

TL;DR it's too subjective and folks kept mistagging it on stuff that didn't adhere to the tag's wiki

dragon_soldier321 said:
...It shouldn’t really be an opinion tag either...

I am sorry for that. But it is an opinion thing:

Have a look in the comments of them. Most people probably wouldn't agree to them.

clawstripe said:
As pointed out above, cute is highly subjective. Despite lots of back-and-forth, we couldn't define cute satisfactorily. With subjective tags like these, every time we try to nail them down, they walk off with the hammer. I'm sure many users would enjoy seeing cute things, but it's up to them to define what "cute" means for them, because no tag is going to satisfactorily do the job for both them and everyone else.

This also wouldn't be the first or only time e621 has used or not used tags common elsewhere. What works on other sites may not work here, and vice versa.

If we can't have "cute" since it's considered an opinion. Then I think it would be best if we used "cute" aliased to "adorable" as it is not technically an opinion. Adorable means you are at least able to adore whatever it is you're looking at. Do not forget that the "able" part is in the word because even if it isn't adorable to everyone else. You are at least "able to find it cute. You get what I mean.

dragon_soldier321 said:
If we can't have "cute" since it's considered an opinion. Then I think it would be best if we used "cute" aliased to "adorable" as it is not technically an opinion. Adorable means you are at least able to adore whatever it is you're looking at. Do not forget that the "able" part is in the word because even if it isn't adorable to everyone else. You are at least "able to find it cute. You get what I mean.

any opinion based tag is subjective.

We could also start saying green to red. But it won't change the color.

dragon_soldier321 said:
If we can't have "cute" since it's considered an opinion. Then I think it would be best if we used "cute" aliased to "adorable" as it is not technically an opinion. Adorable means you are at least able to adore whatever it is you're looking at. Do not forget that the "able" part is in the word because even if it isn't adorable to everyone else. You are at least "able to find it cute. You get what I mean.

I understand that you really want to keep the tag and all, but do you seriously believe your own arguments?

dragon_soldier321 said:
If we can't have "cute" since it's considered an opinion. Then I think it would be best if we used "cute" aliased to "adorable" as it is not technically an opinion. Adorable means you are at least able to adore whatever it is you're looking at. Do not forget that the "able" part is in the word because even if it isn't adorable to everyone else. You are at least "able to find it cute. You get what I mean.

Adorable is just as subjective and opinionated as cute. Try finding a term that isn't based on opinion.

dragon_soldier321 said:
If we can't have "cute" since it's considered an opinion. Then I think it would be best if we used "cute" aliased to "adorable" as it is not technically an opinion. Adorable means you are at least able to adore whatever it is you're looking at. Do not forget that the "able" part is in the word because even if it isn't adorable to everyone else. You are at least "able to find it cute. You get what I mean.

Sooner or later, you're going to need to understand: No amount of trying to rework, or trying to bend backwards to get what you want. TWYS isn't made for something like this and it most likely never going to be used on the site.

It seems to me like the "daww" tag — already brought up multiple times in this thread — already covers everything you'd want from a "cute" tag, OP. It even has a definition similar to yours in the wiki entry. So what's the issue with it?

lendrimujina said:
It seems to me like the "daww" tag — already brought up multiple times in this thread — already covers everything you'd want from a "cute" tag, OP. It even has a definition similar to yours in the wiki entry. So what's the issue with it?

I'm confused about the original wiki being written by the same admin who invalidated dawww

versperus said:
catch 22 that's your definition of wholesome which goes right back to subjective tag.

That’s not the point. We already have lots of tag names that are somewhat subjective and open to interpretation, like tail_grab or a lot of the other action tags. Is it a character grabbing their own tail, or another’s? Does it apply to fake tails? How about ponytails? You can interpret it in different ways, so we write a wiki page giving it a specific definition that excludes other things. Thus, we can try to do the same with a tag like that. Cute didn’t work because its so commonly used by everyone uploading here that it would get applied to anything without regard for what the wiki says. Wholesome is a more specific and less commonly abused word, so it could work.

I still stand for cute to remain an invalid tag, and I agree for it being too subjective.

scaliespe said:
... We already have lots of tag names that are somewhat subjective and open to interpretation, like tail_grab or a lot of the other action tags. Is it a character grabbing their own tail, or another’s? Does it apply to fake tails? How about ponytails? ... Wholesome is a more specific and less commonly abused word, so it could work.

By the way, the *_grab tags are used when a character is holding/grabbing another character's bodypart. For characters holding/grabbing their own, we got holding_*.

tail_grab is obviously not subjective as the other action tags. I mean, it's pretty self-explanatory. I'm very sure that a lot of dedicated taggers can clearly notice if a tail is fake on a post, and even differentiate a horse tail to a kind of hairstyle. For wholesome, I think it's hard to make it as specific as tail_grab. To me, it's easy to give the latter a specific definition because it centers around the "grabbing of one's tail", but not for the former because "wholesomeness" can be different/not too centered to every users here.

scaliespe said:
That’s not the point. We already have lots of tag names that are somewhat subjective and open to interpretation, like tail_grab or a lot of the other action tags. Is it a character grabbing their own tail, or another’s? Does it apply to fake tails? How about ponytails? You can interpret it in different ways, so we write a wiki page giving it a specific definition that excludes other things. Thus, we can try to do the same with a tag like that. Cute didn’t work because its so commonly used by everyone uploading here that it would get applied to anything without regard for what the wiki says. Wholesome is a more specific and less commonly abused word, so it could work.

Your example is literally a tag that's descriptive in the tag it self, it gives an idea of what the tag is intended for without reading the wiki, the wiki is for clarification.

Marian webster definition of wholesome:
Definition of wholesome
1: promoting health or well-being of mind or spirit
2: promoting health of body
3a: sound in body, mind, or morals
b: having the simple health or vigor of normal domesticity
4a: based on well-grounded fear

If anything the closest way to use wholesome as a tag is if it were used on posts which promoted good nutritional diets. Not quite your interpretation of using it as a replacement for "cute" is it.

monsterbomb10010 said:
I still stand for cute to remain an invalid tag, and I agree for it being too subjective.

By the way, the *_grab tags are used when a character is holding/grabbing another character's bodypart. For characters holding/grabbing their own, we got holding_*.

tail_grab is obviously not subjective as the other action tags. I mean, it's pretty self-explanatory. I'm very sure that a lot of dedicated taggers can clearly notice if a tail is fake on a post, and even differentiate a horse tail to a kind of hairstyle. For wholesome, I think it's hard to make it as specific as tail_grab. To me, it's easy to give the latter a specific definition because it centers around the "grabbing of one's tail", but not for the former because "wholesomeness" can be different/not too centered to every users here.

You might assume so, but I’ve often seen posts under tail_grab of characters grabbing their own tail. Someone usually fixes it, I think, but still. The name doesn’t inherently imply its meaning. There are other ways to interpret it. I’m not saying that “wholesome” will be as simple as that, but just that we might be able to do that same thing: excluding certain definitions so that the tag has a defined and focused purpose.

versperus said:
Your example is literally a tag that's descriptive in the tag it self, it gives an idea of what the tag is intended for without reading the wiki, the wiki is for clarification.

Not really. Someone using the tag without checking the wiki could easily assume that it applies to grabbing any tail, not just another character’s tail. The name of the tag in no way implies that limitation.

I feel like my tail_grab example is going over everyone’s heads. Let me try another…

bound and restrained are arbitrarily defined here. Dictionary-wise, they’re near-perfect synonyms. Here, however, we use them for two rather discrete concepts. How would you know not to tag restrained on a handcuffed character? You simply wouldn’t know without checking the wiki. We don’t use the full definition of the word. We often don’t when it comes to tags. We limit it to a more specific concept that’s more useful to us. Yes, a handcuffed character definitely is “restrained” in the common sense of the word, but we just don’t use the word the same way here. We define it for our purposes.

Marian webster definition of wholesome:
Definition of wholesome
1: promoting health or well-being of mind or spirit
2: promoting health of body
3a: sound in body, mind, or morals
b: having the simple health or vigor of normal domesticity
4a: based on well-grounded fear

If anything the closest way to use wholesome as a tag is if it were used on posts which promoted good nutritional diets. Not quite your interpretation of using it as a replacement for "cute" is it.

You’re still missing the point. We are not using the dictionary definition of the word. Also, I think Merriam-Webster is a little outdated here. If it helps, here’s a more apt definition I grabbed from Dictionary.com

Even still, we’re not bound by the dictionary definition of the word. We are free to use it as it suits our purposes. The general thrust of this definition is that it’s something that is likely to make people happy (but not in a sexual way). That’s fine, but we’d still probably want to create a stricter set of criteria for it so that it’s not subjective. That’s the thing. A word used for a tag can be subjective (we already do that plenty) as long as the definition of the tag isn’t subjective.

See, they tried to rescue cute by giving it an objective set of criteria by which to apply the tag. That in itself wasn’t a failure. The problem was that “cute” is such a widely used and abused word that it would get added probably dozens or maybe even hundreds of times per day by casual users who don’t read wikis and just apply whatever tags they want, including applying “cute” to every post they upload just because. What I’m saying is that I think the same thing could still work in principle, just as long as we use a word for it that isn’t something that every random uploader applies to every post by default. I don’t hear people use the word “wholesome” all that often (even you seemed to think it still just applies to nutritional diets), so I don’t think it’s going to be rampantly abused like cute was.

scaliespe said:
A word used for a tag can be subjective (we already do that plenty) as long as the definition of the tag isn’t subjective.

You're right to make this distinction, but you're misusing the word "subjective". Literally all of language is ambiguous or incomplete in the sense Derrida coined différance to describe, but in practice we make do with approximations and occasional misunderstandings.

Nearly every TWYS tag has the possibility of legitimate edge cases, where the visual criteria of the tag are well-defined, but two people might disagree about whether those criteria are depicted in a specific case. That's not an argument against using a tag system at all.

But cute and wholesome are both emotional valences and cannot be defined in visual terms. We can agree completely about what the image depicts and have different emotional responses to it, and there is no possible way to adjudicate between us. (daww, if you take the wiki seriously, would be tagging based on the noise you make when you see the image, and that's patently absurd. It's just cute.)

If you want to argue from precedent, you should try what, why, where_is_your_god_now, nightmare_fuel... But at least for nightmare_fuel I would counterargue that it could be an exception for pragmatic reasons, since I have it blacklisted and it catches a lot of things that aren't otherwise covered :)

_{also the other ones are funny
wow you read to the end even after I mentioned Derrida? wow!}

deleuzian_cattery said:
If you want to argue from precedent, you should try what, why, where_is_your_god_now, nightmare_fuel... But at least for nightmare_fuel I would counterargue that it could be an exception for pragmatic reasons, since I have it blacklisted and it catches a lot of things that aren't otherwise covered :)

We have enough of a problem with non-subjective tags being misapplied because they're poorly understood or carelessly added ^{(looking at you hyper breasts tagged on a character with a perfectly realistic F cup chest)}, the last thing this site needs is any more subjective tags that would get applied to hundreds of images a day, purely based on personal preferences.

If you want cute images, this might be helpful: rating:s order:score -animated -meme -politics -humor -what -why, it's not perfect, but you'll probably get what you're looking for.

hungrymaple said:

Here comes a tangent nobody asked for:

I am 100% no fun and I fully agree with it

All those examples are basically just little inside jokes that go against the tagging guidelines, I'd also add lol_comments to the pile of ones we can just throw away at any point without losing anything of value to the site

mabit said:
I am 100% no fun and I fully agree with it

All those examples are basically just little inside jokes that go against the tagging guidelines, I'd also add lol_comments to the pile of ones we can just throw away at any point without losing anything of value to the site

We also gain nothing by removing them. And actually, some people may actually enjoy looking through the results, as random as they are. As long as they don’t get applied to virtually everything on the site like cute was, I don’t see how it harms anything.

deleuzian_cattery said:
You're right to make this distinction, but you're misusing the word "subjective". Literally all of language is ambiguous or incomplete in the sense Derrida coined différance to describe, but in practice we make do with approximations and occasional misunderstandings.

Nearly every TWYS tag has the possibility of legitimate edge cases, where the visual criteria of the tag are well-defined, but two people might disagree about whether those criteria are depicted in a specific case. That's not an argument against using a tag system at all.

But cute and wholesome are both emotional valences and cannot be defined in visual terms. We can agree completely about what the image depicts and have different emotional responses to it, and there is no possible way to adjudicate between us. (daww, if you take the wiki seriously, would be tagging based on the noise you make when you see the image, and that's patently absurd. It's just cute.)

If you want to argue from precedent, you should try what, why, where_is_your_god_now, nightmare_fuel... But at least for nightmare_fuel I would counterargue that it could be an exception for pragmatic reasons, since I have it blacklisted and it catches a lot of things that aren't otherwise covered :)

_{also the other ones are funny
wow you read to the end even after I mentioned Derrida? wow!}

_{don’t get me started on Derrida}
Okay, let’s try another one: rape
This has a very specific definition in a purely legal sense - whether or not a sexual activity took place with the consent of all parties involved - but this doesn’t work very well in art. Consent is almost never explicitly depicted, nor the lack thereof. It’s almost always based on something like “does this character look like a willing participant?” There can be some semi-objective criteria, but it’s largely a very subjective tag. Still, it’s essential to have for blacklisting purposes, so we keep it.

What I’m trying to say about wholesome is that it does not need to be entirely subjective. We can devise an objective set of criteria that vaguely aligns with a general understanding of “wholesome” without relying on individual interpretations. The word itself may not be definable in visual terms, but that’s not what we’re doing. rape is also almost never definable in visual terms either, but it still roughly works. Same as nightmare_fuel, as you mentioned. What I’m proposing is that we create a concept based around a set of visually identifiable criteria and apply the word “wholesome” as a tag to define it, because the concept can’t function as a tag without having a name. This is regardless of how different people interpret the word itself. If “wholesome” itself is a problem, then suggest a different name. That’s basically what daww is already doing, but I just don’t like that name much, hence why I propose “wholesome” as an alternate name for roughly the same concept, albeit with perhaps a more concrete set of criteria.

mabit said:
I am 100% no fun and I fully agree with it

All those examples are basically just little inside jokes that go against the tagging guidelines, I'd also add lol_comments to the pile of ones we can just throw away at any point without losing anything of value to the site

At least lol comments requires the objective criteria of multiple comments existing on a post, and could help people who want to find posts with excessive drama or attempts at comedy in their comment sections.

And unlike what, why, where is your god now, what has science done, what has magic done, and cursed image, lol comments hasn't spread across six interchangeable, poorly defined tags.

hungrymaple said:
At least lol comments requires the objective criteria of multiple comments existing on a post, and could help people who want to find posts with excessive drama or attempts at comedy in their comment sections.

And unlike what, why, where is your god now, what has science done, what has magic done, and cursed image, lol comments hasn't spread across six interchangeable, poorly defined tags.

lol comments is admittedly a subjective tag that honestly has no real right to even exist but I'm pretty sure the staff probably also get a small kick out of the usual ridiculous drama that encompasses the posts that the tag is usually used for giving it a free pass.

scaliespe said:
We also gain nothing by removing them. And actually, some people may actually enjoy looking through the results, as random as they are. As long as they don’t get applied to virtually everything on the site like cute was, I don’t see how it harms anything.

I fully agree with you

It still goes against tagging guidelines though, it has nothing to do with the picture itself and it incentivizes people to try to take the "spotlight" on posts by trying to be funny for example. This is an art archive, not a stand up competition or a place where you come to see random internet squabbles

hungrymaple said:
At least lol comments requires the objective criteria of multiple comments existing on a post, and could help people who want to find posts with excessive drama or attempts at comedy in their comment sections.

And unlike what, why, where is your god now, what has science done, what has magic done, and cursed image, lol comments hasn't spread across six interchangeable, poorly defined tags.

Thing is, "having comments" is where the objective criteria for the tag starts and ends. Anything aside from that is in the same nebulous definition as daaw or cute

Whats the threshold on how many posts of people arguing we have to have to count as "drama"? Whats the line dividing what counts as a "funny joke/reference" and what counts as a creepy comment/roleplay? Is a post with three comments, including one thats making a jojo reference and another making a meh joke, enough to be tagged as lol_comments? Because by the wiki definition it technically is

Aside from potentialy making the site worse like I pointed above, I agree that these tags are indeed not a big deal at all
But they're still clutter in the tagging system that should eventually be cleaned ideally

All those tags should be cleaned up. They express something we can describe objectively

• what Sorry, but this wiki is a mess. It gives me the urge to ALT + F4 my browser...
• why The same as "what", barely a difference.
• where_is_your_god_now The same as what but without god.
• what_has_science_done The same as what but with more science.
• what_has_magic_done The same as what but with magic.
• cursed_image The same as what =_=

They all should be aliased to one tag, they literally give you the same results. I would prefer, cleaning them up, and aliasing them to invalid, because you can explain them with with:
body_horror, overweight, hyper, penis_nippes, mutation, transformation, gore, gaping_anus, feces, meme, humor, etc
Or we alias them, "FoR iTs CoMeDiC vAlUe AnD hIsToRy", to what instead

• lol_comments shouldn't exist, in my opinion. It doesn't describe anything about the picture
• daww is the same as cute, just painted differently. It's like tagging a good-looking character with: "huff" or "rawr", besides that these tags exist and have an actual use

dubsthefox said:

• daww is the same as cute, just painted differently. It's like tagging a good-looking character with: "huff" or "rawr", besides that these tags exist and have an actual use

I'd argue that "daww" is not nearly as ambiguous as "cute", because unlike "cute", it can't be just used as a synonym for "sexy" (e.g. "a cute boy"), which is where one of the most major problems with "cute" lies.

"Daww" probably the best compromise we can get, unless we can think of something else. (Maybe "cutesy", since that would pretty unambiguously be about what mood the picture's trying to evoke and not what the viewer thinks?)

scaliespe said:
What I’m trying to say about wholesome is that it does not need to be entirely subjective. We can devise an objective set of criteria that vaguely aligns with a general understanding of “wholesome” without relying on individual interpretations. The word itself may not be definable in visual terms, but that’s not what we’re doing. rape is also almost never definable in visual terms either, but it still roughly works. Same as nightmare_fuel, as you mentioned. What I’m proposing is that we create a concept based around a set of visually identifiable criteria and apply the word “wholesome” as a tag to define it, because the concept can’t function as a tag without having a name. This is regardless of how different people interpret the word itself. If “wholesome” itself is a problem, then suggest a different name. That’s basically what daww is already doing, but I just don’t like that name much, hence why I propose “wholesome” as an alternate name for roughly the same concept, albeit with perhaps a more concrete set of criteria.

_{oh please do get started on Derrida :333333}

I'm not really convinced by rape as an example, it's not relevant that the word has a precise legal definition that doesn't apply here, but you know what? You've swayed me back to the pragmatic side. I still don't think any set of visual criteria is going to cover what wholesome is supposed to be, but I'm willing to believe you could get it to the point that any disagreements would effectively be the same as the edge cases for any other tag. I do think it's better than cute in that respect; I don't think daww is any better; cutesy might be marginally better; maybe cute_theme.

_{oh god there's cute_eyes and cute_scene and cute_outfit and they're all clusterfucks}

Now my opinion that didn't matter anyway can continue not mattering in peace.

lendrimujina said:
I'd argue that "daww" is not nearly as ambiguous as "cute"

It is. E.g. Two characters are doing scat play, random user looks at it, and thinks: "daww, they are trusting each other so much that they are doing this" In this community they would say "daww" in this situation. People outside of it wouldn't.

lendrimujina said:
Maybe "cutesy", since that would pretty unambiguously be...

That has to be a joke now, right? Adding "sy" to cute, doesn't change its meaning, or am I wrong? _{^{(non-native English speaker, serious question)}}

PS: Even tags that sound super obvious are sometimes hard to use. E.g. colors. Where does red end and orange start? Or the color teal, is it more green, or more blue?

dubsthefox said:
That has to be a joke now, right? Adding "sy" to cute, doesn't change its meaning, or am I wrong? _{^{(non-native English speaker, serious question)}}

As a native English speaker, to me it does. "cute" is a general word for a perceived quality. "cutesy" suggests affectation, the intent to provoke that perception. It actually tends to have a negative connotation: trying too hard, or too obviously, or too self-consciously, to manipulate the viewer/audience. That's why I compared it to "cute theme". You wouldn't generally describe a specific object as "cutesy"...it's more of a vibe. You might describe a place's decor as cutesy, or a person's overall look.

deleuzian_cattery said:
As a native English speaker, to me it does. "cute" is a general word for a perceived quality. "cutesy" suggests affectation, the intent to provoke that perception. It actually tends to have a negative connotation: trying too hard, or too obviously, or too self-consciously, to manipulate the viewer/audience. That's why I compared it to "cute theme". You wouldn't generally describe a specific object as "cutesy"...it's more of a vibe. You might describe a place's decor as cutesy, or a person's overall look.

as a fellow english speaker cutesy doesn't have any different connotations to cute, to me :V

How about this.

We only tag things with "cute" only if the image SFW. Meaning it cannot be used on images that have questionable or explicit ratings to them.

dragon_soldier321 said:
How about this.

We only tag things with "cute" only if the image SFW. Meaning it cannot be used on images that have questionable or explicit ratings to them.

big_belliy This tag can be applied to SFW art. Some would say yes, is cute, some would say no, is not.

dragon_soldier321 said:
How about this.

We only tag things with "cute" only if the image SFW. Meaning it cannot be used on images that have questionable or explicit ratings to them.

Except there are NSFW images that are cute. Some artists specialize in cute, erotic art. On some sites, "cute porn" is a dedicated tag. (Not saying that because some sites use it, we should too, of course.)

basically it all comes down to the baseline point that "this is what sets are for" Here is my suggestion, Make a set. post it here, tell people to DM you for permission to add posts to that set and that way you and who ever can fill it with posts you think are cute.

versperus said:
basically it all comes down to the baseline point that "this is what sets are for" Here is my suggestion, Make a set. post it here, tell people to DM you for permission to add posts to that set and that way you and who ever can fill it with posts you think are cute.

I don’t think that’s a great solution. It doesn’t really tackle the problem that casual users stumbling upon this site are likely to look for something approximating “cute,” for as popular as that concept is.

deleuzian_cattery said:
As a native English speaker, to me it does. "cute" is a general word for a perceived quality. "cutesy" suggests affectation, the intent to provoke that perception. It actually tends to have a negative connotation: trying too hard, or too obviously, or too self-consciously, to manipulate the viewer/audience. That's why I compared it to "cute theme". You wouldn't generally describe a specific object as "cutesy"...it's more of a vibe. You might describe a place's decor as cutesy, or a person's overall look.

I do think cutesy or cute theme could work. Probably the latter. They don’t suffer from the problem that “cute” by itself also commonly means sexy or attractive.

scaliespe said:
I do think cutesy or cute theme could work. Probably the latter. They don’t suffer from the problem that “cute” by itself also commonly means sexy or attractive.

Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at. It's not so much that it has different meanings as it does less potential interpretations.

Adding "-sy" doesn't change the connotation; it excludes it from being used in the "a cute boy" context.

scaliespe said:
I do think cutesy or cute theme could work. Probably the latter. They don’t suffer from the problem that “cute” by itself also commonly means sexy or attractive.

I don't see how cute_theme would be any better than cute. Since for something to have the theme of being cute, you have to base it on what cute is, which different people disagree on. And to me, in this context cutesy is the same as cute (native english speaker here).

lendrimujina said:
Adding "-sy" doesn't change the connotation; it excludes it from being used in the "a cute boy" context.

How do you figure? A cute boy is as cutesy as he is cute. post #3239396 is cute/cutesy to me, but whether either tag would apply is completely dependent on the person viewing. If someone doesn't like anal sex, gay sex, pokemon sex, pokephilia, etc, they're unlikely to find it cute/cutesy, whereas someone more into it will. Similar with post #3223588, someone not into transformation is unlikely to find it cute/cutesy, while someone who is will be more likely to.

I am also on the side of getting rid of daww since it's just a variation of cute. It's something you say as a result of seeing something cute. There's nothing with post #3244141 or post #3244140 to make daww a valid tag, yet that's the kind of thing they get tagged on. Even it's wiki is replete with subjective talk, "tenderness or intimacy" would bring in many explicit images (tender or intimate sex = daww? but it says explicit/sex stuff should be avoided with the tag), "a cute cub" (it's got the word right there), "the lion snuggling with the lamb" (snuggling = daww?), "should make you smile at the screen, for at least a moment" (what makes one person smile can make another seethe in anger). These are all dependent on what the viewer finds cute. Even it's own examples don't fit its definition, like post #2398208 or post #2421079 (not tender or intimate, not cub, not snuggling, didn't make me smile any differently than any other likeable image). It's just a stand-in for cute being invalid.

watsit said:
I don't see how cute_theme would be any better than cute. Since for something to have the theme of being cute, you have to base it on what cute is, which different people disagree on. And to me, in this context cutesy is the same as cute (native english speaker here).

Would you invalidate horror_(theme) too, then? What about humor?

deleuzian_cattery said:
Would you invalidate horror_(theme) too, then? What about humor?

Perhaps, depends if one can or has come up with a decently objective description for them, and if people follow said objective description. Horror and comedy are genres of art, there are typical rules associated with them, so I could see them being valid enough if their use stays close to the established rules of horror or comedy. Unlike "cute", which isn't a genre with established rules. That's the difference I see; if someone works within the rules of horror or comedy, you can see it being within the rules even if it fails at being scary or funny to most people. But if someone tries to make something cute, there's no set rules to follow, so what do you do when it inevitably fails at being cute to various random people but succeeds with others at the same time?

watsit said:
I don't see how cute_theme would be any better than cute. Since for something to have the theme of being cute, you have to base it on what cute is, which different people disagree on. And to me, in this context cutesy is the same as cute (native english speaker here).

This, essentially:

scaliespe said:

What I’m trying to say about (cutesy/cute_theme/wholesome/daww) is that it does not need to be entirely subjective. We can devise an objective set of criteria that vaguely aligns with a general understanding of (cutesy/cute_theme/wholesome/daww) without relying on individual interpretations. The word itself may not be definable in visual terms, but that’s not what we’re doing. What I’m proposing is that we create a concept based around a set of visually identifiable criteria and apply the word “wholesome” (or “cute_theme”) as a tag to define it, because the concept can’t function as a tag without having a name. This is regardless of how different people interpret the word itself. If “wholesome” (or “cute_theme”) itself is a problem, then suggest a different name. That’s basically what daww is already doing, but I just don’t like that name much, hence why I propose “wholesome” (or “cute_theme”) as an alternate name for roughly the same concept, albeit with perhaps a more concrete set of criteria.

Essentially, I know that letting any user define the tag (regardless of the name used for it) won’t work. The point is to give it a fixed definition, similarly to how horror and comedy have recognizable themes. The “cute” tag itself won’t work because it’ll be constantly abused by casual users who don’t check wiki pages, but pretty much anything else wouldn’t have that problem. Not only does something like “cute theme” not have the secondary definition of “sexually attractive” that cute by itself has, but it’s a tag that the average user wouldn’t guess exists. Only people who know it exists would use it, and those people likely have read the wiki and understand the guidelines for the tag’s use.

scaliespe said:
Essentially, I know that letting any user define the tag (regardless of the name used for it) won’t work. The point is to give it a fixed definition, similarly to how horror and comedy have recognizable themes.

I don't see the point in doing that for the cute or daww tag. Such a fixed objective definition would likely have a more fitting term instead of cute or daww, as people already have ideas about what they personally find cute. And since most uses of the tag will likely be a result of "I think this is cute", rather than following a wiki definition that's separate from their innate feeling of what's cute, it will be very prone to mistags. Even when a tag can be given a proper definition, if it's still prone to a lot of mistags because that definition is so different from what people would normally or instinctively use it for, it may still be invalidated.

It would be better to come up with an objective set of criteria that you want a tag for, and think of a name for the tag based on that criteria, rather than taking a name for a tag and trying to fixate a set of criteria onto it that you came up with afterward. Cart before the horse, and all that.

scaliespe said:
Not only does something like “cute theme” not have the secondary definition of “sexually attractive” that cute by itself has

I don't see how you come to that conclusion. "Cute" has many definitions, which can include sexually attractive or other kind of fetish material, so something with the theme of being cute can just as easily easily include sexual attraction or fetish material. I'm not seeing the distinction you're claiming is there.

The more I see about this topic, the more I'm beginning to think that this is a controversy that can never and will never be resolved. Both sides feel equally as strongly about it, and neither side feels any compromise is acceptable.

Probably the most heated recurring debate on this site that doesn't involve morals in some way.

dubsthefox said:
All those tags should be cleaned up. They express something we can describe objectively

• what Sorry, but this wiki is a mess. It gives me the urge to ALT + F4 my browser...
• why The same as "what", barely a difference.
• where_is_your_god_now The same as what but without god.
• what_has_science_done The same as what but with more science.
• what_has_magic_done The same as what but with magic.
• cursed_image The same as what =_=

I'm not a fan of these tags at all, like I already said. They do need some major cleaning, and if we're going to have tags for "weird, gross, confusing" art, in my opinion they ought to be more descriptive and better defined.
Some could be redefined as unusual_anatomy, grotesque_death, or even nightmare_fuel, while the latter is definitely subjective and could use some cleaning itself, it's far clearer in intent and usage. If we had tags for "intentionally gross looking porn" "simple cartoon characters with extremely detailed genitalia" and "intentionally bizarre crossovers" we'd be halfway there to at least semi-useful tags to replace these poorly defined messes.

Even just aliasing all of these to one single tag would be a giant step in the right direction.

wondered why the tag wasn’t showing anything but a few images. the ruling makes sense as it is highly subjective but it was a tag I used a lot. hopefully people starting using the D’aww tag from here on out

watsit said:
I don't see the point in doing that for the cute or daww tag. Such a fixed objective definition would likely have a more fitting term instead of cute or daww, as people already have ideas about what they personally find cute. And since most uses of the tag will likely be a result of "I think this is cute", rather than following a wiki definition that's separate from their innate feeling of what's cute, it will be very prone to mistags. Even when a tag can be given a proper definition, if it's still prone to a lot of mistags because that definition is so different from what people would normally or instinctively use it for, it may still be invalidated.

My idea was that picking a tag name that’s never used (like cute_theme) would avoid the problem of people using the tag without following the guidelines for it, thus avoiding mistags. I’m not against entirely avoiding the word “cute,” though, but it can be difficult to come up with anything better to describe that concept.

It would be better to come up with an objective set of criteria that you want a tag for, and think of a name for the tag based on that criteria, rather than taking a name for a tag and trying to fixate a set of criteria onto it that you came up with afterward. Cart before the horse, and all that.

Okay, that’s fair. That was what I was hoping to do with wholesome - I read the criteria laid out on the daww wiki page, decided I didn’t really like the name “daww,” and came up with wholesome as an alternative. Perhaps that name wouldn’t work well either, but that was the best I could come up with. As it stands, daww seems to have a number of mistags (not too many to clean up, but enough to wonder if there could be a better tag name), but I think the criteria on the wiki is at least pretty concrete, leaving very little room for individual interpretation. If we want to take that criteria and apply a name to it, what would it be? If not wholesome… something to do with “innocence,” as that seems to be an essential element of this theme? I’m not sure, as there isn’t one particular word that just applies to this criteria and nothing outside it.

I don't see how you come to that conclusion. "Cute" has many definitions, which can include sexually attractive or other kind of fetish material, so something with the theme of being cute can just as easily easily include sexual attraction or fetish material. I'm not seeing the distinction you're claiming is there.

Personally, if someone says something has a “cute theme,” I find it hard to believe that they’re using the word in the same way as how people will use the term “being cute” or “acting cute” as a euphemism for someone being seductive or sexually provocative. I couldn’t really imagine that term actually being used outside of the stereotypical “cutesy/dainty/innocent” sort of thing. But even so, perhaps we can still avoid the word “cute” entirely. I just haven’t really figured out any substitutes for it yet.