This post for example credits tyvania for the model used; does that mean tyvania should be in the tag list? Also should the answer to this question be incorporated into the wiki entry for the 3d_(artwork) tag or something for the benefit of anyone who has this question in the future? That was the only place I could think to look besides the entry for tagging tips.

I thought I remembered a long-running discussion on this topic, but it's not in the most obvious place: https://e621.net/forum_topics/21752?page=1#forum_post_282562

People seem to be generally in favour, but nothing keeps on happening. The main sticking point (apart from retagging thousands of posts) is what category asset tags should go in, or if an entirely new category should be created.

We should credit the people who actually did the hard work, yes.

Do not tag model makers as artists. It makes it difficult to differentiate artwork they made themselves from something that just uses a model of theirs.
You are encouraged to give credit in the description, though.

bitwolfy said:
Do not tag model makers as artists. It makes it difficult to differentiate artwork they made themselves from something that just uses a model of theirs.
You are encouraged to give credit in the description, though.

Wouldn't arttags:1 do the trick?

I disagree with the idea of completely excluding model creators from the artist credits since there can also exist official collaborations in the creation of an artwork (e.g., post #3163604, which also credits the character rigging as well).

It would be more understandable to exclude model creators when they were not involved in the artwork at all, such as posts made using assets from games (e.g., source_filmmaker) or publicly-accessible character models (e.g., femclaw).

I think this is exactly the purpose of the description.