The tag implication #45496 short_male -> short has been rejected.

Reason: Short_male is a gender-specific version of the short tag. Short should thus also be tagged on all short_male posts for belonging in that same general category.

EDIT: The tag implication short_male -> short (forum #340732) has been rejected by @slyroon.

Short doesn't seem like a good tag. What is "average height" for anthropomorphic characters? The "average height" would also depend on the age of a character, as the average height for younger characters would be less than older characters. Species could even play a role, as the average height of a blaziken will be higher than a treecko, for example. Depending on how anthrofied they may be. The first two examples in the wiki don't even apply based on the description, as they depict a single character against a simple background without any indication of height. And even the the other two examples don't look like they would qualify since Judy and Michiru doesn't look "below average", at best they're just smaller than Nick or Shirou respectively, but as the wiki says, "Not all characters who are smaller than another in the same image (size difference) are short, they may be of average height compared to an especially tall character."

So if the wiki can't even give good examples, 2 of 4 unquestionably incorrect with the other 2 heavily debatable, what expectation is there for the tag in general to be used correctly?

I also feel it could easily be mistagged from shorts, or refer to things like short hair, short tail, "short image" as the opposite of tall image, etc. The relative tags like smaller_male, larger_anthro, micro, macro, etc, work better since they are in relation to other things in the image, rather than some vague ambiguous standard for "short".

watsit said:
Short doesn't seem like a good tag. What is "average height" for anthropomorphic characters? The "average height" would also depend on the age of a character, as the average height for younger characters would be less than older characters. Species could even play a role, as the average height of a blaziken will be higher than a treecko, for example. Depending on how anthrofied they may be. The first two examples in the wiki don't even apply based on the description, as they depict a single character against a simple background without any indication of height. And even the the other two examples don't look like they would qualify since Judy and Michiru doesn't look "below average", at best they're just smaller than Nick or Shirou respectively, but as the wiki says, "Not all characters who are smaller than another in the same image (size difference) are short, they may be of average height compared to an especially tall character."

So if the wiki can't even give good examples, 2 of 4 unquestionably incorrect with the other 2 heavily debatable, what expectation is there for the tag in general to be used correctly?

I also feel it could easily be mistagged from shorts, or refer to things like short hair, short tail, "short image" as the opposite of tall image, etc. The relative tags like smaller_male, larger_anthro, micro, macro, etc, work better since they are in relation to other things in the image, rather than some vague ambiguous standard for "short".

I second the notion that there’s some iffiness and lack of coherence regarding the short tag. It’s merely the closest option I found available to tag some character archetypes and there are hardly any good inherent alternatives.

When it comes to generally searching for characters like Stitch, Impmon, Morgana_(Persona), etc. there are sadly no clear tag options despite their shared short stature (unless of course they're depicted otherwise). Most people would perceive them as short when drawn with their original design and proportions in mind even with nothing else to juxtapose them with.

I’m not sure if the best course of action would be to just better define the short tag to make it more coherent and use average perceived human height and proportions as its clear basis with some updated examples or to make a new lore tag that makes it clear for people who are clearly searching for that specific trait in a character but don’t really have a good consistent tag option available for it. I wouldn't doubt that there is demand for that type of search option in at least some way.

watsit said:
...

I think there's a point to having a tag describing short characters, there a characters that are clearly proportionally short, but are not "dwarf" or "short stacks". There are characters who are explicitly stated to be below average adult human height (and are drawn in a way that implies their species' averages are analogous to humans). There's also a tall tag for characters that proportionally appear to be taller than average, or are tall when compared to their surroundings. I'm against removing tags that don't have a good replacement and describe something that clearly has application.

As for this implication itself, needing a distinct sex tag, rather than just operating off of short male solo implies that there would be non-short characters in the same post, which would make smaller male the appropriate tag.

hungrymaple said:
I think there's a point to having a tag describing short characters, there a characters that are clearly proportionally short, but are not "dwarf" or "short stacks".

By what standard would you determine if someone is "short" or not in a drawing of said character? "Below average height" is unusably vague in the context of drawn characters, and without some relative qualifier (like "average for the species", "average for the art style", or "average for the character's age", which would further muddy the waters), it would be filled with young and feral characters as they're generally smaller than an average human.

hungrymaple said:
I'm against removing tags that don't have a good replacement and describe something that clearly has application.

We do have the larger_* and smaller_* tags, along with micro and macro, which are more clearly defined and better applied.

watsit said:
By what standard would you determine if someone is "short" or not in a drawing of said character? "Below average height" is unusably vague in the context of drawn characters, and without some relative qualifier (like "average for the species", "average for the art style", or "average for the character's age", which would further muddy the waters), it would be filled with young and feral characters as they're generally smaller than an average human.

First, I think tags like short and tall should only apply to human, humanoid, and anthro, excluding semi-anthro as well. Cub and chibi also excluded. Only what appear to be adult human-shaped characters would qualify as that would simplify their use.

Within that context, we could identify characters as being short or tall on the basis of their proportions alone, without any other information. Typically this can be identified by head-to-body ratio. Heads don’t usually increase in size to any meaningful degree with taller individuals, so a tall character will have a smaller head proportionally to their body, and vice versa for short characters (assuming the proportions aren’t overly stylized, hence why I exclude chibi, its primary defining feature being proportionally oversized heads).

For example, post #3113850 features what is clearly an extremely tall character even without any context clues, primarily due to the head/body proportions.

The tag implication short_male -> short (forum #340732) has been rejected by @slyroon.