At the moment, tagging of Pokémon species based on real or mythological animals is very inconsistent. Sometimes Zangoose images will be tagged with herpestid; sometimes they won't. Sometimes Charizard images will be tagged with dragon, sometimes they won't. I think it would be better if we had a consistent policy on this.

As I see it, there is a continuum of possible positions:
1. Pokémon should only be tagged with the species of Pokémon they are, never with any tag of a real animal. Swellow should only be tagged swellow.
2. Pokémon should be tagged with both the species of Pokémon and, if applicable, the broad category of animal they are based on. Swellow should be tagged swellow and bird.
3. Pokémon should be tagged with the species of Pokémon and, if applicable, both the broad and specific categories of the animal they are based on. Swellow should be tagged swellow, bird, and swallow_(bird).

Which position do you take? Are there any other options? Note that this discussion presumably also applies to Digimon and possibly other series, as well.

I would also like to add a question (though i assume this has to have already been discussed): how do we tag the body types? Some are obvious ferals like eevee, some are obvious anthros like lucarios, some are amouphous/doesn’t really fall under any, even humanoid or taur. I still usually second guess myself for these.

This was settled some years ago... per the 2017-10-18 news update:

October 18th: Since it has come up recently: Please do not tag Pokémon or Digimon as their real world counterparts, but only as the family. Eg persian is not a cat but a feline, renamon is not a fox but a canine, etc.

*This is purely to ensure that actual "real" animals can be found without having all those fantasy animals show up as well.

https://e621.net/news_updates

You have to scroll down (or use CTRL+F) if you want to see for yourself.

So swellow should be tagged as swellow and avian, and should never be tagged as bird.

Pokémon aren't actual animals. Some aren't based on animals (I hate when Gardevoir is tagged not furry). Some have mixed traits (Vaporeon, Slowpoke). So option 3 is out.

I think the best way to look at it is, how do we handle fictional species in other material? If we don't have a precedent yet, it could be time to set one.

I could argue Ninetales can also be tagged canine as it's very fox-y, but it's not an actual fox
Likewise, Swellow, Wattrel and such are avian. (another video game bird, the Chocobo, actually is implicated to avian)

Here's a harder one. Eevee was deliberately designed to be vague and toony. As a dog/cat/fox mix, so it can't go farther than just mammal. Vaporeon, arguably not even that as it's halfway to fish. (it's not a hybrid either as it's not two species fused together)

glyme said:
...(I hate when Gardevoir is tagged not furry).

Why?

glyme said:
Pokémon aren't actual animals. Some aren't based on animals (I hate when Gardevoir is tagged not furry). Some have mixed traits (Vaporeon, Slowpoke). So option 3 is out.

I think the best way to look at it is, how do we handle fictional species in other material? If we don't have a precedent yet, it could be time to set one.

I could argue Ninetales can also be tagged canine as it's very fox-y, but it's not an actual fox
Likewise, Swellow, Wattrel and such are avian. (another video game bird, the Chocobo, actually is implicated to avian)

Here's a harder one. Eevee was deliberately designed to be vague and toony. As a dog/cat/fox mix, so it can't go farther than just mammal. Vaporeon, arguably not even that as it's halfway to fish. (it's not a hybrid either as it's not two species fused together)

eevee is canine, same with its evolutions.

It's supposed to be 2. Midday lycanroc should be tagged midday_lycanroc+canine (but not wolf), Incineroar should be tagged Incineroar+feline (but not tiger), Delphox should be tagged delphox+canine (but not fox), etc. This is what the wiki has always said to do.

For some reason, however, implication requests along these lines keep getting rejected, leaving it all to be manually tagged and is thus inconsistent. Additionally, recent changes to some of the species have forced option 3; whereas before, xerneas, deerling, sawsbuck, stantler, and the like could be tagged cervid, or cervine which implicates cervid, but cervid was aliased to deer, so these pokemon are now getting tagged as deer which they shouldn't be. Similar for bat-like pokemon, which could be and were tagged chiropteran, now getting tagged as bat, against the rules. So it's a bit of a mess.

kyiiel said:
eevee is canine, same with its evolutions.

Eevee is an amalgamation of various mammals. The designers purposely added and mixed together cat, dog, fox, and rabbit features to make it a "cute animal". Its evolutions may add other animals (e.g. vaporeon adding more marine/fish elements) or more focus on a specific animal (espeon being more cat-like), but they're still a combination of animals.

watsit said:
It's supposed to be 2. Midday lycanroc should be tagged midday_lycanroc+canine (but not wolf), Incineroar should be tagged Incineroar+feline (but not tiger), Delphox should be tagged delphox+canine (but not fox), etc. This is what the wiki has always said to do.

For some reason, however, implication requests along these lines keep getting rejected, leaving it all to be manually tagged and is thus inconsistent. Additionally, recent changes to some of the species have forced option 3; whereas before, xerneas, deerling, sawsbuck, stantler, and the like could be tagged cervid, or cervine which implicates cervid, but cervid was aliased to deer, so these pokemon are now getting tagged as deer which they shouldn't be. Similar for bat-like pokemon, which could be and were tagged chiropteran, now getting tagged as bat, against the rules.

Eevee is an amalgamation of various mammals. The designers purposely added and mixed together cat, dog, fox, and rabbit features to make it a "cute animal". Its evolutions may add other animals (e.g. vaporeon adding more marine/fish elements) or more focus on a specific animal (espeon being more cat-like), but they're still a combination of animals.

The reason the implications get rejected because things like post #1928928 exist. EX: the rapidash one is not an equine.

kyiiel said:
The reason the implications get rejected because things like post #1928928 exist. EX: the rapidash one is not an equine.

But doesn't that logic apply to real animals, too? You could make a picture of what a barn swallow would look like if it were a dog.

vulpes_artifex said:
But doesn't that logic apply to real animals, too? You could make a picture of what a barn swallow would look like if it were a dog.

Hmm... Indeed. I think I've come up with a pretty good solution to this entire tagging issue... I'll be creating a new thread soon.

I ranted about this once before, can't be bothered to find where exactly. I think if it looks like something it should be tagged as that thing, that's the entire point of TWYS and I don't know why we're making an exception for it.

post #3731861

This isn't allowed to be tagged flamingo because it's actually the Pokémon flamigo. If you showed this image to literally anybody in the world they would tell you that images contains a flamingo.

faucet said:
I ranted about this once before, can't be bothered to find where exactly. I think if it looks like something it should be tagged as that thing, that's the entire point of TWYS and I don't know why we're making an exception for it.

post #3731861

This isn't allowed to be tagged flamingo because it's actually the Pokémon flamigo. If you showed this image to literally anybody in the world they would tell you that images contains a flamingo.

Indeed, the rule is silly and vios TWYS. My solution to this tagging issue involves removing that rule which would make tagging it that way valid.

https://e621.net/forum_topics/36711

watsit said:
It's supposed to be 2.

kyiiel said:
This was settled some years ago... per the 2017-10-18 news update:

It is not supposed to be option 2 exactly. The latest ruling is from 2018 (forum #254362). A character of a fictional species should always be tagged with the fictional species. If a character looks like a real species then tag the real species as well. For example, post #1484091 features a Keidran and should be tagged as such. In this post, this character looks like a tiger and should also be tagged as such.

glyme said:
I hate when Gardevoir is tagged not furry

Gardevoir are generally depicted as being neither based on animals nor having fur and therefore should usually be tagged with not_furry (unless another character in that post is furry of course).

leomole said:
If a character looks like a real species then tag the real species as well. For example, post #1484091 features a Keidran and should be tagged as such. In this post, this character looks like a tiger and should also be tagged as such.

Pretty sure that's not the case for pokemon. Fennekin/Braixen/Delphox should never be tagged as fox despite how fox-like they look, nor should midday/dusk/midnight lycanroc ever be tagged wolf despite how wolf- or werewolf-like they are. The difference with keidran is that keidran is just the word used in the TwoKinds universe for certain sects of anthro animals, they're not specific fictional animals (i.e. a wolf keidran is a wolf anthro is a wolf species, but a braixen is a fox-like anthro and not an actual fox species).

leomole said:
Gardevoir are generally depicted as being neither based on animals nor having fur and therefore should usually be tagged with not_furry (unless another character in that post is furry of course).

More specifically, gardevoir is normally considered humanoid, and humanoids are not_furry.

watsit said:
Pretty sure that's not the case for pokemon.

Pokemon are not exempt from this ruling afaik. It's just that Pokemon are typically depicted as being anatomically distinct from real species and therefore do not get a real species tag. But when a given Pokemon character does look like a real species, they should be tagged with the real species as well.

watsit said:
More specifically, gardevoir is normally considered humanoid, and humanoids are not_furry.

Not quite, animal humanoids are not considered not furry for example. And if a Gardevoir is depicted with fur then of course it should not be tagged with not_furry.

leomole said:
Pokemon are not exempt from this ruling afaik. It's just that Pokemon are typically depicted as being anatomically distinct from real species and therefore do not get a real species tag. But when a given Pokemon character does look like a real species, they should be tagged with the real species as well.

How do you determine when a pokemon "looks like a real species"? When is it "close enough" to be tagged as a real species, compared to how stylized art can depict real animals? Given how odd a lion can be made to look, for example, yet pyroar should still not be tagged lion regardless of how much it looks like one. Or the same with horses, compared to ponyta or rapidash which should only be tagged equine and not horse. Fennekin/Braixen/Delphox look more fox-like by default than certain drawn foxes. Or compare land forme shaymin to a certain "hedgehog " vs a real hedgehog. A zebra vs zebstrika or blitzle. You can't say these pokemon don't look as close if not closer to real animals than stylized depictions of said animals, yet they shouldn't tagged as real animals.

leomole said:
Not quite, animal humanoids are not considered not furry for example. And if a Gardevoir is depicted with fur then of course it should not be tagged with not_furry.

The wiki says:
Note that furry refers to the fandom, not to actual fur.

The presence or lack of fur is inconsequential to the tag, it's about having an animal character to be relevant to the fandom. A fur-less cyborg animal counts as furry, while a humanoid on a fur rug is still not_furry.

watsit said:
When is it "close enough" to be tagged as a real species

I'm not certain where the cutoff lies myself but I'm sure we can agree on cases like post #2015439 where the character depicted is definitely a corgi and should show up for any user searching for corgis.

The wiki says:
Note that furry refers to the fandom, not to actual fur.

That's right, furry refers to any character related to animals, not just fur itself. A character with an animal feature, from animal ears to animal genitalia to fur to beaks to deer antlers, should not be tagged with not_furry.

leomole said:
I'm not certain where the cutoff lies myself but I'm sure we can agree on cases like post #2015439 where the character depicted is definitely a corgi and should show up for any user searching for corgis.

If you can't draw a cutoff line, then there isn't a cutoff line. If you start making exceptions based on subjective feeling, someone else will have a different feeling that's just as valid. Sure, you can say cases like that are "obviously close enough" to be tagged corgi, but then you'll get others saying stuff like post #3776707 and post #3684704 are "obviously close enough" to be tagged corgi. And when you have stuff like post #3599528 and post #3712458 actually tagged as corgi, how could you say any depictions aren't "close enough"?

That's why the rule doesn't make exceptions. You can't tag yamper as a corgi, you can't tag blaziken as a chicken, you can't tag lucario as a jackal, etc. If this were to change, it would need to be all or nothing. Either you can tag fennekin as a fox (if not a fennec), even when it's more stylized or hybridized, or you can't.

kyiiel said:
eevee is canine, same with its evolutions.

Always looked mostly like rabbits to me. Obvious from the ears and snout, especially for Jolteon. Maybe with a tiny bit of feline (more than a tiny bit in case of Espeon.) What I don't see is canine. The legs and hips are all wrong for that (mostly lagomorph or feline), not to mention that none of them have canine ears or snout.

Anyway, my view has always been that tagging fictional species as real species is about as silly as tagging a horse as an unicorn — or an unicorn as a horse. It also completely messes up searchability. Good lucky trying to find regular horses, when the tag's full of Rapidash, Mudsdale, unicorns...

You with me so far? Okay, Lucarios suddenly get tagged as jackals. Now how do you go about searching for something like this?:
post #11576 — Lucario x actual jackal?

Searchability is the key. Don't get so focused on tagging everything 'correctly' that it'll make things harder to find.

I would also like to add a question (though i assume this has to have already been discussed): how do we tag the body types? Some are obvious ferals like eevee, some are obvious anthros like lucarios, some are amouphous/doesn’t really fall under any, even humanoid or taur. I still usually second guess myself for these.

Best guesses for the most part, on case to case basis. I tried writing wiki entries for those at one point. Gave up when I got to the hard ones.

genjar said:
Anyway, my view has always been that tagging fictional species as real species is about as silly as tagging a horse as an unicorn — or an unicorn as a horse. It also completely messes up searchability. Good lucky trying to find regular horses, when the tag's full of Rapidash, Mudsdale, unicorns...

Tagging a horse as a unicorn makes no sense. That's like tagging a fox as a fennekin, and isn't what anyone is arguing.

But tagging a unicorn as a horse makes perfect sense to me. If I was looking for horses, I wouldn't be happy if also had to add unicorn, pegasus, rapidash, mudsdale, and every other horse-based creature that may pop up (many of which I assuredly don't know) to get everything that looks like a horse. It's particularly egregious with things like pegasus, where if the case were any different, it'd be tagged horse+avian+hybrid so you'd find things like that under horse, but because of some ancient myths, it gets boxed separately under pegasus. To say nothing of poor gryphons, also a hybrid that can't be tagged as a hybrid because of some ancient myths causing it to get boxed under its own tag, but with the added issue that they can be hybridized with different animals. A lion and hawk, a cougar and eagle, a domestic cat and a budgie; but you can't tag it as lion+hawk, cougar+eagle, or domestic_cat+budgie, so how can you search for the style of gryphon you're actually interested in? The term applies for any generic feline and avian and you can't tag it more specifically, leaving no option.

genjar said:
You with me so far? Okay, Lucarios suddenly get tagged as jackals. Now how do you go about searching for something like this?:
post #11576 — Lucario x actual jackal?

The same way you search for grey_wolf x wolf, or lion x feline. If lucario is recognized to be like a jackal for tagging purposes, then it's no different than finding any two animals where one is a subset of another.

genjar said:
Searchability is the key. Don't get so focused on tagging everything 'correctly' that it'll make things harder to find.

That works both ways. Either you cater to people who want to keep them separate, making it harder for people that want them together, or you cater to people that want to keep them together, making it harder for people that want them separate.

However, if you kept them together, so rapidash, mudsdale, etc, were tagged as horses, people who want them separate have an easy (if over-bearing) option: add -pokemon to mass-exclude pokemon, including horse-like pokemon, from the search. With them kept separate, people who want them together have no similarly easy option to mass include horse-like pokemon in the search. Neither option is perfect, but I think one creates an overall easier time for people.

To be clear, though, I don't have too strong of an opinion over whether pokemon are tagged as more specific animals, like horse, fox, tiger, or less specific ones like equine, canine, feline. But I do have strong opinions on the lack of implications to whatever it is they can be tagged as. I wouldn't be surprised if the lack of implications is a factor in people manually tagging animals and getting too specific on accident. When it can range from just lucario, lucario+canid, lucario+canid+canine, lucario+canid+canine+canis, to lucario+canid+canine+canis+jackal, and sometimes lucario+canid+canine+canis+domestic_dog, that inconsistency isn't aiding searchability.