Some people think that a slideshow shouldn't count as animated because it doesn't contain the illusion of movement, while other people believe that if an image is animated in any way rather than just the traditional definition it should still be tagged as animated because it's not a still image. As far as I can tell, there's no official ruling on this and various things are conflicting.

I was originally planning to structure this better but actually realised I don't care that much and I got bored of typing, so I'll just post it this in its current form.

post #2185216
post #2185216 is for some reason regarded as a slideshow and has had the animated tag removed multiple times. The only reason I can think that this would be considered a slideshow is because of the low framerate, which seems like an arbitrary way to decide whether an image is animated or not.

Other notable examples where the animated tag has been removed: post #1211956, post #919081, post #683109, post #158764, post #213829, post #962162

There are many posts under the 2_frame_animation which display less movement than these examples, yet automatically have animated implied by the 2_frame_animation tag.
post #3416671 post #3256855 post #3727105

Other notes

• slideshow animated currently returns 505 results while slideshow -animated has 412, so it's close enough to 50/50 split. At one point Genjar went on a massive spree of animated tag removal, but for the most part it doesn't seem like anybody else actually cares to remove it.
• In the site code the animated_gif and animated tags will automatically be applied to any gif file containing two or more frames, other filetypes have similar checks. If slideshows aren't counted as animation, this should be removed from the code as it's actively creating mistagged posts.
• If there's no animated tag, there's no "anim" indicator on the image thumbnail, leading to people thinking it's a static image with only the one frame they see in the thumbnail.

See also

• topic #23543 - [Feature] Tooltip for Slideshow - If slideshows aren't animated, there should still be an indicator on the image that it's animated.
• topic #31852 - Tag implication: frame_by_frame -> animated - Despite being about the frame_by_frame tag, the discussion mostly centers around whether a slideshow is animated or not. A good idea suggested by MatrixMash in this thread - "IMO, there should be at least two "animated" type tags: An umbrella tag covering every kind of non-static image and a subtag of that for images that have true "illusion of movement"."
• https://discord.com/channels/431908090883997698/460517895420772353/1060295782147838133 - the discussion on the Discord server that made me decide to make this

I'll just copy my Discord reply here with some minor additions.

The entire distinction's ridiculous to begin with because if "it's not animated enough!" was something we cared about, we'd just tag 30_fps 60_fps variable_fps etc.

post #2185216 is 1_fps. post #3416671's timing between frames is inequal, but it shows a little under three full "frames" in one second, so this is roughly equivalent to 2_fps.

Let all animated files be tagged as animated, make a certain number of low FPS tags imply slideshow, and potentially introduce a tag like duplicated_frames to use when GIFs have multiple copies of the same frame in sequence. (the gardevoir post has every frame duplicated 8 times.)

My 2¢ is in the conversation above, keeping slideshow estranged from animated seems like a pointless endeavor.
In every case except for slideshow this site is operating under the assumption that anything that is not a still is animated. The continued discontinuity is more or less just a “we’ve always done it this way” holdout based on a subjective definition of “animated” rather than a technical one.

Of note:

• APNGs imply animated. A slideshow APNG will therefore be immutably tagged as animated.
• The “Anim” label on posts is tied to the tag itself. This label (and the webm one) is important because it informs users that the thumbnail is not representative of the entirety of the post content. This information is uniquely lost for slideshows without the animated tag.

Whether or not slideshow is kept separate from animated, the distinction should not be based on frame rate. All your examples provide an "illusion of movement" so definitely should all be tagged animated. The frames are not disjointed or unrelated, there's a clear progression of action/movement as it goes through the frames, and being a low frame rate doesn't change that. Similarly, you can have a video showing a still image that fades to a completely different image. It running at 60fps with ultra-smooth fading doesn't create an illusion of movement from disjointed images.

watsit said:
Whether or not slideshow is kept separate from animated, the distinction should not be based on frame rate. All your examples provide an "illusion of movement" so definitely should all be tagged animated. The frames are not disjointed or unrelated, there's a clear progression of action/movement as it goes through the frames, and being a low frame rate doesn't change that. Similarly, you can have a video showing a still image that fades to a completely different image. It running at 60fps with ultra-smooth fading doesn't create an illusion of movement from disjointed images.

Agreed, as per the current wiki, these posts do not give illusion of movement, therefore aren't animated.

post #1102346 post #3551165 post #3561158

Perhaps we could create a small flag/label on the thumbnail for slideshows?

We already have for each principal animated content, gif, webm, flash... I suppose "slide" wouldn't be that much different, it's already its own metatag, and does not imply animated.

And, if I understood the discord chat correctly, the site currently automatically tags any "uploaded picture with more than a single frame"/"fileformats whose visible content changes over time" as animated, which I guess is the current issue that is causing this discussion?

m3g4p0n1 said:

• m3g4p0n1 — 17:46

if it's not static, it's animated
0 or 1, false or true, no in between =/

donteven said:

• The “Anim” label on posts is tied to the tag itself. This label (and the webm one) is important because it informs users that the thumbnail is not representative of the entirety of the post content. This information is uniquely lost for slideshows without the animated tag.

This is the most important point IMO. If I click on a thumbnail without the "anim" label, I expect the image not to change. No ifs, no buts. If people want to have the "but what counts as illusion of movement" debate again, just make a new tag.

Another good example.

post #3743622
post #3743622

• It is a music_video.
• It is a webm.
• It has a long_playtime due music.
• The only things that changes is the text bubbles.
• There is no illusion of movement

Wouldn't qualify for the "animated" tag with the current wiki, but the tag cannot be removed because long_playtime, which is correctly tagged, implies "animated" at the moment.

So I would like to also suggest the unimplication of long_playtime -> animated. Won't request a BUR though, I feel it needs more discussion beforehand.

m3g4p0n1 said:
So I would like to also suggest the unimplication of long_playtime -> animated. Won't request a BUR though, I feel it needs more discussion beforehand.

Dismantling otherwise-valid implications is only kicking the can down the road.
The issue, ultimately, is that the current definition for animated and its use by the site itself don't line up.

There are two solutions here and this issue is just going to keep cropping up until one of them is enacted:
1) A separate tag is made that effectively means "not a still image" and replaces animated for post-labeling purposes. (slideshow would imply this new tag instead of animated)
2) All non-still posts are considered animated (slideshow implicates animated in this case)

donteven said:
Dismantling otherwise-valid implications is only kicking the can down the road.
The issue, ultimately, is that the current definition for animated and its use by the site itself don't line up.

There are two solutions here and this issue is just going to keep cropping up until one of them is enacted:
1) A separate tag is made that effectively means "not a still image" and replaces animated for post-labeling purposes. (slideshow would imply this new tag instead of animated)
2) All non-still posts are considered animated (slideshow implicates animated in this case)

How about we use the barely_animated as a metatag?
There already is the subtle_animation tag, but it's current use still possesses the requirement of illusion of movement existing.

And if the current users are complaining about slideshows of any form counting as animated, we could indicate them to use -barely_animated in their next searches and in the wiki.

donteven said:
Dismantling otherwise-valid implications is only kicking the can down the road.
The issue, ultimately, is that the current definition for animated and its use by the site itself don't line up.

There are two solutions here and this issue is just going to keep cropping up until one of them is enacted:
1) A separate tag is made that effectively means "not a still image" and replaces animated for post-labeling purposes. (slideshow would imply this new tag instead of animated)
2) All non-still posts are considered animated (slideshow implicates animated in this case)

+1 for the solution 2.

Technically they are animations. There is a gradient from a 10 second apart slideshow of completely distinct pictures, through a fast slideshow of "photos taking in rapid series of a moving character", to full-fledged animation. As always, drawing the line here is difficult. It is a slight bit easier to draw the line between if an animation is a slideshow or not. (Not much easier, but a slight bit.)

I guess the slideshow-tag wiki should mention not to use the tag for actual animations of a character showing other characters a slideshow.

/me adds BUR for alias slideshow -> low_fps, imply low_fps -> animated
Not sure if joking