Topic: were* and their inconsistency

Posted under Tag/Wiki Projects and Questions

ok I'm posting werewolf stuff from mtg, and I feel like werewolf should imply wolf as well, but as is, it currently doesn't, and yet werecanine DOES imply canine, werehyena also implies hyena, so I'm wondering whether the were* tags should or should imply their base species, and we need to consolidate them all.

The were* tags suck and should all be aliased to their base forms. Either the transformation is visible in the image, in which case you tag transformation, or it isn't, in which case you just tag the species transformed into. Anthro wolves don't exist, werewolves shouldn't be treated as a special case version of them.

See also: topic #36072

wat8548 said:
The were* tags suck and should all be aliased to their base forms. Either the transformation is visible in the image, in which case you tag transformation, or it isn't, in which case you just tag the species transformed into. Anthro wolves don't exist, werewolves shouldn't be treated as a special case version of them.

See also: topic #36072

To my understand, the were prefix signifies that a character is a monstrous version of a given animal. Werewolves are monstrous wolves, and while they are usually a result of lycanthropy, other were*'s are exactly what I described earlier. Werehog is a monstrous hedgehog and I'm guessing the same thing sticks for the other 2 examples on the op.

wolfmanfur said:
To my understand, the were prefix signifies that a character is a monstrous version of a given animal. Werewolves are monstrous wolves, and while they are usually a result of lycanthropy, other were*'s are exactly what I described earlier. Werehog is a monstrous hedgehog and I'm guessing the same thing sticks for the other 2 examples on the op.

That's not what the wiki for the main "were" species tag says it is.

"Someone who can transform into another being, with the most traditional example being a werewolf."

This leaves it open as a general tag for all characters who can turn into a different species, and if you search "were" or "werewolf" you'll see plenty of images that aren't visibly monstrous. Honestly, for something so strongly subjective and with the site's tag what you see policy, I question the very existence of were and all of its child tags, since you're left guessing at best.

m18orin said:
That's not what the wiki for the main "were" species tag says it is.

"Someone who can transform into another being, with the most traditional example being a werewolf."

This leaves it open as a general tag for all characters who can turn into a different species, and if you search "were" or "werewolf" you'll see plenty of images that aren't visibly monstrous. Honestly, for something so strongly subjective and with the site's tag what you see policy, I question the very existence of were and all of its child tags, since you're left guessing at best.

I'm of the opinion the wiki descriptions for a good number of tags are outdated, but if I were to edit all of them without asking for permission I could get into problems with the admins which isn't my goal here.

Most of the wiki tags have not been touched for years, are ambigous and/or are up to interpretation. Some of them look like they were formatted as if by a minor in the 9 to 17 years age bracket.

I'm stating this as a fact, but that definition on the werewolf wiki is wrong. In the world of Harry Potter that might be true, but when it comes to the furry fandom, any species prefixed with 'were' is a monstrous version of said species. The werehog from Sonic Unleashed is a good example to illustrate the point.

Like cub, loli and shota, however, these tags are redundant when the tag monster exists. There's Monstrous that also exists with 19 posts, imo they should be all aliased to either this or monster.

wolfmanfur said:
I'm of the opinion the wiki descriptions for a good number of tags are outdated, but if I were to edit all of them without asking for permission I could get into problems with the admins which isn't my goal here.

Most of the wiki tags have not been touched for years, are ambigous and/or are up to interpretation. Some of them look like they were formatted as if by a minor in the 9 to 17 years age bracket.

I'm stating this as a fact, but that definition on the werewolf wiki is wrong. In the world of Harry Potter that might be true, but when it comes to the furry fandom, any species prefixed with 'were' is a monstrous version of said species. The werehog from Sonic Unleashed is a good example to illustrate the point.

Like cub, loli and shota, however, these tags are redundant when the tag monster exists. There's Monstrous that also exists with 19 posts, imo they should be all aliased to either this or monster.

I think aliasing is probably the best solution, while people would inevitably still attempt to use were tags in the sense of a character being a literal werecreature, they're only really useful from a TWYS perspective for describing more monstrous characters, and the alias would cut down on confusion. I can see arguments for either being a candidate for aliasing. Monstrous would gain its own unique niche for more moderately monster-like characters with the sudden influx of werecreature art, which doesn't tend to look quite as much like outright monsters, which would make it a better tag to search for porn for most people. But on the other hand both tags existing as separate things would inevitably lead to confusion and frequent mistagging, which could easily be prevented by aliasing werecreatures and monstrous both to monster.

wolfmanfur said:
I'm of the opinion the wiki descriptions for a good number of tags are outdated, but if I were to edit all of them without asking for permission I could get into problems with the admins which isn't my goal here.

Most of the wiki tags have not been touched for years, are ambigous and/or are up to interpretation. Some of them look like they were formatted as if by a minor in the 9 to 17 years age bracket.

I'm stating this as a fact, but that definition on the werewolf wiki is wrong. In the world of Harry Potter that might be true, but when it comes to the furry fandom, any species prefixed with 'were' is a monstrous version of said species. The werehog from Sonic Unleashed is a good example to illustrate the point.

Like cub, loli and shota, however, these tags are redundant when the tag monster exists. There's Monstrous that also exists with 19 posts, imo they should be all aliased to either this or monster.

I wrote the current werewolf wiki around the time of creating topic #19587, which was intended to figure out what rules we should have regarding what is and isn't a werewolf "on a website where half of the content is about anthropomorphic beasts". One thing that was and remains clear to me is that we can't have "werewolf" and "werehog" and all the others get tagged on what the lore of various universes calls these species, because like with lamia and naga, these are pretty generic terms in fantasy. If we don't set our own rules for what counts and what doesn't (like we did with naga and lamia, among others), then the were* tags are all pointless.

Ideally I would like to keep and fix those tags, as there is information that these tags can convey that are difficult to otherwise find with the regular species tags alone.

wat8548 said:
The were* tags suck and should all be aliased to their base forms. Either the transformation is visible in the image, in which case you tag transformation, or it isn't, in which case you just tag the species transformed into. Anthro wolves don't exist, werewolves shouldn't be treated as a special case version of them.

See also: topic #36072

I don't think transformation is the only thing at stake, here, you also have "inhuman" creatures to consider:
post #1143685 post #866219 post #1145592

I'm not personally sold on the use of monstrous, here, since the name seems like it would be able to accomodate for elderich abominations and liminal beings of all kinds.

wolfmanfur said:
Werehog is another one.

This might make more sense to do so than elsewise.

IMO the Sonic Unleashed ones should probably be suffixed, something like werehog_(sonic).

fifteen said:

I'm not personally sold on the use of monstrous, here, since the name seems like it would be able to accomodate for elderich abominations and liminal beings of all kinds.

Perhaps something like "monstrous_anthro" could form a compromise? Anthro for tagging purposes is defined as exclusively applying to animal based characters, monstrous humanoid is already a tag with 2k results, so I see no reason it couldn't have an anthro equivalent. It would necessitate cleaning out feral werecreature art, and potentially the creation of monstrous_feral too, though.

Alternatively, you could just use negative tags to filter out the non-animal based monsters, which already feels like a fair solution to me.

fifteen said:
I don't think transformation is the only thing at stake, here, you also have "inhuman" creatures to consider:
post #1143685 post #866219 post #1145592

I'm not personally sold on the use of monstrous, here, since the name seems like it would be able to accomodate for elderich abominations and liminal beings of all kinds.

I'm not convinced by "monstrous" as a solution either, and I have no idea what exactly "inhuman" is attempting to imply. What combination of traits are we attempting to pithily define, here? It would be best to nail down a dictionary definition before reaching for the thesaurus.

What are the defining traits of a "were" creature, if not transformation? Loss of sapience? Active threat posed to nearby characters? Implied threat posed to viewer? Angry expression? More realistic art style?

i think what also needs to be considered is that when a lycanthrope isn't transformed at tbat moment, they're still a werewolf, just not in wolf form. i think there's multiple aspects to a werewolf tag:
1 - wether a character is a werewolf in universe
2 - what shape they take, (feral form, anthro, something in-between)
3 - wether or not they are fully transformed or still transforming in a given picture

yurichan_ said:
i think what also needs to be considered is that when a lycanthrope isn't transformed at tbat moment, they're still a werewolf, just not in wolf form.

Oh great. werewolf_(lore), here we come.

wat8548 said:
Oh great. werewolf_(lore), here we come.

lol

wat8548 said:
What are the defining traits of a "were" creature, if not transformation? Loss of sapience? Active threat posed to nearby characters? Implied threat posed to viewer? Angry expression? More realistic art style?

I already said what made a werewolf a werewolf, the fact they look monstruous. You can use the definition of monster in the respective wiki and manually check every post tagged werewolf. If a post meets the criterion for monster and the character in the frame a bipedal wolf, then werewolf would apply, otherwise, if the post does not meet the criterion for monster and the character in the frame is a bipedal wolf, it is safe to remove werewolf and replace it with anthro + wolf.
I hope that is often depicted in-universe as being hideous and capable of producing physical harm or mental fear by either its actions or its appearance. is descriptive enough for you.

Physically, werecreatures have rougher fur, bigger muscles and sharper teeth. I'm using Sonic and the Werehog for this explanation since they are physically very different and are easy to take them apart. some artists depict werewolves with bright white eyes or bright red eyes.

'Inhuman' is an oxymoron. Dont take folks who use that word seriously.

I already said what made a werewolf a werewolf, the fact they look monstruous.

Physically, werecreatures have rougher fur, bigger muscles and sharper teeth. I'm using Sonic and the Werehog for this explanation since they are physically very different and are easy to take them apart. some artists depict werewolves with bright white eyes or bright red eyes.

disagree i think the main thing about werewolves is they transform into a wolf huamn thing or just a regular wolf, not that they're monstrous. and what's also important is usually someone who is a werewolf has no or only limited control over transforming (but not in every depiction, in twilight for example the werewolves are in full control and they're just bigger, noemal wolves, not monstrous)

yurichan_ said:
disagree i think the main thing about werewolves is they transform into a wolf huamn thing or just a regular wolf, not that they're monstrous. and what's also important is usually someone who is a werewolf has no or only limited control over transforming (but not in every depiction, in twilight for example the werewolves are in full control and they're just bigger, noemal wolves, not monstrous)

That's what werewolves are in Harry Potter, but in popular furry media, any 'were' is a monstrous form of any given species whether lycanthrophy is involved or not. Lycanroc has bright red eyes, sharp teeth, but it isn't a typical werewolf that was a human at some point.

And sentience should not play a role on whether we tag something unless it is clearly visible on the picture. A monster can be sentient, as much any monstrous creature like werewolves can be sentient

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