The tag alias #62879 didelphid -> american_opossum has been rejected.

Reason: The whole opossum/possum thing is an opuzzleum that needs to be resolved. Overall, opossum (AKA didelphids) refers to the various New World marsupials, of which the best known is the Virginia opossum of North America. Possum (AKA phalangeriformes) refers to a number of Australian and eastern Indonesian marsupials and are no more closely related to the opossums as American robins are to European robins. Among the best known possums are sugar gliders, which are commonly kept as pets.

The problem here is that "possum" is also a valid regional synonym for "opossum", most specifically the Virginia opossum. In fact, that's where the Indo-Australian possums got their name. On e621, that also means that a number of Virginia opossums are mistagged as possums, especially after the species reorganization a few years back by Ratte and ImpidiDinkaDoo. You could be critical about that, but I see it rather as the start of a work-in-progress. It did the bulk of the work, and now needs fine-tuning as issues pop up and annoy us enough to do something about them. Thus the purpose of this thread: to tweak the tags to better work with current tagging practices.

Therefore, the proposal is this:

• Alias didelphid to American_opossum — For better understanding and communication. Didelphid is a perfectly valid term, but users are far more likely to understand what an (American) opossum is compared to didelphid. As opossum is already aliased to didelphid, this will shift the alias over to American_opossum.

• Mass update and shift the implications and aliases of possum over to Australian_possum — This is the original intent of the possum tag under the Ratte-Dice scheme. It keeps all the Indo-Australian possums separate from any stray Virginia opossums. It will require the reversing of the current Australian_possum aliasing to possum. Also, while Indo-Australian possum is a bit more accurate, for simplicity's sake, the tag ought to be just Australian_possum.

• Alias possum to Virginia_opossum — Regardless of the original intent, this is primarily how taggers are using possum, which is causing tagging issues. The huge majority of pictures of pictures depicting possums actually depict Virginia opossums, which will need to be cleaned out of possum before the next step.

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This first request will shift didelphid over to American_opossum. It's an alias request over a BUR because alias requests have the advantage of not needing to unalias and unimply everything first.

EDIT: The tag alias didelphid -> american_opossum (forum #367506) has been rejected by @Rainbow_Dash.

The bulk update request #4986 has been rejected.

remove alias opossum_humanoid (0) -> didelphid_humanoid (3)
remove implication didelphid_humanoid (3) -> american_opossum (11248)
remove implication didelphid_humanoid (3) -> marsupial_humanoid (60)
remove alias australian_possum (493) -> possum (0)
remove alias phalangeriforme (0) -> possum (0)
remove alias phalangeriformes (0) -> possum (0)
remove alias phalangeriform (0) -> possum (0)
remove implication possum (0) -> marsupial (46214)
remove implication pygmy_possum (4) -> possum (0)
remove implication honey_possum (0) -> possum (0)
remove implication acrobatid (0) -> possum (0)
remove implication possum_humanoid (21) -> possum (0)
remove implication cuscus (1) -> possum (0)
remove implication petaurid (408) -> possum (0)
remove implication pseudocheirid (10) -> possum (0)
remove implication brushtail_possum (49) -> possum (0)

Reason: This BUR is necessary to remove the implications and aliases from didelphid_humanoid and possum so they can be fiddled with. We'll need to clear all those Virginia opossums out of possum, though. Also, while the one deimplcation errors with "# missing" (meaning the implication doesn't currently exist), once the opening alias request goes through, it will no longer be an error.

The follow-up BUR:

alias opossum_humanoid -> american_opossum_humanoid
alias didelphid_humanoid -> american_opossum_humanoid
imply american_opossum_humanoid -> american_opossum
imply american_opossum_humanoid -> marsupial_humanoid
update possum -> australian_possum
alias phalangeriforme -> australian_possum
alias phalangeriformes -> australian_possum
alias phalangeriform -> australian_possum
imply australian_possum -> marsupial
imply pygmy_possum -> australian_possum
imply honey_possum -> australian_possum
imply acrobatid -> australian_possum
imply possum_humanoid -> australian_possum
imply cuscus -> australian_possum
imply petaurid -> australian_possum
imply pseudocheirid -> australian_possum
imply brushtail_possum -> australian_possum

Once that is done, and the Virginia opossums cleaned out of the result, we can do the following as well as update the wiki:

alias possum -> virginia_opossum

EDIT: The bulk update request #4986 (forum #367507) has been rejected by @slyroon.

clawstripe said:

• Alias didelphid to American_opossum — For better understanding and communication. Didelphid is a perfectly valid term, but users are far more likely to understand what an (American) opossum is compared to didelphid. As opossum is already aliased to didelphid, this will shift the alias over to American_opossum.

This doesn't look like it will interact well with fictional species based on didelphids. Semi-recent changes to bears, deers, and bats also got this problem, as we're allowed to tag general clades for fictional species (canine, ursine, cervine, etc), but not more specific species (wolf, bear, deer, etc). Aliasing these general clades to specific specie names has caused those fictional species to be incorrectly tagged as real animals, and makes tagging what a fictional species is based on less functional since we have to use more general tags. Xerneas, for example, can now only be tagged mammal, since trying to tag cervine or cervid will result in it being mistagged deer.

With this implication reversed into an alias, species based on didelphids will be incorrectly tagged as an american_opussum, requiring taggers to use the less precise marsupial tag.

watsit said:
This doesn't look like it will interact well with fictional species based on didelphids. Semi-recent changes to bears, deers, and bats also got this problem, as we're allowed to tag general clades for fictional species (canine, ursine, cervine, etc), but not more specific species (wolf, bear, deer, etc). Aliasing these general clades to specific specie names has caused those fictional species to be incorrectly tagged as real animals, and makes tagging what a fictional species is based on less functional since we have to use more general tags. Xerneas, for example, can now only be tagged mammal, since trying to tag cervine or cervid will result in it being mistagged deer.

'Deer' IS a clade, it refers to all species in the cervidae family. Deer and cervid are synonyms. Specific species of deer would be white-tailed deer, moose, elk, fallow deer, etc. You can still tag xerneas as a deer because deer is not a particular species. Same for bear (bear species include polar bear, black bear, etc)

Wikipedia has a page on what species means with a helpful chart

clawstripe said:
The bulk update request #4986 has been rejected.

remove alias opossum_humanoid (0) -> didelphid_humanoid (3)
remove implication didelphid_humanoid (3) -> american_opossum (11248)
remove implication didelphid_humanoid (3) -> marsupial_humanoid (60)
remove alias australian_possum (493) -> possum (0)
remove alias phalangeriforme (0) -> possum (0)
remove alias phalangeriformes (0) -> possum (0)
remove alias phalangeriform (0) -> possum (0)
remove implication possum (0) -> marsupial (46214)
remove implication pygmy_possum (4) -> possum (0)
remove implication honey_possum (0) -> possum (0)
remove implication acrobatid (0) -> possum (0)
remove implication possum_humanoid (21) -> possum (0)
remove implication cuscus (1) -> possum (0)
remove implication petaurid (408) -> possum (0)
remove implication pseudocheirid (10) -> possum (0)
remove implication brushtail_possum (49) -> possum (0)

Reason: This BUR is necessary to remove the implications and aliases from didelphid_humanoid and possum so they can be fiddled with. We'll need to clear all those Virginia opossums out of possum, though. Also, while the one deimplcation errors with "# missing" (meaning the implication doesn't currently exist), once the opening alias request goes through, it will no longer be an error.

The follow-up BUR:

alias opossum_humanoid -> american_opossum_humanoid
alias didelphid_humanoid -> american_opossum_humanoid
imply american_opossum_humanoid -> american_opossum
imply american_opossum_humanoid -> marsupial_humanoid
update possum -> australian_possum
alias phalangeriforme -> australian_possum
alias phalangeriformes -> australian_possum
alias phalangeriform -> australian_possum
imply australian_possum -> marsupial
imply pygmy_possum -> australian_possum
imply honey_possum -> australian_possum
imply acrobatid -> australian_possum
imply possum_humanoid -> australian_possum
imply cuscus -> australian_possum
imply petaurid -> australian_possum
imply pseudocheirid -> australian_possum
imply brushtail_possum -> australian_possum

Once that is done, and the Virginia opossums cleaned out of the result, we can do the following as well as update the wiki:

alias possum -> virginia_opossum

This can be safely rejected (the implications and aliases it targets no longer exist), and I think the followup has already been done

The bulk update request #4986 (forum #367507) has been rejected by @slyroon.