Yo!

So, a quick preamble...

Amongst the art that caters to less-anthropomorphic designs, anatomically_correct is used broadly.
It was introduced to tag characters of a given species with anatomical features suited to their real-world counterpart: canines with canid breasts; equines with equine penises.

This tag solved a few problems.
Mostly, it disambiguated the 'feral' tag, allowing users who browse that tag to filter for designs that are not extraordinary; bodies that are more coherent.
However, years on, it's obvious that the tag has lost that coherency.

The subtext is that anatomically_correct is used euphemistically; a way of pointing towards non-anthropmorphic designs which skirts around controversy, in the same way that 'forced' is used regarding rape scenarios and 'young' is used regarding content depicting underage characters.

However, in being used euphemistically, it is used incorrectly.
Taking the tag at face value, you would expect anatomy that is correct... but the tag is littered with artwork which *simply does not* have correct anatomy.
Why? Because it is being used to mean 'non-anthropomorphic' instead.

The standards for tagging an artpiece with 'anatomically_correct' should be raised, so that artwork using it has correct anatomy.

Why is this an issue?

Well, taking a peek through the tag's first page, we see artwork such as https://e621.net/posts/4295714 and https://e621.net/posts/4281655; valid posts with a place on the site, but would not be described as having 'correct anatomy'. The reason why those arts have been tagged as 'anatomically_correct' is because the tag is being used in the euphemistic manner described above.

On the other hand, you have artpieces such as https://e621.net/posts/4296301 and https://e621.net/posts/4289394, where the creator's focus on anatomical accuracy is an obvious and intended part of the art-piece. My suggestion is that the standards for applying this tag should be that anatomical accuracy is a stylistic choice that has been obviously intended by the artist.

A tag which is applied too broadly loses meaning.
As a user, it's frustrating that a tag which has so much potential to highlight a particular artistic feature isn't being used to its advantage.

Would love to get other's thoughts.

Do we have an anatomically_correct_canine_penis tag? Maybe anatomically_correct_equine_penis?

Feels like part of the problem with the anatomically_correct tag is that it is used for anatomically correct animal penises, even when stuck onto anthros. It would fix a part of the problem.

The tag has always been about the genitals and any other usage is people making assumptions based on the name alone. This isn't the first time I've seen this conversation come up, however..
Though, I'm more concerned about misuse in its intended form as in practice most furries aren't as familiar as they think with a lot of species.

magnuseffect said:
The tag has always been about the genitals and any other usage is people making assumptions based on the name alone. This isn't the first time I've seen this conversation come up, however..
Though, I'm more concerned about misuse in its intended form as in practice most furries aren't as familiar as they think with a lot of species.

Aye; the way it's used is often in reference to genitals... but, why is this the case, and why should it be so?

Taking the words at face value, the genitals have little to do with anatomical correctness. And, also, anatomical correctness is a concept that's worthy of being tagged, and that some people would want to search for.

If there's a need for a tag that describes species-accurate genitalia, using 'anatomically_correct' is taking up the exact wording that could be better used for this other concept. We could easily use something like 'species-matched_penis' or similar for the genital thang.

magnuseffect said:
The tag has always been about the genitals and any other usage is people making assumptions based on the name alone. This isn't the first time I've seen this conversation come up, however..
Though, I'm more concerned about misuse in its intended form as in practice most furries aren't as familiar as they think with a lot of species.

It's also used for the anus, which isn't genitalia (anatomically_correct_anus and anatomically_correct_genitalia imply anatomically_correct). But yes, it feels like a lot of people use it to mean animal_genitalia, as I've seen it tagged on things like a deer with a horse penis or pussy, a fox with a dog pussy (which I'm fairly sure isn't what they have), or some canid that has a knot on some weird stylized penis. I've even seen people use it on dinosaurs.

The anatomically_correct tag group has needed renaming ever since the site grew beyond a smaller group of people who could manage our tags and deal with those tags' eccentricities. We had a tendency of using "close enough" tags with unguessable wiki definitions and exceptions, which does not scale with a rapidly growing tagger-base who seemingly rely entirely on autocompleting tag names and not wiki definitions. I am strongly in favor of redefining or renaming all such eccentric tags wherever possible, but some things probably can't be fixed like disembodied penis vs faceless male.

ryke said:
'species-matched_penis'

That is also what I had arrived at independently. species-matching_*, species-correct_*, or, because we don't use the word "species" correctly on this site, family-matching_*/family-correct_*/taxon*/taxonimcally*. An old complaint with anatomically_correct was that, specifically, fox genitalia is generally smaller and a bit different than other canines', so the tag would not be appropriate on foxes with canine genitalia that was not accurate to foxes. We decided, for the better, to ignore the finer details and just tag anatomically_correct for genitalia matching family (canine -> canine) because the finer details are just too much of a burden to manage.

IMO, renaming the anatomically_correct tags is guaranteed to happen eventually when the will to push it through finally materializes. Such an obvious thing.

ryke said:
On the other hand, you have artpieces such as https://e621.net/posts/4296301 and https://e621.net/posts/4289394, where the creator's focus on anatomical accuracy is an obvious and intended part of the art-piece. My suggestion is that the standards for applying this tag should be that anatomical accuracy is a stylistic choice that has been obviously intended by the artist.

A tag which is applied too broadly loses meaning.
As a user, it's frustrating that a tag which has so much potential to highlight a particular artistic feature isn't being used to its advantage.

Would love to get other's thoughts.

Low information taggers would probably gobble up a set of realistic_[animal]_[genitalia] tags and they might even use them correctly. Not really how realistic is written (thus a different standard), but the current wiki for realistic is also fairly unguessable and ignored. We probably have to stay away from using "accurate" for animal genitalia tags for a good long while as things reset. You must understand that "anatomically accurate" has a lot of recognition such that I've even seen non-furries use the term to describe animal genitalia in furry porn. We did that.

abadbird said:
That is also what I had arrived at independently. species-matching_*, species-correct_*, or, because we don't use the word "species" correctly on this site, family-matching_*/family-correct_*/taxon*/taxonimcally*. An old complaint with anatomically_correct was that, specifically, fox genitalia is generally smaller and a bit different than other canines', so the tag would not be appropriate on foxes with canine genitalia that was not accurate to foxes. We decided, for the better, to ignore the finer details and just tag anatomically_correct for genitalia matching family (canine -> canine) because the finer details are just too much of a burden to manage.

That creates a problem with fictional species. Something like a braixen or lucario can be tagged canine, or xerneas tagged cervine, and are commonly depicted with canine_penis/canine_pussy/cervine_penis/etc, but shouldn't be tagged species-matching_* or species-correct_* or whatever because they're ultimately fictional species with no "correct" genitalia.

I think the tag 'anatomically correct' is useful if used well. If one species is given a trait of another species... is the representation of that trait accurate? Misuse of the term is rampant.

abadbird said:
The anatomically_correct tag group has needed renaming ever ...

Sorry for the slow response - just wanted to state my appreciation for sharing such a broad and informed perspective. Hopefully some of your recommendations stick!