The tag implication #51915 rat_tail -> tail has been approved.

Reason: A rat tail is a type of tail, I think it's pretty self-explanatory.

EDIT: The tag implication rat_tail -> tail (forum #377137) has been approved by @slyroon.

It doesn't seem it'd be very different from rat+tail, and I don't think you can really tell if a tail is a rat tail if you don't see it attached to a rat, where it's not about the tail itself. It's better for a tail tag to indicate the features of the tail, instead of a particular animal since many animals can have similar looking tails (and we don't need a *_tail tag for every potential species). This would be better as an alias.

watsit said:
It doesn't seem it'd be very different from rat+tail, and I don't think you can really tell if a tail is a rat tail if you don't see it attached to a rat, where it's not about the tail itself. It's better for a tail tag to indicate the features of the tail, instead of a particular animal since many animals can have similar looking tails (and we don't need a *_tail tag for every potential species). This would be better as an alias.

topic #38515 discussed this a little, then like many requests, it died without any consensus.

Ideally I'd rather not nuke this tag by aliasing it to tail because it's not always equivalent to rat tail - any species could quite easily be drawn with this type of tail.

faucet said:
Ideally I'd rather not nuke this tag by aliasing it to tail because it's not always equivalent to rat tail - any species could quite easily be drawn with this type of tail.

Would it be identifiable as a rat tail, though? How would it be distinguished from a mouse or possum tail, for example? The wiki itself says, "A hairless tail, commonly found on rats and possums", so it's not just tails of rats, but any hairless tail.

Currently going through rat_tail -tail, and there’s 8 pages of that. Lots of non-tagged tails!

I think this is a valid implication, or that we should at least do something about the tail tag.

I’ll start going through the posts to add the tail tag to them.

Edit: we are now down to 5 pages! 🎉

watsit said:
Would it be identifiable as a rat tail, though? How would it be distinguished from a mouse or possum tail, for example? The wiki itself says, "A hairless tail, commonly found on rats and possums", so it's not just tails of rats, but any hairless tail.

I agree, which is why I said the following at the topic I linked:

faucet said:
Even better again if we can find a non-species name for this tag (maybe hairless_tail?) just like how cow_tail/lion_tail is aliased to tail_tuft and deer_tail/bunny_tail is aliased to scut_tail.

As pointed out by others, hairless_tail might not be the best, but I think it's better than rat_tail.

faucet said:
As pointed out by others, hairless_tail might not be the best, but I think it's better than rat_tail.

Maybe segmented hairless tail?

Edit: I suggest rat tail should imply segmented_tail and hairless_tail, to avoid using segmented hairless tail.

watsit said:
It doesn't seem it'd be very different from rat+tail, and I don't think you can really tell if a tail is a rat tail if you don't see it attached to a rat, where it's not about the tail itself. It's better for a tail tag to indicate the features of the tail, instead of a particular animal since many animals can have similar looking tails (and we don't need a *_tail tag for every potential species). This would be better as an alias.

Are you going to apply this logic to every one of the 18 different tags currently listed under "Animal Humanoid Tails" on the tail wiki? Remember: the definition of "Tag what you know" does not extend to "I have never seen a rat before and have no idea what their tails look like". Tag names don't have to be perfectly literal, they just have to be consistent and understandable.

(This isn't even getting onto the matter of chimeras, which is a notable example of a concept where species-specific tails would be useful.)

wat8548 said:
Are you going to apply this logic to every one of the 18 different tags currently listed under "Animal Humanoid Tails" on the tail wiki? Remember: the definition of "Tag what you know" does not extend to "I have never seen a rat before and have no idea what their tails look like". Tag names don't have to be perfectly literal, they just have to be consistent and understandable.

More like this would cause non-rat animals to be tagged with rat_tail, despite not being or having the tail of a rat. Why not name it possum_tail or mouse_tail (which incidentally exists, despite many cases being indistinguishable from a rat tail)? It's an arbitrary animal selection that doesn't accurately describe what the tag is for, and splitting the same thing across multiple tags.

The tag implication rat_tail -> tail (forum #377137) has been approved by @slyroon.

The bulk update request #7914 is pending approval.

create implication segmented_tail (211) -> tail (1383884)
create implication hairless_tail (607) -> tail (1383884)
create implication rat_tail (2075) -> segmented_tail (211)
create implication rat_tail (2075) -> hairless_tail (607)
remove implication rat_tail (2075) -> tail (1383884)

Reason: Following an earlier suggestion.
If we're keeping rat tail, we should route the implications through the correct intermediary tags

PSA there is also rattail_(hairstyle)

Hang on, could we maybe rename rat_tail to bald_tail? Would that solve the issue of hairless_tail sounding like it could be for fully-hairless animals?
Not all rat-style tails are drawn segmented, I'd call this a rat tail too personally
post #4708452

wandering_spaniel said:
PSA there is also rattail_(hairstyle)

Hang on, could we maybe rename rat_tail to bald_tail? Would that solve the issue of hairless_tail sounding like it could be for fully-hairless animals?
Not all rat-style tails are drawn segmented, I'd call this a rat tail too personally
post #4708452

Yeah also real rats don't have segmented tails. It's a stock stylization for the scaly texture that's a) not super visible at a distance and b) looks more like lizard skin than worm segments.