I have quite a few characters whomst are some kind of mustelid, almost always a ferret. So I tag them with "domesticated_ferret" (the thing they literally are) and no matter how many times I remove it, the "weasel" tag shows up.

I don't know how to explain that's like if you tagged a thing as "red_panda" and it got additionally auto-tagged "ring_tailed_lemur." Sure, they're in the same family, but they're not literally the same thing.

I found out while trying to learn more, that there's this whole "tag implication" system here - uhh so how do I bypass it? Because ferret =/= weasel. Like if weasel is implied by ferret then all mustelid tags have to be implied by each other and you therefore can't specify which mustelid it is. Like. They're different animals. The two most closely related mustelids, but different species nonetheless.

So how do I get this annoying wrong tag off my posts without removing "domesticated_ferret?" Or do I just have to invent a new tag like "ferret_(not_weasel)" or smth? Like I cannot stress enough that they're different animals. This is like if mice and rats were an implied pair...

ferrets are a type of weasel which is why that's happening.

Ferrets are part of the Mustela genus, which is the weasel genus. Use the wiki.

Weasel - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Weasels /ˈwiːzəlz/ are mammals of the genus Mustela of the family Mustelidae. The genus Mustela includes the least weasels, polecats, stoats, ferrets, and European mink.

The English word "weasel" was originally applied to one species of the genus, the European form of the least weasel (Mustela nivalis). This usage is retained in British English, where the name is also extended to cover several other small species of the genus. However, in technical discourse and in American usage, the term "weasel" can refer to any member of the genus, or to the genus as a whole.

no. one tag implicates the other. need to remove the implication to do this.

ratte said:
Ferrets are part of the Mustela genus, which is the weasel genus. Use the wiki.

Actually, it's mustelidae, which isn't the same thing as "a weasel." Yes, weasels are mustelids, but saying "all mustelids are weasels" is like saying "all cats are lynxes" - it's just objectively and obviously not true.

snowferretfitzroy said:
Actually, it's mustelidae, which isn't the same thing as "a weasel." Yes, weasels are mustelids, but saying "all mustelids are weasels" is like saying "all cats are lynxes" - it's just objectively and obviously not true.

Ferrets (Mustela furo) are a species in the genus Mustela (also know as weasels), which are part of the family Mustelidae. No one is saying that all mustelids are weasels, just that all ferrets are weasels, which they are.

gattonero2001 said:
Weasel - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

People who own, take care of, literally are, and/or study mustelids of any kind would not agree with most of this quote. My characters aren't weasels. Someone looking for weasels isn't looking for my characters and someone looking for my characters isn't looking for weasels. Forcing me to use inaccurate tags muddies definitions of words and frankly discourages me from posting my art on this site, which is why I don't anymore. Literally every other part of the entirety of the internet lets me use more specific tagging than the broken and inaccurate system that exists here. I swear it's like this entire site is frozen in the era of the early 90s or something...

labra said:
all ferrets are weasels, which they are.

No, they're fucking not.

snowferretfitzroy said:
No, they're fucking not.

Obviously pretty much no one's gonna call a ferret a "weasel" outright, if someone's talking about weasels they're usually referring to the least weasel, but "weasel" is also the accepted name for the genus Mustela and technically not a species by itself. Mustela used to be the tag name, but since taxonomic names were abolished in favor of common names wherever possible (see topic #36246) all members of the genus now imply the more colloquial "weasel" instead.

snowferretfitzroy said:
Someone looking for weasels isn't looking for my characters and someone looking for my characters isn't looking for weasels.

People who are looking for ferrets can search domestic_ferret and will only get domestic ferrets as a result. People who, for some reason, want to see all members of the genus Mustela except for domestic ferrets can look for weasel -domestic_ferret. You're making this a lot harder than it has to be.

snowferretfitzroy said:
No, they're fucking not.

Chill, man. You are not proving any points by swearing; quite the contrary.

snowferretfitzroy said:
People who own, take care of, literally are, and/or study mustelids of any kind would not agree with most of this quote. My characters aren't weasels. Someone looking for weasels isn't looking for my characters and someone looking for my characters isn't looking for weasels. Forcing me to use inaccurate tags muddies definitions of words and frankly discourages me from posting my art on this site, which is why I don't anymore. Literally every other part of the entirety of the internet lets me use more specific tagging than the broken and inaccurate system that exists here. I swear it's like this entire site is frozen in the era of the early 90s or something...

Weasels are the mustelids specifically in the genus Mustela, which includes the European mink, least weasels, stoats, ferrets, and three polecats. Of these weasel species is the European polecat (Mustela putorius), believed to be the ancestor to the domestic ferret (Mustela furo). It should be noted that the black-footed ferret is also sometimes called the American polecat. Taxonomically, domestic ferrets are one of several weasel species — Mustela.

E621's tagging is correct. Zoologists who study mustelids would agree. Your characters may not be one of the nine species frequently called "something" weasel, but they are a weasel species in general. They share behaviors and physical characteristics with other Mustela species.

Other mustelids include otters, badgers, the rest of the polecats, martens, wolverines, and grisons. However, all these other mustelid species are not in Mustela specifically, so are not weasels. E621 didn't pull this implication out of places unmentionable. Those who made the implications in our tags did their research.

snowferretfitzroy said:
Actually, it's mustelidae, which isn't the same thing as "a weasel." Yes, weasels are mustelids, but saying "all mustelids are weasels" is like saying "all cats are lynxes" - it's just objectively and obviously not true.

That is a family, Mustela is a genus and is part of the mustelidae family. The Mustela genus is the weasel genus, which is what ferrets (or European polecats) is part of. It's not "all mustelids are weasels", it's "all weasels are mustelids".

It goes:

• Mustelidae
• Mustela (weasels)
• M. putorius (European polecat)
• M. p. furo (domestic ferret)

List of Mustela species can be found here. You will notice that European polecats (and thus the domestic ferret) is in that list.

If you're going to critique my taxonomy, at least be correct.

snowferretfitzroy said:
People who own, take care of, literally are, and/or study mustelids of any kind would not agree with most of this quote.

you mean like the biologists and taxonomists that contributed directly or indirectly to the Wikipedia page that you're trying to, like, debunk?

also, umm... "literally are"? I-I don't think there are a subset of people who literally are mustelids of any kind... and even then, if we could, theoretically, communicate with an actual weasel, I think am going to trust the judgement of people who've spent their lives striving to understand what ways all life on earth is connected over the judgment of some random long mammal who might not have even completed any postsecondary education.

sipothac said:
also, umm... "literally are"? I-I don't think there are a subset of people who literally are mustelids of any kind...

they may be referring to therians / otherkin

strikerman said:
they may be referring to therians / otherkin

yeah, I guess, but the point still stands. being something does not necessarily mean you have any actual insight on what that thing you are really is, especially on the really fundemental levels.

I mean, like, if a bunch of furries normally obsessed with categorizing things can't even really figure out what a furry is, what luck does some weasel have of defining the taxonomic structure of its own existence.

I have not met a single biologist who would take offense or act confused at a ferret being called a weasel.

sipothac said:
yeah, I guess, but the point still stands. being something does not necessarily mean you have any actual insight on what that thing you are really is, especially on the really fundemental levels.

I mean, like, if a bunch of furries normally obsessed with categorizing things can't even really figure out what a furry is, what luck does some weasel have of defining the taxonomic structure of its own existence.

Just turn it on its head and look at how many humans take offense to the concept that humans are primates and related to other primates ...