The tag alias #72741 in_rut -> in_heat has been approved.

Reason: First of all, yes I know these are technically two different things, but when it comes to furry art these are essentially the same. The wiki pages are literally the same, with the only difference being that in heat applies to female characters and in rut applies to male characters. In actual practice in rut is barely used, with only 235 posts, while in heat has over 6000. This is partially due to females in heat being more popular than males in rut, but if you add up in_heat male solo and in_heat male/male -female you get 331, 1.5x the total of in_rut. A lot of users don't even know that in rut exists.

Furthermore, we run into problems when we go outside the gender binary. Which tags apply to andromorphs and gynomorphs? do we go with the genitals or the perception of male/female? Do both apply to herms? What about ambiguous characters? These problems would be eliminated if we just had a unified tag.

_{There's a similar problem with cuckold/cuckquean but I'm not touching that yet.}

EDIT: The tag alias in_rut -> in_heat (forum #421859) has been approved by @slyroon.

I was thinking of suggesting this a bit ago, I think it'd make sense to apply it. Even in cases such as Braeburned's comic with Olli in heat, the differences between rut and heat in regards to the furry fandom's usage of it is basically nonexistent:
post #2982939

Rut/heat is another one of those problem tags that [seemingly needlessly] is very gender exclusive, and is applied inconsistently.

Somewhat related: topic #29865

I was going to object on the basis that, if portrayed accurately, there should be differences in the behaviors displayed. There are even ways to show it without displaying behavior- vaginal discharge and enlarged vulvas for heat, color changes, display structures, and enlarged testicles for rut.

But this is furry world. Biology need not apply.

The tag alias in_rut -> in_heat (forum #421859) has been approved by @slyroon.