Just proposing another type of tag.

Generally_Accepted_Knowledge or, GAK for short.

Such a tag would have it's own color (much like Artist or Character tags), and only be searchable when searched as GAK:<tag>

The blacklist, however, could cover GAK tags without them having to be listed as such.

This would be useful for when
a) Ambiguous_gender is used because of Tag What You See, but the character's gender is known because of external sources and/or other pages in a comic or pool. TWYS gets criticized a lot in this area, and having a GAK:male or GAK:female tag along with the normal Ambiguous_gender tag might stop all those stupid fights.
b) A character's species is untaggable because people fight over what it looks like vs what everyone knows it is. An example might be Sea Salt. While I have yet to see anyone really cause a ruckus about this particular one, it COULD be claimed that SeaSalt can't be tagged as a dolmation because dalmations have spots all over their bodies not in rings in a few places, and therefore they do not see a dolmation, just a dog. Another example might be of a pic I've seen of a Ninetails (the pokemon) who's tails are tied together and the divisions not really drawn. The character is most definitely a ninetails, and is, in every way, drawn exactly like he always is, except that it looks as if he has one tail. Under TWYS, he can't have his species tagged. It would be useful to have GAK:Ninetails.

All in all I think GAK would only really work for gender, species, name, and perhaps gay, but could be useful nonetheless, without interfering with TWYS.

Just an idea :P Tired of seeing fights over it and not being able to find some pics because of technicalities. Totally understand if it's not possible/wanted.

Also this is NOT to undermine TWYS. I do understand the rule, and why we have it. I entirely agree that it eliminates many problems and makes finding what you're looking for much much easier. It is something we need in place; not removed and not screwed with.

However, it is not perfect, and some things fall through the cracks (like my examples above). They're not important enough things to warrant altering the TWYS rule, but an additional tag as I've described above which is searchable ONLY by adding the GAK: before the tag might placate the haters and help finding those oddballs without really compromising TWYS.

Thanks to everyone who pointed out a few key problems with this idea :)

By and large, what the discussions below have made me wonder the most though, is why the description box isn't used for all the outside info. Maybe all the left over fuss about this stuff could be cleared up by making one of those News boxes that points out the description feature and urges it's use?

The diversity of the search options got it's own News flash a while back, so people should be aware that they have the ability to search descriptions already, but that does almost nothing if the description boxes aren't used in the first place.

No.

Halite said:
No.

No reasoning behind your no?

Listing just why this idea would not work/is stupid would help. Perhaps I'm overlooking something obvious.

A) This will increase arguments because people will be divided on whether to follow TWYS or GAK
B) This will make searching for images less effective when a user wants to look for something but gets something else entirely different
C) This will most certainly interfere with TWYS
D) TWYS isn't perfect, but it's the most efficient when it comes to searching.
Q) ...

Sure, TWYS works if you understand it.
People not understanding it doesn't mean we should undermine the system.

On top of that, if we do as you suggest, people won't do it right, and it will cause more tag fighting.
If you don't think so, just look at all the ifghts caused when we allowed outside information for character names only, a ton of people assumed that meant they could use outside info for anything, despite a clear explanation that it was very specifically only character names only.

In short, this change would cause more problems than it would solve.

TheHuskyK9 said:
A) This will increase arguments because people will be divided on whether to follow TWYS or GAK
B) This will make searching for images less effective when a user wants to look for something but gets something else entirely different
C) This will most certainly interfere with TWYS
D) TWYS isn't perfect, but it's the most efficient when it comes to searching.
Q) ...

A) If done the way I proposed, TWYS would ALWAYS be followed. GAK would not be a system to follow, only another type of tag, like Artist
B) Not if those tags were ONLY searchable if they're searched as GAK:<tag>. For example searching Male would NOT show GAK:male tagged posts. Only specifically searching "GAK:male" would show them. However, I'll be the first to admit I'm not sure if making them only searchable this way is possible, since I'm unfamiliar with coding. If it wasnt' possible to separate them then you're entirely right and this idea would be entirely bunk.
C) See my responses to A and B lol
D) Most assuredly agree with you there.
Q) ?

Halite said:
if we do as you suggest, people won't do it right, and it will cause more tag fighting.

Good point. People have a way of not bothering to learn and do things right :\

Halite said:
look at all the ifghts caused when we allowed outside information for character names only, a ton of people assumed that meant they could use outside info for anything, despite a clear explanation that it was very specifically only character names only.

This was precisely the thing that got me thinking about outside information needing to be separate from the other tags. Screwing with TWYS to allow character names caused so many problems because of idiocy, all I could think was that TWYS needed to be left alone and a different system put in place for the outside knowledge stuff.

But already, even with what I thought was a clear explanation, my intentions/ideas for a GAK tag are being misunderstood, which already tells me that, as you said, people won't do it right which will cause more trouble than it's worth.

Thankyou for expanding on that :) Good points.

kkpkkpk said:
B) Not if those tags were ONLY searchable if they're searched as GAK:<tag>. For example searching Male would NOT show GAK:male tagged posts. Only specifically searching "GAK:male" would show them

That would mean that each tag has two different meanings. For people who tag image to image, this would be a pain because we would be confused if we have to tag an image "male" or "GAK:male"

TheHuskyK9 said:
That would mean that each tag has two different meanings. For people who tag image to image, this would be a pain because we would be confused if we have to tag an image "male" or "GAK:male"

True that would probably trip people up. I forgot to figure in human stupidity when I wrote the idea, as Halite pointed out. The intention would be that GAK:male would ONLY go on characters that TWYS would deem Ambiguous_gender but outside sources show as male. Anything that would normally be tagged Male would not be tagged GAK anything, because it's obvious under TWYS and outside info wasn't needed to see that. For example, lets say there's a character named Mark who is male, and there's a picture of him in which you can't see anything that makes him look specifically male. Under TWYS, he must be tagged Ambiguous_Gender... with GAK in place you would just add GAK:male as well, in addition to Ambigous_gender, because while it's not shown, we know Mark is male. But GAK:male would be pointless and stupid to add to an image already tagged Male. So, if tagged Male under TWYS, it would not get a GAK. At least that was the idea. But, like I said and like you pointed out, people would be too lazy to read up on how GAK works and just get confused and screw stuff up.

no.

No thanks.
I don't care about what species or gender the character is supposed to be and I'd rather not find out. I'm here simply to find images that are relevant to my interests. Nothing else.

Adding outside information would only be detrimental to my... enjoyment. For instance, I don't want to find out that a character I thought to be male is actually herm.

Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope, SO MUCH NOPE!!
[/quote]

Not to mention we already have searchable descriptions ( desc:<search-string> ).

It sounds great on paper, but in practice it would get confusing, and messy, fast.

Picture this: you look up a picture using "male" as your tag search criteria. You click a thumbnail that looks male, it loads and still looks male. You're enjoying this very male picture. And then you notice the GAK section lists it as a herm zebra. But it looks like a male with spots. Sure, because that other weird and seemingly unrelated info is isolated to the GAK tag, theoretically it shouldn't interfere with it still being tagged with TWYS. But for humans, seeing completely at odds information like that is going to be annoying enough to prompt people to "correct" it. Try to get it to all say the same things, or at least be similar. The fact there may be some obscure and long backstory to the character involving temporary potions, curses, disguises, etc is irrelevant.

Any of that information would ideally be included in the description box, but almost never is. And currently, the descriptions can be searched, which would make this GAK tag unneeded since a place to put untaggable backstory information already exists. So in a way the description box could fill the "need for" a GAK tag. But almost no one is using it.

While I value you opinion. I must disagree the tagging system is most likely as effeceint as its going to get. But if you want to provide feedback, why not do it in the feedback thread?

furrypickle said:
Any of that information would ideally be included in the description box, but almost never is. And currently, the descriptions can be searched, which would make this GAK tag unneeded since a place to put untaggable backstory information already exists. So in a way the description box could fill the "need for" a GAK tag. But almost no one is using it.

That is probably the most excellent point I've seen yet. That could solve ALL the problems and fights where TWYS falls short, if people would just use the feature. Honestly I've only ever seen a couple of pics that have descriptions, and I have no idea where the description box is and/or if people other than the poster can add to it, but that gives me something to look up at least. Maybe the admins should just draw attention to that feature.

Killingsworth said:
While I value you opinion. I must disagree the tagging system is most likely as effeceint as its going to get. But if you want to provide feedback, why not do it in the feedback thread?

Didn't realize there was one :P
Since this was really a shot in the dark anyway I didn't really spend much time looking around the forum, I just made a new thread and tossed my idea out. Live and learn I guess, anything like this, in the future, I'll add to the feedback thread.

kkpkkpk said:
...
By and large, what the discussions below have made me wonder the most though, is why the description box isn't used for all the outside info. Maybe all the left over fuss about this stuff could be cleared up by making one of those News boxes that points out the description feature and urges it's use?
...

There was one, back when the description box was added.
Was up for like a month or something.

Halite said:
There was one, back when the description box was added.
Was up for like a month or something.

http://e621.net/news

Halite said:
There was one, back when the description box was added.
Was up for like a month or something.

kkpkkpk said:
The diversity of the search options got it's own News flash a while back, so people should be aware that they have the ability to search descriptions already, but that does almost nothing if the description boxes aren't used in the first place.

I knew about that Newsflash. It was about the fact that you can now search using description, but not one flat out stating that the feature was new and easily usable for outside info. People, myself included clearly, are stupid. I'm certain I'm not the only one who didn't put two and two together there, as obvious as it may seem in retrospect. I mean really, look how long the blacklist has been around for and yet people still aren't using that correctly either.

Huh, thought it was in the news thing.
Must have just been in the thread that announced it.