In the TWYS system, tags like humor, why, what have no place as they are highly subjective and cannot be 'seen'.

Take humor for example. I might find post #5311832 hilarious but you don't, and vice versa. A post may have a simple knock knock joke- but wait, dialogue/text is considered external info, not valid for TWYS.

Or the wide variety of posts in what or why. It can range from posts of a shaved Lugia (post #5196923) to a video of a penguin getting elbowed at the dentist (post #3843414).

Tags like these are far too generic and subjective to be useful. Blacklisting them can block many posts that a user may otherwise want to see, all because Timmy didn't like that Bluey was drawn as a.. *checks post #3693722* ..a square

Not creating a BUR yet to gauge other opinions

I broadly agree. These seem like the sorts of things sets should be for.

I think there could be a place for tonal tags such as humor or sad, if they describe the intended tone of the work and not just an individual's personal opinion, but then intended tone can also be subjective.

There's enough cues that signal when something is supposed to be a joke/humorous that it's usually recognizable regardless on how funny you actually find it. You might (correctly) find Adam Sandler's movie Click terribly unfunny, but you're still unlikely to mistake it for an intended drama. The tag is 'humor' not 'hilarious' for a reason.

As for what/why/what_has_science_done/where_is_your_god_now I don't have an argument for why they should stay other than I like them and removing the tags would make me sad.

regsmutt said:
As for what/why/what_has_science_done/where_is_your_god_now I don't have an argument for why they should stay other than I like them and removing the tags would make me sad.

If anything, they give a means for people to easily blacklist things that are considered "weird" to the average individual. These posts often get dozens - sometimes hundreds - of downvotes for being weird or unsettling or otherwise strange, and giving a means to blacklist them prevents that number from being worse. [plus, lots of other people love these posts, and they can serve as a means to find new concepts].
Lots of these posts under what and similar have very niche and one-off concepts that would bloat blacklists if you were to blacklist them individually.

Though there shouldn't be more than one of these tags. They all really refer to pretty much the same thing. I'm here for a "general weirdcore" tag that's like... kinder in name than the ones we already have. "why", "where is your god now", and "what has science done" hearkens to cringe culture and feels more mean-spirited about the unusual more than anything. Not sure what else it would be called, though.

beholding said:
I think there could be a place for tonal tags such as humor or sad, if they describe the intended tone of the work and not just an individual's personal opinion, but then intended tone can also be subjective.

regsmutt said:
There's enough cues that signal when something is supposed to be a joke/humorous that it's usually recognizable regardless on how funny you actually find it. You might (correctly) find Adam Sandler's movie Click terribly unfunny, but you're still unlikely to mistake it for an intended drama. The tag is 'humor' not 'hilarious' for a reason.

Perhaps a switch over to meta tags could help clarify, labelling the intended tone/genre, like horror, humor, wholesome, sad, etc

moonlit-comet said:
If anything, they give a means for people to easily blacklist things that are considered "weird" to the average individual. These posts often get dozens - sometimes hundreds - of downvotes for being weird or unsettling or otherwise strange, and giving a means to blacklist them prevents that number from being worse. [plus, lots of other people love these posts, and they can serve as a means to find new concepts].
Lots of these posts under what and similar have very niche and one-off concepts that would bloat blacklists if you were to blacklist them individually.

Even with that ideology, there's a lot of mistags. Like post #3894935 isn't weird to the 'average individuals'. It's just a drawing of Bandit Heeler. Without the tag messytails I'd have no clue that it was some kind of reference. Even then, I have no clue what the reference is to. There's no explanation anywhere on the site.

I don't think 'blacklist bloat' is a relevant argument. Tag bloat and people who don't use their blacklists are a way bigger problem that people who have hundreds of tags in their blacklist (like myself). I don't know of any complaints from staff saying 'we are running out of space from people using too many tags'

dirtyderg said:
Perhaps a switch over to meta tags could help clarify, labelling the intended tone/genre, like horror, humor, wholesome, sad, etc

I don't think tone fits the meta category at all. Meta is stuff like dimensions and media used. Putting tone/genre in meta would be like putting background or color tags in meta.

dirtyderg said:
Perhaps a switch over to meta tags could help clarify, labelling the intended tone/genre, like horror, humor, wholesome, sad, etc

hmmm... that might work, medium and format in meta which are marginally adjacent to genre, I think it could make sense for overall genre/themes to go there, but it feels like it'd be kinda hard to find where to draw the line on that one, especially since meta is a locked category. for some of the trope-y subgenre things that we have tags for, like lay_the_dragon, would those also be meta?

dirtyderg said:
Perhaps a switch over to meta tags could help clarify, labelling the intended tone/genre, like horror, humor, wholesome, sad, etc

That's an interesting idea. I think it would make sense for genres especially; it's not always obvious that a given series is fantasy or science fiction from an individual page, for instance. I don't know if tone might be considered too subjective for meta, though.