Aliasing tags like black_dragon to dragon

Reason: Too specific, can be replaced by dragon black_body or something similar.

yes, please

I wonder if it would it be more helpful to have it alias to "invalid_color" or "invalid_tag" instead of just "dragon"? Because I know off and on there's been retagging projects to fix those <color>_<species> tags, (or at least I've seen it mentioned in the forums). And it seems like one of those tags would be more useful instead of just redirecting it to the general species tag to get lost in the pile again. Unless most of them also lack a species tag, it seems like an alias to "dragon" be a step backward rather than forward in getting them properly identified for fixing. "invalid_color" also seems like a better feedback loop for the inevitable future mis-tags that will always happen. But that's just my two cents.

TL;DR - I think aliasing them is a great idea, I'm just wondering where's the best place going to be to send them to.

There are a few images where those species tags could be considered valid: chromatic dragons from the Dungeons and Dragons. Such as post #99525. But there's so few of those that I don't think it matters. I suppose they could be retagged as Black_Dragon_(DnD) or somesuch.

I'd second aliasing them to invalid_color or invalid_tag. Especially since some images tagged as black_dragon are closer to white than black on greyscale. ...dunno why some folks tag grey as black.

Genjar said:
dunno why some folks tag grey as black.

Monitors with shitty contrast ratios, likely.

I agree and it will be made in favor of color_dragon -> dragon

Any progress with this?
Those tags are now all over the place, and I think it sets a bad precedent. I've seen some other <color>_<species> tags pop up recently..

-1 against. Generic dragons are generic, but don't conflate specific species named for colour of scales together. If we differentiate grey foxes from fennecs et al so should we with other speces.

123easy said:
-1 against. Generic dragons are generic, but don't conflate specific species named for colour of scales together. If we differentiate grey foxes from fennecs et al so should we with other speces.

Except foxes are real and have different species, dragons are not and depending on which fantasy world you ask are all the same "species".
Not to mention, it's not hard to search "dragon <color>_scales" if you really care about what color your dragon is, just like anyone else looking for a specific color of character.

Halite said:
Except foxes are real and have different species, dragons are not and depending on which fantasy world you ask are all the same "species".
Not to mention, it's not hard to search "dragon <color>_scales" if you really care about what color your dragon is, just like anyone else looking for a specific color of character.

Then instead of suggesting to just alias <color>_Dragon to Dragon, it should be to <color>_Scales, which I would consider better than the current alias request, but would still be against.

This said- what hole have you been living in that you think dragons in any major system, game or otherwise, are all the same species? Not even just D&D (the most common system that draconic characters are based on, esp. if explicit statistics are used); the mythology that dragons are based on (eastern or western it doesn't matter) separates them all into different species based on various traits (which traits dependant on who is catagorizing them, but usually scale colour, function/role they play in their environment, and where they live have some factor).

I was gonna do a long, complicated post about species and how the Grey Fox isn't even Vulpes so is in fact only distantly related to foxes, so we shouldn't even be tagging them Foxes, but instead, I'll just go with this: If something is a chimera, we tag it such. If something is two species, we tag it such. Real or not real doesn't matter one whit when it comes to whether we tag species or not, what matters is standard classification. Grey Foxes are separate from Red Foxes, and both fall under Fox. That is precedent enough for me to strongly oppose with reason this attempt. Imply them to dragon if they aren't already, certainly, but do not alias them away into a generic mashup.

123easy said:
Then instead of suggesting to just alias <color>_Dragon to Dragon, it should be to <color>_Scales, which I would consider better than the current alias request, but would still be against.

This said- what hole have you been living in that you think dragons in any major system, game or otherwise, are all the same species? Not even just D&D (the most common system that draconic characters are based on, esp. if explicit statistics are used); the mythology that dragons are based on (eastern or western it doesn't matter) separates them all into different species based on various traits (which traits dependant on who is catagorizing them, but usually scale colour, function/role they play in their environment, and where they live have some factor).

I was gonna do a long, complicated post about species and how the Grey Fox isn't even Vulpes so is in fact only distantly related to foxes, so we shouldn't even be tagging them Foxes, but instead, I'll just go with this: If something is a chimera, we tag it such. If something is two species, we tag it such. Real or not real doesn't matter one whit when it comes to whether we tag species or not, what matters is standard classification. Grey Foxes are separate from Red Foxes, and both fall under Fox. That is precedent enough for me to strongly oppose with reason this attempt. Imply them to dragon if they aren't already, certainly, but do not alias them away into a generic mashup.

D&D dragons are all one species that can interbreed.
I wouldn't object to aliasing <color>_dragon to <color>_scales, except not all dragons have depicted scales, so skin, or even fur might be appropriate depending on the image.

This would result in mistagging, so the optimal solution is aliasing to dragon since 100% of <color>_dragon images should have the dragon tag.

Halite said:
D&D dragons are all one species that can interbreed.
I wouldn't object to aliasing <color>_dragon to <color>_scales, except not all dragons have depicted scales, so skin, or even fur might be appropriate depending on the image.

This would result in mistagging, so the optimal solution is aliasing to dragon since 100% of <color>_dragon images should have the dragon tag.

Grey foxes and red foxes can interbreed with each other, or wolves/dogs, or coyotes. The only thing that any of those share is the family canidae, not even sharing the same tribe (canini and vulpini). This is why interbreeding is only ONE factor, not the ONLY factor. Hell, there are more dragons with more differences between themselves than there are between red and grey foxes, if you want to go that route.

You stating that there are dragons without scales or that are furred is alone enough evidence that there is enough variance even within colours to differentiate between subspecies within the color species, which just supports my point. Optimal solution is NOT aliasing to dragon.

123easy said:
You stating that there are dragons without scales or that are furred is alone enough evidence that there is enough variance even within colours to differentiate between subspecies within the color species, which just supports my point. Optimal solution is NOT aliasing to dragon.

There is no variance within colored "species." any color dragon is just as likely to have fur.

There are dragons that are black; there are dragons that are furred. Fur dragon is just as much a species as black dragon is.

DrHorse said:
There is no variance within colored "species." any color dragon is just as likely to have fur.

There are dragons that are black; there are dragons that are furred. Fur dragon is just as much a species as black dragon is.

You said:
"...to differentiate between subspecies within the color species..."

123easy said:
"...to differentiate between subspecies within the color species..."

It doesn't matter what you're going to use it for because the variance is equally within and without. The distinction of color as a "species" and fur as "subspecies" is 100% arbitrary.

We could just as easily have fur_dragons, and scale_dragons, and even skin_dragons. But we don't, because that's what the search function is for.

I would also like to point out that we tag grey_fox, and red_fox not to label the color of the fox, but because that is the name of the species.
You could, for example, have a grey_fox with pink_fur.
You would now, however, ever have a situation where you had a red_dragon that had green_scales. Under current tagging, that's a green_dragon.

See the difference? <color>_dragon tags aren't tagging a species, they're tagging a color, and we don't tag colors that way.

Halite said:
I would also like to point out that we tag grey_fox, and red_fox not to label the color of the fox, but because that is the name of the species.
You could, for example, have a grey_fox with pink_fur.
You would now, however, ever have a situation where you had a red_dragon that had green_scales. Under current tagging, that's a green_dragon.

See the difference? <color>_dragon tags aren't tagging a species, they're tagging a color, and we don't tag colors that way.

If a grey fox had pink fur, it'd be dyed. It was named a grey fox because its fur is grey, and it resembles a fox, so it's a grey fox. Tree frogs got their name because they lived in trees. Poison Dart Frogs got their name because their toxins were/are used in the making of poisonous blowdarts. Komodo Dragons (Monitor Lizards) were named as such because they were large lizards that lived primarily on the island of Komodo, and were mistaken for baby dragons originally. As you can see, many things are named after such simple-seeming factors. It's not just dragons.

I vote they be aliased to invalid_color and we just clean up to color_fur or scales as needed

Different color dragons are not different species.

Or should we have <color>_wyvern tags too, since they're colored wyverns which is a separate type of dragon species, so each color of wyvern ought to be it's own tag to right?
And <color>_furred_dragon, <color>_eastern_dragon, <color>_wingless_dragon, etc. etc. etc.

It's still arbitrary to divide all dragons into separate species by their color. It's canon in some settings, true, but not in all.

For instance, siblings get tagged as different species because of it.

Genjar said:
It's still arbitrary to divide all dragons into separate species by their color. It's canon in some settings, true, but not in all.

And this is exactly why it's a bad alias. If it's false in some examples, then it cannot hold true across all examples and is a bad alias. Halite himself said that some time ago on a different topic, if memory doesn't fail me; I believe it was about strapons and feeldoes and pegging? I could be thinking something else as well.

For instance, siblings get tagged as different species because of it.

Blame that on Furry Fandom Magic where you can have a brother and a sister that aren't even the same species coming from the same mother/father pairing. Sometimes not even the same species as the parents. -_-; This happens in furred species as well as reptilian, so it's not something specific to draconic characters.

Halite said:
Different color dragons are not different species.

Or should we have <color>_wyvern tags too, since they're colored wyverns which is a separate type of dragon species, so each color of wyvern ought to be it's own tag to right?
And <color>_furred_dragon, <color>_eastern_dragon, <color>_wingless_dragon, etc. etc. etc.

Are wyverns actually referred to by colour within their various species? To my knowledge, there is only one species of wyvern, Draco vulgaris, distantly related to dragons, that has its own colour variations depending on breed and localization; Wyverns found amongst snowy peaks or tundra tend towards white, those in deserts towards a mottled brown, those in forests a gren-and-grey mottle, much like various species of frogs and other animals adapt their colour schemes to their habitat; Some even are named for their habitat rather than their colouration, as many real life animals are. Dragons, while they may be found in terrain that matches their colouration scheme, do not adapt to their habitat's colouration and retain their scale pigmentation regardless of any influence aside from temporary dyes and coats of various kinds; a red dragon that gets a bath of molten gold doesn't suddenly become a gold dragon, for example :P

Further, given how you've addressed the topic, one could argue by your logic that the various Eevee evolutions should just be tagged Eevee, then <colour>_fur or <colour>_scale and the like, simply because they all fall within the same family, even though each is treated as a distinct species both canonically and elsewise.

123easy said:
And this is exactly why it's a bad alias. If it's false in some examples, then it cannot hold true across all examples and is a bad alias. Halite himself said that some time ago on a different topic, if memory doesn't fail me; I believe it was about strapons and feeldoes and pegging? I could be thinking something else as well.
...

That is a completely different situation than the one here.
What I was talking about was the existence of images where an implication would cause tags to be added that did not belong on the image.
For example, implicating strap-on to pegging when you could peg a guy with a feeldoe.
Or, implicating penis to titfuck when you could also do that with a tentacle, or some such.
Or, most recently, implicating penis to autofellatio when you could be fellating yourself in an image without a visible penis.

What you're talking about is applying the rules/terminology from every possible setting in existence.
That's is precisely not TWYS since the "setting" isn't part of an image.

In other words, it doesn't matter what D&D says regarding dragons' species.
It doesn't matter what any setting says, we use logic in what tags are relevant and useful to this site, and tagging every color of dragon with it's own special tag is pointless because it is already covered by the separate "dragon" and "<color>_scales" tags.

If that insufficient for you then you could always make yourself a set of each color of dragon.
Even make them public so that anyone who wants can use them for searches too.

Halite said:
That is a completely different situation than the one here.
What I was talking about was the existence of images where an implication would cause tags to be added that did not belong on the image.
For example, implicating strap-on to pegging when you could peg a guy with a feeldoe.
Or, implicating penis to titfuck when you could also do that with a tentacle, or some such.
Or, most recently, implicating penis to autofellatio when you could be fellating yourself in an image without a visible penis.

What you're talking about is applying the rules/terminology from every possible setting in existence.
That's is precisely not TWYS since the "setting" isn't part of an image.

In other words, it doesn't matter what D&D says regarding dragons' species.
It doesn't matter what any setting says, we use logic in what tags are relevant and useful to this site, and tagging every color of dragon with it's own special tag is pointless because it is already covered by the separate "dragon" and "<color>_scales" tags.

If that insufficient for you then you could always make yourself a set of each color of dragon.
Even make them public so that anyone who wants can use them for searches too.

It's not just D&D that has the different colours as the species, and in fact there are real world examples as I gave with the red and grey foxes, and many more I could give as example as well, where a species is named for a colouration or other notable characteristic. If some dragon species are named for their colouration, then aliasing away their species is a bad alias. It doesn't matter that there are some that are not, much as Fennecs and Greys and Reds and Bengals and Capes are all types of foxes, but are tagged individually (well, Bengals would be, if we had any) as well as by the tag fox (and canine, which is a stand-in for canid, for ease of use, understandably). Implicate them to dragon, most certainly (and I'm a bit surprised that they aren't already), but don't alias them.

123easy said:
It's not just D&D that has the different colours as the species, and in fact there are real world examples as I gave with the red and grey foxes, and many more I could give as example as well, where a species is named for a colouration or other notable characteristic. If some dragon species are named for their colouration, then aliasing away their species is a bad alias. It doesn't matter that there are some that are not, much as Fennecs and Greys and Reds and Bengals and Capes are all types of foxes, but are tagged individually (well, Bengals would be, if we had any) as well as by the tag fox (and canine, which is a stand-in for canid, for ease of use, understandably). Implicate them to dragon, most certainly (and I'm a bit surprised that they aren't already), but don't alias them.

And that would be very relevant, if dragons existed.

Halite said:
And that would be very relevant, if dragons existed.

So, Sergals exist? Centaur exist? Anthro canines and felines and all the other anthrofied animals of the Furry fandom exist (not counting their feral forms, aka the RL animal they're based on)? Folfs exist? Whether they exist or not in real life has no relevancy in this argument (On a semi-related note, while checking for fictional species that we tag, and noticed that the Synx needs a species tag, doesn't it? It's both drawn by and is the species Chimera_Synx, to my knowledge).

I support these aliaseses. We don't use red_wolf or turquoise_panther afterall.

ippiki_ookami said:
I support these aliaseses. We don't use red_wolf or turquoise_panther afterall.

Actually, https://e621.net/wiki/show?title=red_wolf

We also have https://e621.net/wiki/show?title=black_panther separate from https://e621.net/wiki/show?title=panther and also https://e621.net/wiki/show?title=florida_panther though the latter has only two posts.

123easy said:
So, Sergals exist? Centaur exist? Anthro canines and felines and all the other anthrofied animals of the Furry fandom exist (not counting their feral forms, aka the RL animal they're based on)? Folfs exist? Whether they exist or not in real life has no relevancy in this argument (On a semi-related note, while checking for fictional species that we tag, and noticed that the Synx needs a species tag, doesn't it? It's both drawn by and is the species Chimera_Synx, to my knowledge).

We aren't tagging Blue_sergal, or Pink_centaurs.

Halite said:
We aren't tagging Blue_sergal, or Pink_centaurs.

Because no one has created a species/subspecies of centaur or sergal, especially one that is named for its fur colouration? However, we do tag deertaur, foxtaur, skunktaur, wolftaur, dragontaur; That's more relevant to the topic, as effectively you're arguing for them all to just be aliased to 'taur' when they should just be implicated. I was more pointing to that you were saying that dragons don't exist, so shouldn't be tagged, because fictional.

Do we even have any color specific dragons outside the dnd universe? I don't know of any.

Sollux said:
Do we even have any color specific dragons outside the dnd universe? I don't know of any.

My scalesona isn't based on D&D Black Dragons, for one, but is a Black Dragon by species. the image as my avatar is an Onyx Dragon, as per the artist.

123easy said:
My scalesona isn't based on D&D Black Dragons, for one, but is a Black Dragon by species. the image as my avatar is an Onyx Dragon, as per the artist.

is the species onyx dragon commonly used or just by that artist

Sollux said:
is the species onyx dragon commonly used or just by that artist

Not commonly at all, AFAIK. It would tentatively classify as a gem dragon, if just because Onyx is a gem, but it's not related to any other classifications (like D&D or otherwise) to my knowledge, same with the rest of his dragons.

123easy said:
Not commonly at all, AFAIK. It would tentatively classify as a gem dragon, if just because Onyx is a gem, but it's not related to any other classifications (like D&D or otherwise) to my knowledge, same with the rest of his dragons.

I feel like tagging dragon subspecies won't really serve a purpose, at least based on color. For now how does cleaning up color_dragon to the respective scales/fur sound to everyone, to close that discussion out.

Sollux said:
I feel like tagging dragon subspecies won't really serve a purpose, at least based on color. For now how does cleaning up color_dragon to the respective scales/fur sound to everyone, to close that discussion out.

Like I said, I'd tentatively classify it as a gem dragon, but that's my own opinion, not the artist's. :P Also, species* not subspecies. Dragons would have their own genus, like Vulpes is for true foxes. ;) This all aside, I don't see many tagging issues within the color_dragon tags, myself; Could you point me to where there is issue? To my knowledge, they're generally quite well kept.

123easy said:
Like I said, I'd tentatively classify it as a gem dragon, but that's my own opinion, not the artist's. :P Also, species* not subspecies. Dragons would have their own genus, like Vulpes is for true foxes. ;) This all aside, I don't see many tagging issues within the color_dragon tags, myself; Could you point me to where there is issue? To my knowledge, they're generally quite well kept.

its just that you don't really need to specify the dragons color when you Already have the fur and scale color tags to do the same thing. I wouldn't mind tagging the species of dragon if there were enough images to warrant it by the way, I just don't know of any instances that we need to do it now.

123easy said:
Like I said, I'd tentatively classify it as a gem dragon, but that's my own opinion, not the artist's. :P Also, species* not subspecies. Dragons would have their own genus, like Vulpes is for true foxes. ;) This all aside, I don't see many tagging issues within the color_dragon tags, myself; Could you point me to where there is issue? To my knowledge, they're generally quite well kept.

Again, dragons don't exist.
They don't have a genus.
They're a figment of the collective human imagination.
Treating them like real animals is silly.
Who are you to say that your view is more valid than mine, that there would be 1 species of dragons with colored subspecies?
What right do you have to say anyone else is wrong, or correct them.

There are numerous people here, including an admin saying that these are bad tags, and as far as I can see, you are the only one defending them.
I get that you're personally invested, because you enjoy imagining yourself as a dragon, but personal feelings don't make good tags.

Halite said:
Again, dragons don't exist.
They don't have a genus.
They're a figment of the collective human imagination.
Treating them like real animals is silly.
Who are you to say that your view is more valid than mine, that there would be 1 species of dragons with colored subspecies?
What right do you have to say anyone else is wrong, or correct them.

There are numerous people here, including an admin saying that these are bad tags, and as far as I can see, you are the only one defending them.
I get that you're personally invested, because you enjoy imagining yourself as a dragon, but personal feelings don't make good tags.

I was gonna make a big argument about how dragons at one time were thought to exist, and were considered a very real thing by the scientific community, etc. etc. and that I said WOULD, not ARE, but instead, I'll put it far more simply: Who are YOU to say that MY concept of dragons is wrong? By aliasing it away, you are effectively saying that all dragons are the same. Who are YOU to say that all dragons are the same? I'm not saying that there aren't some dragons that are black scaled but aren't a specific species because of it. I AM saying that there ARE dragons that specifically are separate species and the colour of their scales is just a happy circumstance that they are named after.

Well, let me demonstrate why it's wrong.

post #399093

This image contains three mirror dragons and one guardian. But because the species are tagged by color, a mirror and a guardian are tagged as the same subspecies: black dragon; and the three mirrors are tagged as different species.

post #414104
Toothless, who's also tagged as the same subspecies as those mirror and guardian.

How does any of this make any sense? It doesn't. This is why we shouldn't tag species by color.

Genjar said:
Well, let me demonstrate why it's wrong.

post #399093

This image contains three mirror dragons and one guardian. But because the species are tagged by color, a mirror and a guardian are tagged as the same subspecies: black dragon; and the three mirrors are tagged as different species.

post #414104
Toothless, who's also tagged as the same subspecies as those mirror and guardian.

How does any of this make any sense? It doesn't. This is why we shouldn't tag species by color.

How does mistagging a Nightfury or a... Guardian? Never heard of that Flight Rising before, tbh- mean anything? Removing Black Dragon and adding black_scales+grey_scales fixes the latter, same for the former minus the grey_scales. Their species is not black dragon, so shouldn't be tagged as such.

123easy said:
How does mistagging a Nightfury or a... Guardian? Never heard of that Flight Rising before, tbh- mean anything?

Because that's how those tags are being used: tagged by color, with absolutely no regard to the actual species of the dragon.

Which is why those should be nuked. Actual species can be separated into other tags, such as black_dragon_(d&d).

Genjar said:
Because that's how those tags are being used: tagged by color, with absolutely no regard to the actual species of the dragon.

Which is why those should be nuked. Actual species can be separated into other tags, such as black_dragon_(d&d).

So why is mistagging a species grounds for the species to be aliased away when it is applicable to some dragons, exactly?

123easy said:
So why is mistagging a species grounds for the species to be aliased away when it is applicable to some dragons, exactly?

...
I am unable to answer that question without breaking the 'Discussing Disciplinary Actions'-rule.

Let's just say that it's the only way to fix the problem, because we can't stop the mistagging.

123easy said:
I was gonna make a big argument about how dragons at one time were thought to exist, and were considered a very real thing by the scientific community, etc. etc. and that I said WOULD, not ARE, but instead, I'll put it far more simply: Who are YOU to say that MY concept of dragons is wrong? By aliasing it away, you are effectively saying that all dragons are the same. Who are YOU to say that all dragons are the same? I'm not saying that there aren't some dragons that are black scaled but aren't a specific species because of it. I AM saying that there ARE dragons that specifically are separate species and the colour of their scales is just a happy circumstance that they are named after.

I'm not saying you're wrong.
I'm saying it's bad tagging.

Halite said:
I'm not saying you're wrong.
I'm saying it's bad tagging.

So it's bad tagging to tag the dragon's species because its species is called Black Dragon? That's not bad tagging. That's accurate tagging. Tagging a Night Fury Black_dragon isn't accurate, since it simply has black scales, and THAT is bad tagging. There's a difference.

Genjar said:
...
I am unable to answer that question without breaking the 'Discussing Disciplinary Actions'-rule.

Let's just say that it's the only way to fix the problem, because we can't stop the mistagging.

Using black_dragon to define something that isn't a Black Dragon is misleading, but there are already plenty of other tags where they need to consistantly be cleaned up because of mistagging; Why should a tag that does have accurate tagging on some images be nuked because of some people mistagging for a secondary intuitive use (If you try to tell me you can look at a Nightfury and not see how someone who isn't a fan of How To Train Your Dragon wouldn't just call it a black dragon, then you're lying :P)?

Once again, I'll bring up other species that have diversity; we have many different fox and Wolf variants; We freely tag them by colour because their species name is "Red wolf" or "grey fox". If people were mistagging those we wouldn't just alias them away, but fix the tags. The only reason I can think of for why any of you really want to alias it away is because you don't care as much about scalies as you do about the furred species, so you don't have any problem just doing away with it. :/

123easy said:
So it's bad tagging to tag the dragon's species because its species is called Black Dragon? That's not bad tagging. That's accurate tagging. Tagging a Night Fury Black_dragon isn't accurate, since it simply has black scales, and THAT is bad tagging. There's a difference.

Using black_dragon to define something that isn't a Black Dragon is misleading, but there are already plenty of other tags where they need to consistantly be cleaned up because of mistagging; Why should a tag that does have accurate tagging on some images be nuked because of some people mistagging for a secondary intuitive use (If you try to tell me you can look at a Nightfury and not see how someone who isn't a fan of How To Train Your Dragon wouldn't just call it a black dragon, then you're lying :P)?

Once again, I'll bring up other species that have diversity; we have many different fox and Wolf variants; We freely tag them by colour because their species name is "Red wolf" or "grey fox". If people were mistagging those we wouldn't just alias them away, but fix the tags. The only reason I can think of for why any of you really want to alias it away is because you don't care as much about scalies as you do about the furred species, so you don't have any problem just doing away with it. :/

maybe we should just change the tag to color_dragon_(species) if that's how it should be used, and alias color_dragon to invalid color, then we can retag appropriate images to the species tag and all the rest to the color_scales/fur.

Sollux said:
maybe we should just change the tag to color_dragon_(species) if that's how it should be used, and alias color_dragon to invalid color, then we can retag appropriate images to the species tag and all the rest to the color_scales/fur.

I'd... be cool with that suggestion, actually. That solves my need to have a species tag, would solve bad tagging possibilities by making it defined as a species tag with the addendum, and it'd help clean up the <colour>_dragon tags from dragons that aren't defined as such as their species.

Though, instead of aliasing them to invalid colour, alias it to <colour>_scales so as to make that step a stage easier, perhaps? Additionally, people searching for <colour>_dragon that aren't looking for the species but just dragons with <colour> scales will be alias redirected to <colour>_scales by default, which improves usability as well. Further, people that didn't get the memo and add the <colour>_dragon tag to something, instead of it simply going to invalid and being cleaned up automatically, instead puts <colour>_scales on as appropriate, meaning that mistaggers will actually be helping fix that issue. Y/N?

If we go that route, then it ought to be <color>_dragon_(d&d) because it's setting specific.
And should be limited to those specifics.
So no pink, yellow, orange etc.
There are black, blue, red, white, and green dragons by D&D cannon.
As well as the metallics and gem dragons of course.

Halite said:
If we go that route, then it ought to be <color>_dragon_(d&d) because it's setting specific.
And should be limited to those specifics.
So no pink, yellow, orange etc.
There are black, blue, red, white, and green dragons by D&D cannon.
As well as the metallics and gem dragons of course.

That's assuming it's strictly a D&D dragon species, which even I'd argue is too specific; <colour>_dragon_(species) is just fine, as there are non-D&D black dragon species; D&D dragons can be retagged to it and keep the D&D copyright tag. (for the record, there are pink (blows bubbles that sting the eyes), yellow (breathes a cone of highly corrosive saline solution, aka salt water), orange (breathes a sticky natural napalm covered in oil that, when the oil wicks away on exposure to air, then ignites and explodes), etc. dragons in D&D canon as well. The variety of canonical dragon species is actually quite astounding.)

If we're tagging a species, then it has to be specific.
It's not valid to say all dragons that are black ought to be tagged as "black_dragon_(species)" for the obvious reasons stated above.
Nor is it reasonable to say that they should be tagged as such simply because they don't belong to a setting with specific dragon names that aren't color based.

At that point we would be tagging based on skin/scale color and that's not what we do here.

Edit: The only mention of pink dragons is issue 156 of Dragon magazine. Which most D&D players wouldn't consider "official" or "canon".

Halite said:
If we're tagging a species, then it has to be specific.
It's not valid to say all dragons that are black ought to be tagged as "black_dragon_(species)" for the obvious reasons stated above.
Nor is it reasonable to say that they should be tagged as such simply because they don't belong to a setting with specific dragon names that aren't color based.

At that point we would be tagging based on skin/scale color and that's not what we do here.

...We're specifically stating that all dragons with black scales should NOT be tagged black_dragon_(species), only those who are speciated as black dragons, regardless of setting. Did you even read my post? Here, I'll quote it just in case it's not showing up for you.

123easy said:
That solves my need to have a species tag, would solve bad tagging possibilities by making it defined as a species tag with the addendum, and it'd help clean up the <colour>_dragon tags from dragons that aren't defined as such as their species.

Though, instead of aliasing them to invalid colour, alias it to <colour>_scales so as to make that step a stage easier, perhaps? Additionally, people searching for <colour>_dragon that aren't looking for the species but just dragons with <colour> scales will be alias redirected to <colour>_scales by default, which improves usability as well. Further, people that didn't get the memo and add the <colour>_dragon tag to something, instead of it simply going to invalid and being cleaned up automatically, instead puts <colour>_scales on as appropriate, meaning that mistaggers will actually be helping fix that issue.

Just because D&D has a black dragon species doesn't mean all black dragon species are the D&D black dragon species. Same goes for other <colour>_dragon species.

123easy said:
...We're specifically stating that all dragons with black scales should NOT be tagged black_dragon_(species), only those who are speciated as black dragons, regardless of setting. Did you even read my post? Here, I'll quote it just in case it's not showing up for you.

Just because D&D has a black dragon species doesn't mean all black dragon species are the D&D black dragon species. Same goes for other <colour>_dragon species.

And how are we to decide what is or isn't a black dragon then?

Halite said:
And how are we to decide what is or isn't a black dragon then?

The same way we determine the species for any other character: by the owner of the copyright. If they don't define a <colour>_dragon as the specific species, then it just gets "Dragon" and "<colour_scales". If they do define it as a specific <colour>_dragon, then it gets "<colour>_dragon_(species)". I don't think metallics or gems or other dragon species that aren't able to be misunderstood as the <colour>_dragon tags can be need to change format to the <type>_dragon_(species) format; Pretty sure that that only needs to apply to chromatic species, which, when looking at the *dragon* tags, are really the only ones that mistagging really applies to.

123easy said:
The same way we determine the species for any other character: by the owner of the copyright...

Ha, nope.
Learn to twys.

The ONLY exception is character name and artist info (with slight leeway for hybrids).

If you draw a rabbit and say it's a cat, we still tag it a rabbit.

Halite said:
Ha, nope.
Learn to twys.

The ONLY exception is character name and artist info (with slight leeway for hybrids).

If you draw a rabbit and say it's a cat, we still tag it a rabbit.

Except there's so many minor exceptions to this it's not even funny? Certainly we tag species by looking at the creature(s) in the image and going on stereotypes based on how they look, but plenty of times a character will be tagged one species that has a certain colour scheme (doberman/rottweiler are two I see this with all the time) when in fact the colour scheme is just on another species that doesn't normally feature it. Someone will tag it dobie or rotty because that's how it looks to them, then it'll get changed when someone who knows better points out the differences and marks it. Hell, some people draw dogs that look like cats and vice versa, but they get tagged correctly in the end.

123easy said:
Except there's so many minor exceptions to this it's not even funny? Certainly we tag species by looking at the creature(s) in the image and going on stereotypes based on how they look, but plenty of times a character will be tagged one species that has a certain colour scheme (doberman/rottweiler are two I see this with all the time) when in fact the colour scheme is just on another species that doesn't normally feature it. Someone will tag it dobie or rotty because that's how it looks to them, then it'll get changed when someone who knows better points out the differences and marks it. Hell, some people draw dogs that look like cats and vice versa, but they get tagged correctly in the end.

We decide species based on what is depicted, if there is a dispute as to which is more accurate then an admin steps in and rules on which is more accurate.
This is TWYS.

We do not use the word of the artist/character owner, that's exactly what TWYS is designed to avoid.

Edit: Look, not 1, but 2 admins have stated that they're for aliasing these tags away to "dragon".
In fact, the only one who seems to want them is you.
That doesn't sound like these are good tags.

Halite said:
We decide species based on what is depicted, if there is a dispute as to which is more accurate then an admin steps in and rules on which is more accurate.
This is TWYS.

We do not use the word of the artist/character owner, that's exactly what TWYS is designed to avoid.

Edit: Look, not 1, but 2 admins have stated that they're for aliasing these tags away to "dragon".
In fact, the only one who seems to want them is you.
That doesn't sound like these are good tags.

And I have no issue with species being determined by what is depicted as per TWYS. It's all you guys wanting to alias it away when the god damn species name for some fucking dragons species is fucking Black Dragon. Jesus christ.

We have Rainbow who is agreeing with the basis that they are too specific because of the mistagging of every dragon that has black scales with black_dragon. We have Ippiki saying to do it because we don't tag something that we do, in fact, tag, so...? Sounds like that's an invalid reasoning.

And we DO in fact tag according to what the copyright owner says, when there is that issue, most of the time. There's plenty of comment discussions where someone will pipe up and note how they actually aren't X species but Y species with appropriate reasoning, and the tags get changed over. https://e621.net/post/show/407739 Husky? Karelian Bear? https://e621.net/post/show/411888 Husky? https://e621.net/post/show/407469 Husky? This is the only one that I can see coming close, and even then it's looks more like a golden shepherd.

Not my fault I'm the only scalie that actually stands up for my particular species.

I'm not really a scalie but I do agree if its got a legitimate species it should be tagged as such, I've already said how it would go down if the tags do change. we just have to trust that people who do use the tags actually tag them properly.

I think the problem here is that to people who don't learn themselves into dragon species, they all look pretty similar. If a species is based on color perhaps we need reference pictures to determine what does and doesn't fit into twys, otherwise two very different looking dragons that share a color might both be tagged with the species tag

Sollux said:
I think the problem here is that to people who don't learn themselves into dragon species, they all look pretty similar. If a species is based on color perhaps we need reference pictures to determine what does and doesn't fit into twys, otherwise two very different looking dragons that share a color might both be tagged with the species tag

if they tag it with black_dragon_(species) they are stating it very definitely is a black dragon by species, not another species (as per the Night Fury mistag example where it's simply been tagged black dragon because it's, well, a dragon that is scaled in black). this is why I said alias it to the <colour>_scales tags so black_dragon automatically just adds black_scales, and if that's the effect they were going for "Oh, it's a dragon with black scales!" then it's a successful alias. If it's not "Hey, this is a black dragon, why isn't it showing the black dragon tag?" then they would either make a post or check the tags and find the black_dragon_(Species) tag for that case, or the appropriate colour species tag for other coloured species.

The problem with trying to determine specific physical characteristics is that some species are morphic, or don't have a standard physical arrangement other than that they always breed true with having black scales- a mother might have a child with two swept back horns, another might have the crumpled horns seen in D&D, another might have fins on the sides of its head, for example, and siblings might both have wings, or only one might. You can blame the traditionally magical nature of dragons on this, combined with people designing their characters individually.

nnnokay lets wrap this up

we dont apply adjective_noun tags to other things (with a couple exceptions) so we should do this. the only real argument im hearing is for different dragon species, which can be identified with tags besides color_dragon.

so we good?

123easy said:
if they tag it with black_dragon_(species) they are stating it very definitely is a black dragon by species, not another species (as per the Night Fury mistag example where it's simply been tagged black dragon because it's, well, a dragon that is scaled in black). this is why I said alias it to the <colour>_scales tags so black_dragon automatically just adds black_scales, and if that's the effect they were going for "Oh, it's a dragon with black scales!" then it's a successful alias. If it's not "Hey, this is a black dragon, why isn't it showing the black dragon tag?" then they would either make a post or check the tags and find the black_dragon_(Species) tag for that case, or the appropriate colour species tag for other coloured species.

the problem is some dragons have fur. It should be either invalid color or invalid tag, and be changed to color_scales or color_fur.

ippiki_ookami said:
nnnokay lets wrap this up

we dont apply adjective_noun tags to other things (with a couple exceptions) so we should do this. the only real argument im hearing is for different dragon species, which can be identified with tags besides color_dragon.

so we good?

As I said to Sollux's post a bit back up this page, aliasing color_dragon to color_scale and tagging the species that are actually named color_dragon (rather than adjective_noun tag color_dragon because they are dragons that happen to be color) with color_dragon_(species) is perfectly fine with me. So long as those of us scalies who actually do have a species named afer a colour have an option to be denoted as such, I have no objections.

Sollux said:
the problem is some dragons have fur. It should be either invalid color or invalid tag, and be changed to color_scales or color_fur.

Furred variants can have the tag individually removed from them, though. Additionally, if someone added black_dragon and saw that it added black_scales on a furred dragon, unless they're lazy they'd remove the tag. Further, tagging them furred dragons means that you can simply go furred_dragon color_scales (or *_scales, I believe, for all?) and then do a quick tag cleanup, if it comes to that. We can even alias it over to invalid tag afterwards, but at least initially it should be aliased to scales just to add the color_scales tags to the appropriate images. Unless there's a simpler way to mass tag edit images that have the various color_dragon tags?

Or if we alias them all to dragon, no clean up required.

Halite said:
Or if we alias them all to dragon, no clean up required.

Or go stuff your head in a meat grinder, mkay? Jesus. How about we alias all wolves to wolf, and all foxes to fox? Nah, too specific. How about we just alias all the warm-blooded animals to "mammal" and leave it at that, since that's general enough. Yes, it's sarcasm, but it's exactly what you're pushing for, and it's really making me hate your guts right now.

123easy said:
Furred variants can have the tag individually removed from them, though. Additionally, if someone added black_dragon and saw that it added black_scales on a furred dragon, unless they're lazy they'd remove the tag. Further, tagging them furred dragons means that you can simply go furred_dragon color_scales (or *_scales, I believe, for all?) and then do a quick tag cleanup, if it comes to that. We can even alias it over to invalid tag afterwards, but at least initially it should be aliased to scales just to add the color_scales tags to the appropriate images. Unless there's a simpler way to mass tag edit images that have the various color_dragon tags?

a quick cleanup sounds okay, I'd help with it but my phone doesn't do tag scripts well, it'd take me five minutes to do one picture, if not more.

Halite said:
Or if we alias them all to dragon, no clean up required.

no

123easy said:
Or go stuff your head in a meat grinder, mkay? Jesus. How about we alias all wolves to wolf, and all foxes to fox? Nah, too specific. How about we just alias all the warm-blooded animals to "mammal" and leave it at that, since that's general enough. Yes, it's sarcasm, but it's exactly what you're pushing for, and it's really making me hate your guts right now.

woah don't rage too hard, you don't want to break anything.

123easy said:
Or go stuff your head in a meat grinder, mkay? Jesus. How about we alias all wolves to wolf, and all foxes to fox? Nah, too specific. How about we just alias all the warm-blooded animals to "mammal" and leave it at that, since that's general enough. Yes, it's sarcasm, but it's exactly what you're pushing for, and it's really making me hate your guts right now.

The fuck did this come from?

I think he's had to make his argument to one too many people who don't care.

Sollux said:
I think he's had to make his argument to one too many people who don't care.

To the same person*, actually. You and Halite have been the only two people consistantly going back and forth with me on this, and unlike you who has seen at least some validity in what I'm saying and tried for a compromise (which I even said was good and wanted to go ahead with it because it seemed to resolve every issue), he seems to ignore any reasonable argument or point or compromise, brushing it away in what seems to be a crusade to ensure my species doesn't exist. The feeling is quite like the pressure of being hunted down (though not as intensely as in real life... More like as in a video game. Like where you get specifically targetted by someone too get killed over and over again for the lulz; Invisible max level enemy rogues in low-level areas in WoW, for example, or that asshole sniper that spawncamps you in a shooter, for another).

123easy said:
To the same person*, actually. You and Halite have been the only two people consistantly going back and forth with me on this, and unlike you who has seen at least some validity in what I'm saying and tried for a compromise (which I even said was good and wanted to go ahead with it because it seemed to resolve every issue), he seems to ignore any reasonable argument or point or compromise, brushing it away in what seems to be a crusade to ensure my species doesn't exist. The feeling is quite like the pressure of being hunted down (though not as intensely as in real life... More like as in a video game. Like where you get specifically targetted by someone too get killed over and over again for the lulz; Invisible max level enemy rogues in low-level areas in WoW, for example, or that asshole sniper that spawncamps you in a shooter, for another).

and in both cases you should probably wait for an admin lol. I'm sure ippiki or someone else will show up and make the final decision, we've basically said everything we can for now. At least everything I can think of...

123easy said:
brushing it away in what seems to be a crusade to ensure my species doesn't exist.

Your species is human. You are not a dragon. You will never be a dragon. Tagging discussion about fictional creatures is not about dishonoring your ancestors. Really, dude.

Gilda_The_Gryphon said:
Your species is human. You are not a dragon. You will never be a dragon. Tagging discussion about fictional creatures is not about dishonoring your ancestors. Really, dude.

Whoa there; I'm talking about my scalesona, not about ME. I'm not one of those that thinks they really are whatever they've adopted for the furry community. I was merely talking in context to that as I've already remarked on it being my scalesona's species previously in this thread; please don't take it out of context like that.