The Soul tag is currently of type "character". I would imagine that in this case the concept or entity of a soul would take precedence over a character named soul.

I did this because I was looking at the soul_vore tag, so I didn't immediately feel like it should simply be merged into Spirit.

I did a brief survey over the images currently tagged with soul and came up with evidence in favor of the majority of images referring to the concept of a soul.

So I request that Soul be turned into a normal tag type.

http://e621.net/post/show/99298 The concept
http://e621.net/post/show/84534 A character(?)
http://e621.net/post/show/62677 A character(?)
http://e621.net/post/show/48151 The concept
http://e621.net/post/show/21031 The concept
http://e621.net/post/show/105450 The concept
http://e621.net/post/show/112401 The concept
http://e621.net/post/show/114203 The concept... I think?
http://e621.net/post/show/118816 The concept
http://e621.net/post/show/131387 unsure. A Character?
http://e621.net/post/show/131392 A character or artist.
http://e621.net/post/show/187403 The concept
http://e621.net/post/show/225405 The concept

Azazial said:
The Soul tag is currently of type "character". I would imagine that in this case the concept or entity of a soul would take precedence over a character named soul.

I did this because I was looking at the soul_vore tag, so I didn't immediately feel like it should simply be merged into Spirit.

I did a brief survey over the images currently tagged with soul and came up with evidence in favor of the majority of images referring to the concept of a soul.

So I request that Soul be turned into a normal tag type.

http://e621.net/post/show/99298 The concept
http://e621.net/post/show/84534 A character(?)
http://e621.net/post/show/62677 A character(?)
http://e621.net/post/show/48151 The concept
http://e621.net/post/show/21031 The concept
http://e621.net/post/show/105450 The concept
http://e621.net/post/show/112401 The concept
http://e621.net/post/show/114203 The concept... I think?
http://e621.net/post/show/118816 The concept
http://e621.net/post/show/131387 unsure. A Character?
http://e621.net/post/show/131392 A character or artist.
http://e621.net/post/show/187403 The concept
http://e621.net/post/show/225405 The concept

post #84534 is really impossible to tell. I think its the artist using a shortened version of their name but it could be the name of a character drawn, but no names are given in the picture.
post #62677 I am guessing it is one of the characters shown, as it was posted by the creator it might be easier to ask them.
post #114203 is the character. Soul is the shortened name for his character, Soul Eater Evans. he has 2 forms, one as the scythe and one as a human boy.
post #225405 is improperly tagged in many ways. The character there is Spirit, also a scythe. No reason why soul was added and it has also been tagged with things like English, French and Italian. this apparently is because the poster did not have any idea what to tag the image and just wanted to make sure it had enough tags to pass scrutiny.
The issue here is the term is a subjective idealization of something intangible as well as the name of an artist and is also the name of a character.

Easiest solution is "soul_(character)", "soul_eater_(character)" (for the anime character) and "soul_(artist)" be used for their respective reasons and "soul" being used as the conceptualization of that which gives sentience (though some of those posts may have been easily taken as "ghosts" or "apparitions"). But there will still be big problems as I am sure there are numerous artists who call their character "soul" and probably just as many who go by the name "soul" themselves.

I do not see how "Soul" as a concept is a valid tag. Well unless the image says "THIS IS MY SOUL!" it seems too up to interpretation.

Moses said:
I do not see how "Soul" as a concept is a valid tag. Well unless the image says "THIS IS MY SOUL!" it seems too up to interpretation.

Soul Vore is an accepted concept and is done by succubi, kitsunes, and similar beings. Hence my comment that simply merging it into spirit seems improper because it's an accepted and established term.

There are images like post #21031 where it's pretty hard to tag them and their particular related fetish with out using information you can't get directly from the picture. I guess you could tag it "kitsune with spots licks a crazy transparent floating dude's head coming out of a stoned fox" but uhhh yeah.

The character ones above can be changed at least.

I was talking about the soul tag by itself, not any "side" tags. If the image has enough in it to give the idea that a "soul is being eaten" than sure whatever. But Just a image of a "ball of energy" or "ghostly person" doesn't scream soul to me.

Moses said:
But Just a image of a "ball of energy" or "ghostly person" doesn't scream soul to me.

it does to me and a great many other people. how would YOU draw a 'soul' then?

I wouldn't. But I also wouldn't tag a image as such, since it would be tag what "I" see. Though that being said I wouldn't take it out of a image just cause I disagreed.

The "soul" is such a subjective concept though. What one person calls a soul might be a ghost, spirit, guardian angel, essence, consciousness, or any other of numerous names.

The focus needs to be on that which is not subjective. Characters named "Soul" and artists using the pseudonym "Soul".

Moses said:
I wouldn't. But I also wouldn't tag a image as such, since it would be tag what "I" see. Though that being said I wouldn't take it out of a image just cause I disagreed.

Artists have to use a sort of visual language to communicate ideas. Look at cartoons, for example. a little 7 or \ or c shape look nothing like a REAL nose, yet we easily understand them as "this is a nose'.
While it's incredibly unlikely that a soul (should souls exist) would look like a glowing ball of light, or a ghostly person, or a mist or whatever, all of these are ways that an artist can use to express the idea of a person who is gone, or the essence of a person.

post #112401 for example... The ghostly figure changes the meaning of the image. The living character could be sitting there in the grass, crying while gazing towards the soccer ball... and the picture would remain open to interpretation: Did he lose a soccer game? did his boy/girlfriend break up with him? Did his mother yell at him? is he being bullied at school? does he suck at this game? did he just lose his chance at a scholarship to college? there are SO many possibilities about why someone could be sitting, kneeling, in the grass, crying near a ball.

But the ghostly figure of a larger animal of the same species removes most of those possibilities. This changes from an ambigous picture of sadness to a picture of loss. this is about missing family. About someone near and dear who has died. The clothing connects them to the ball, and clearly says that the smaller dog is looking at the soccer ball and missing someone who used to play, or who he used to play with. The loss is probably a recent one.

tl;dr, usage of a 'soul' brings the meaning of an image to focus, when used correctly. it's a valid artistic tool <3

But is that a "soul" behind him or a "ghost"? That would be the breakdown in the tagging of this image.

Vixxxine69 said:
The "soul" is such a subjective concept though. What one person calls a soul might be a ghost, spirit, guardian angel, essence, consciousness, or any other of numerous names.

The focus needs to be on that which is not subjective. Characters named "Soul" and artists using the pseudonym "Soul".

Then use soul_(character), soul_(artist) and soul for the concept. Easy, no?

Moses said:
But is that a "soul" behind him or a "ghost"? That would be the breakdown in the tagging of this image.

Then, should "Soul", "Ghost" and "Spirit" (and many more related) be implicated?
Edit: On a second thought, we normally see a soul as something good, a ghost as something bad/evil and spirit as neutral. I think it depends on one's interpretation :/

xLuna said:

Then, should "Soul", "Ghost" and "Spirit" (and many more related) be implicated?

I am pretty sure the TC already said they didn't want this. Personally, I see no issue with all things spiritual (souls, ghosts, phantoms, etc) rolled into "spirit" tag.

Vixxxine69 said:
The "soul" is such a subjective concept though. What one person calls a soul might be a ghost, spirit, guardian angel, essence, consciousness, or any other of numerous names.

The focus needs to be on that which is not subjective. Characters named "Soul" and artists using the pseudonym "Soul".

this is also true.

Hmm.. a part of me wants to say there's a visual differnece between a ghost, and a spirit and so forth, but I think they're entirely subjective (I think that a ghost is someone who was once dead, while a spirit may be more like 'the spirit of the lands".. but there's not any REAL well to tell them apart..... it's jsut my own personal opinion..)

That said...

I wonder if 'ghost' and 'soul' and 'spirit' could all do with some cleaning up.

most 'souls' could easily be 'ghosts'.... (minus the nicknames/characters, etc)
ghost currently implies spirit... but spirit -ghost is just about the same as looking at 'ghost'.

and in a lot of cases I see:
post #128700 fire elementals
post #151552 demons
post #188631 post #78120 post #35177 or none of the above

So... I think this set of tags could do with a bit of tidying up....

I"d probably reduce it all to 'spirit', but then, there are ghosts like boo and gengar and ghastly ... should they be 'spirits' also..?

SnowWolf said:
I"d probably reduce it all to 'spirit', but then, there are ghosts like boo and gengar and ghastly ... should they be 'spirits' also..?

Well if they are a apparition of any kind I do not see why they would be above a "spirit" tag.

Simplicity is good, so maybe they could be aliased to a broader term such as apparition? Also, I find soul different from a ghost. Most times I see it here it's being pulled out of a body, and when it's already out and there is no body in sight it's been tagged with ghost.

I think soul should stick to describing a person's newly departed soul (also so that it stays congruent with soul_vore) and that ghost, spirit, poltergeist, and the like be aliased to a more common term, such as apparition or the even more common term "ghost".

It's simple.
We'll kill the batman.
And forbid anyone on the world naming his or her characters after common words that could lead to confusion in a tagging system.

btw, you worsened my eye cancer
http://e621.net/post/show/131387
http://e621.net/post/show/131392
http://e621.net/post/show/62677

No seriously, I can't help you. This topic seems to be extremely difficult and a team of philosophers and scientists should come up with a solution. Luckily I regard the tags you are talking about as very irrelevant to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3D1WS8-rDM I HAD TO!

The "Soul" tag still needs to be turned into the General type even if nothing else in this thread is actually acted upon.

http://e621.net/tag?name=soul&type=&order=date&commit=Search

I changed the type. Still want to do something with this but it's really hard to make a decision that the whole community is happy with when no one else has an opinion :C

I'm still sticking with my opinion up there ^