Hi. I noticed that Leoian's character is a herm. Zir's preferred descriptor is "Male herm" but when I tag zir's character as a male_herm, it is usually retagged as a male because zir's female genitals are hidden.

The logic I am given is that because you cannot explicitly SEE the female parts, ergo that character is not part female. Mind you, this standard is not listed in the Tag Help section, nor could I find it in any of the tagging guidelines.

While I have my anatomical misgivings about Leoian's character, I feel that we should respect zir desires to be labeled as a male herm. All the source art states this, even on the FA pages of pictures where zie appears to be a he. Why shouldn't we follow suit?

We don't alias characters with genders because what if someone draws a completely male Leoian? Completely female? Etc. Especially in furry art, genders are not an absolute.

Also, please just use the herm tag (although I support using the male/female tag as well if there's no visual indication the character is a herm). Adding complicated gender combinations as tags just muddies the water.

Well, I tried using the herm tag along with the male tag, but it keeps getting wiped.

Yes, I understand what you mean if someone were to draw a completely male or female variant of the character, but it's what zie prefers to be called, and it's listed right there on the artist's page. So I'm a bit confused as to why we would wipe that aspect of that person's character.

Violet said:
Well, I tried using the herm tag along with the male tag, but it keeps getting wiped.

I don't see why, they're both able to exist at the same time on an image without aliases or implications interfering. Unless of course you mean that other users keep removing them, in which case it looks like we need to make them aware of the problem.

Violet said:
Yes, I understand what you mean if someone were to draw a completely male or female variant of the character, but it's what zie prefers to be called, and it's listed right there on the artist's page. So I'm a bit confused as to why we would wipe that aspect of that person's character.

For the same reason an author doesn't get to tell libraries what section their books get put in. e621 is, first and foremost, a site designed to help people find art, so everything revolves around making that possible.

I changed several of Leoian's images from "male_herm" to "male." Those particular images showed entirely male anatomy (i.e, just a penis, no vag or breasts). He might have other parts in other images, or from other angles, but in those particular images a penis was his sole sexual organ. In images where he had multiple sexual organs the "male_herm" and "intersex" tags were left alone (at least by me).

If someone is looking to view a herm, they aren't going to want to see an image that would pass as a strict male, just like if someone is looking for male solo images they aren't going to want to breasts and vagoos. Just as characters that appear to be underaged (but are really 3,000 year old super demons!) are still filed under loli/shota/cub/young, and werewolf characters depicted entirely in their human form are labeled as "human" and "not_furry" instead of "werewolf," or how characters that are known to be gay aren't tagged as "gay" if they are in a solo situation.

It has always been my understanding that an image is tagged entirely by what is in the current picture, not previous incarnations or outside influences. Has that rule suddenly changed? Are we now to start tagging based on information that comes from outside of the image?

Hellacious said:
It has always been my understanding that an image is tagged entirely by what is in the current picture, not previous incarnations or outside influences. Has that rule suddenly changed? Are we now to start tagging based on information that comes from outside of the image?

No, but I have no problem with "supplemental" tags as long as they don't contradict the image.

For example, post #107769 looks female, but the artist says it's a herm. Since it could easily have a penis in those pants, I'm fine with the herm tag. But if the artist says it's actually a male, even though the breasts and general female look say otherwise, I'd have to say no to the male tag.

Which is it now the rules we tag by? Perception of the image or the artists' call? Especially often contradictory issues like gender.

How about cases like Mikhaila? A flat chested female the artist says is female, but is often tagged as a "cuntboy?" Do we stick with the artist's call, or do we use "cuntboy" because she could also be considered such, despite the Tsampikos' opinion?

Do these rules apply solely to gender tags?

Do we tag "penis" in an image where it's not present, but we know the character has one? Do we start tagging sexual orientation in solo or clean images? Do we start bringing back "badly_drawn" and "badly_animated" on stick figures, because it obviously is?

There's a reason we've never been given the liberty of subjective tagging. It over complicates, and brings in user interpretation instead of literal depictions. It also leads to tagging wars, as we've seen time and time again.

I"m not a mod.

But the rules I go off of, personally is... what does it look like--tag what you see. If it could be questionable, then I'll do research.. If this male looking character is being called a herm, I'll look hard at the image i'm tagging. If this particular image looks like it could be a herm--albeit with small breasts --then I'll toss herm on there, but I'll leave male also. I try to approach it with the idea of 'if I was wanting to find pictures of X, would I be interested in this picture?' ... or "if I DON'T want to see pictures of X, would I want to see this image?"

If someone is a male herm, they're a herm. They have both sets of organs. The 'main' visual difference is breasts, and possibly character's person perceptions of orientation. In the case of a male_herm, I'd tag herm and Flat_chest. cuntboys are a slippery slope. there is no visual difference between a flat chested girl and a cunt boy. If it were up to me, I'd leave off the gender tags entirely and label pussy and flat chest on each of them, and leave it up to the viewer's imagination.

But, for me, as I said, the ultimate rule is "Would I want to see this, if I hated tag X?"

just my 2 cents

Oh, as another thought: every tag can have a wikipage made for it. Click the ? next to the tag and you'll be taken to the wiki page for that tag. In the even there is no text for that tag, you'll see something like this: http://www.e621.net/wiki/show?title=leoian

then you can go up to the top where it says "List New Help | Posts (8) Edit"

click on edit, and input text.

In this case, information about the character, and his male_herm status would be best applied there. :D

Hellacious said:
How about cases like Mikhaila? A flat chested female the artist says is female, but is often tagged as a "cuntboy?" Do we stick with the artist's call, or do we use "cuntboy" because she could also be considered such, despite the Tsampikos' opinion?

In that case, I would (and did) tag it with both cuntboy and female.

Hellacious said:
Do we tag "penis" in an image where it's not present, but we know the character has one? Do we start tagging sexual orientation in solo or clean images? Do we start bringing back "badly_drawn" and "badly_animated" on stick figures, because it obviously is?

No, if there's not a penis visible, we obviously wouldn't tag the picture as "penis"... instead, it would be tagged as male, herm, or intersex, since all of those genders feature a penis.

For the record, I like tony311's point about supplemental tagging. "male" and "herm" can exist side by side on leoian's pictures, presuming that people will stop deleting the latter tag. That seems sensible.

The problem with "cuntboy" versions of the herm genre is usually due to just bad artistic representation of the idea. Like stacking poop to try and give someone the idea of what the Great Wall of China is supposed to look like.

True style cuntboys are male-featured based on species. A cuntboy lion would have the mane, practically all would have larger body builds than females, but smaller than true males. The thing is, as the years have passed, people have turned that style into softer, more feminine versions, practically female characters in all respects except for genetics. In some ways, the existential opposite of a shemale. "Feminine cuntboy = no tits, vagina, XY" while "Shemale = tits, no vagina, XY"

temporal_crux said:
The problem with "cuntboy" versions of the herm genre is usually due to just bad artistic representation of the idea. Like stacking poop to try and give someone the idea of what the Great Wall of China is supposed to look like.

True style cuntboys are male-featured based on species. A cuntboy lion would have the mane, practically all would have larger body builds than females, but smaller than true males. The thing is, as the years have passed, people have turned that style into softer, more feminine versions, practically female characters in all respects except for genetics. In some ways, the existential opposite of a shemale. "Feminine cuntboy = no tits, vagina, XY" while "Shemale = tits, no vagina, XY"

You mean XX right?

Aurali said:
You mean XX right?

No, XY. Because if it's XX, it's female, not a cunt BOY.