I fear we may never finally squash this problem of gender not being properly tagged on images, but let's cover this AGAIN since there seem to be a lot of people still who don't understand why it's NEVER EVER APPROPRIATE to tag gender using information that you can not directly infer from the image itself.

Let me present a scenario to you. Suppose I want to find explicit images of herm wolves. So I search for "rating:e herm wolf". The following image pops up in my list of results: post #84822 (this used to be tagged herm, I'm just using it as an example). This is NOT an image that I want to see if I'm looking for herms, because there is nothing in the image that makes me think it's a herm. Therefore, this image is NOT PROPERLY TAGGED because the tags indicate that there is a herm when, in fact, there is no clear indication of such.

Edit from P.C Any character who "is" a hermaphrodite, shall be tagged as such. There shall be no exceptions to this rule. 1. The character has a Cunt, no dick, and No Boobs shall be tagged Cunt Boy. 2; A character with Boobs, a Dick, and no Vag shall be tagged Dick Girl. 3; Any character shown to have a Dick, Boobs {Or no boobs} and a Vag shall be tagged Hermaphrodite. All three clauses will be tagged Intersex, and there will be no tagging of "Male Herm" or "Female Herm" end edit

The above scenario ALSO creates a problem for users who blacklist "herm". Since there is no indication that there is a herm in that image, it would be NEEDLESSLY blacklisted for those who blacklist "herm". It hides content that they would normally be fine seeing.

So why would that post be tagged "herm" anyways? Because the character "Artica Sparkle" is, typically, a herm. This does not matter. I don't care if a character TYPICALLY has 12 dicks, 30 testicles, and 14 vaginas on their body if I CAN'T SEE THEM. It doesn't matter what the artist says, it doesn't matter what the character owner says, it doesn't matter what ANYONE says. If they look like a female, they get tagged female. If they look like a male, they get tagged male. If they look like a herm, they get tagged herm. Period. You should never, EVER tag a picture according to information that has been gathered from an artist/owner/ANYONE's description of the characters in the picture.

To the artists: Please understand that if you draw a picture of a character in such a way that there is no indication that the character is a herm, then it might as well not be one. This is also like saying "these two characters are brother and sister" when there is no similarity between the characters whatsoever, nor any indication in the picture that they identify themselves as brother and sister (such as text like "Oh sis you feel so good!" or "I hope mom doesn't find us!"). We are not disagreeing that the characters in your pictures are herms or relatives, as that is entirely up to you. HOWEVER, e621 tags on a picture-by-picture basis. A character that is a herm in one image you draw may very well be a male in another image you draw, just because you felt like it one day. So we will ALWAYS use only the information that can be derived from the image itself, and not what you say you intended, because it's irrelevant to what the picture actually depicts.

To the character owners: I understand it might seem like e621 is "wrong" for claiming that your character is a male or female in a particular image, when you personally consider your character to always be a herm. Please understand that e621 is NOT disagreeing that your character is a herm. We are not saying "this character in this picture is definitely a female, not a herm." We're saying that ALL INDICATIONS within the picture itself point to NOTHING MORE than "female". If your character actually has dick/pussy/whatever below the belt, it is IRRELEVANT information if it can not be seen in the image. I don't think we have very many people on e621 that want to see "herms that don't actually look like herms in a particular image".

tl;dr: TAG ONLY WHAT YOU SEE, ALWAYS

You should go argue with the mods at fchan. They've been having this argument since the dawn of time.

bluebackground said:
You should go argue with the mods at fchan. They've been having this argument since the dawn of time.

Yea, but unlike Fchan we're actually competent!

What if the character's gender isn't obvious from the picture, or is somewhat ambiguous? Simply don't tag gender at all in that case?

[EDIT] Whoops, never mind. Just noticed there's an ambiguous_gender tag.

Wahai said:
What if the character's gender isn't obvious from the picture, or is somewhat ambiguous? Simply don't tag gender at all in that case?

If the character is not differentiated in any way in their gender {Ala you can't tell in any way shape or form, what their gender is} then they are given the "Ambiguous Gender" tag

Princess_Celestia said:
Yea, but unlike Fchan we're actually competent!

Har.

Also, this just goes to show how dumb people are.

Must every character, seen only from the back, be tagged ambiguous gender or unknown sex then? And what if they're wearing partially concealing clothes? A pox on that, especially if you can assume a default for a character.

This rule has always seemed unwise and incomplete to me. Verifiability rules like Wikipedia's always seem better. If there's a need to separate apparent sex from creator-declared sex for the purposes of metadata then that's a bullet that needs to be bitten. May I suggest

• apparently male
• seemingly female
• evidently herm

or whatever variants and combinations taste nicest for those difficult, hard-to-reach grey areas?

Anomynous said:
Must every character, seen only from the back, be tagged ambiguous gender or unknown sex then? And what if they're wearing partially concealing clothes? A pox on that, especially if you can assume a default for a character.

In MOST cases it's entirely possible to at least make an educated guess. There are more indications of male/female on a body besides simply dick, boobs, and vagina. There are some images where you legitimately just can not tell though:

• post #158315
• post #156848
• post #154032

As you can see, this will USUALLY happen with non-anthro animals. Since they don't have human-like bodies, it's often much harder to determine just what their gender is without seeing "the goods".

This all seems rather bad to me. Does that mean a lot of Incest, rape, etc. pictures are going to need to be changed because you can't tell from the picture that incest or rape or whatever are actually going on? I mean, several ninja turtles images are tagged incest. By this logic, because the picture does not claim them to be brothers (Only information outside of the picture does that) then why should it be tagged so?

Wulfeh said:
This all seems rather bad to me. Does that mean a lot of Incest, rape, etc. pictures are going to need to be changed because you can't tell from the picture that incest or rape are actually going on?

I think 95% of the time, if an artist wants an image to contain incest, they're going to make it very obvious through visual similarities of characters, context/background (within the image), and/or text.

If it isn't easily identifiable as incest, then on e621 it isn't incest.

Wulfeh said:
This all seems rather bad to me. Does that mean a lot of Incest, rape, etc. pictures are going to need to be changed because you can't tell from the picture that incest or rape are actually going on?

Well, rape just seems to have a blurry definition in the realm of hand-drawn pornography. I mean, just look at "rape" and "sex" on other image hosting sites like gelbooru or danbooru. Tears, facial expression, position, implements, almost nothing seems to clearly delineate the two, except perhaps that "rape" is more common when it's multiple people ganging up on one person. But that's not a hard and fast rule, either. Even smiling isn't a good at segregating the two, due to the prevalence of smiles by the rapists and the rise of ahegao/ahegeokin/orgasm-face.

Rape may actually just be a poor tag, for use only in a limited number of images, since context is so important and so hard to establish. Also, from a searchability standpoint, if you're looking for rape then you're probably actually looking for other visual cues like blood, tears, bondage, gangbanging, etc.

I think incest is going to have a similar problem as sibling/brother/sister tags: unless the characters are basically twins, or there's some kind of dialogue providing context, it's going to be ambiguous.

Wulfeh said:
This all seems rather bad to me. Does that mean a lot of Incest, rape, etc. pictures are going to need to be changed because you can't tell from the picture that incest or rape or whatever are actually going on? I mean, several ninja turtles images are tagged incest. By this logic, because the picture does not claim them to be brothers (Only information outside of the picture does that) then why should it be tagged so?

I'm not saying we need to go back and review incest or rape pics to see if they're actually tagged properly. The ramifications of those not being tagged properly aren't quite as bad as simply GENDER not being tagged properly.

In other words, gender not being tagged properly has become an obvious problem. Incest/rape and others not being tagged properly have not been a big enough problem to be noticed by the administration at this time, to my knowledge.

Though, as far as incest, there should probably be an understanding that characters that are well-established to be siblings should receive the incest tag. Yes, I realize this contradicts what I just said above. What I'm talking about though are characters like The Chipmunks, the Apple family from MLP, the pokemon Latios and Latias, and other "mainstream" characters.

Again though, "incest" not being tagged properly doesn't hurt as bad as gender not being tagged properly, so it's not much of a concern at the moment (to me at least).

Char said:
In MOST cases it's entirely possible to at least make an educated guess. There are more indications of male/female on a body besides simply dick, boobs, and vagina.

Up to a point. What degree of inference is permissible? It'd be nice to have some vaguely concrete guidelines, with examples. What about...

• renamon is female in more countries than she is male, including all English-speaking ones. Therefore when seen from the back with no other cues than an accentuated hourglass figure, she is tagged female. (Yeah but how is this different from "artica sparkle is more often depicted as a herm, therefore when seen from the back..."?)

• my little pony..ies have adorable little eyelashes, hairstyles and facial profiles, but it's not like the ones on the show or in most artwork have primary sexual characteristics. All the same, those who know the fandom can tell, therefore you get to assume if you see those secondary characteristics, and tag what you think (cartoonlion's longponies being an exception sometimes).

I still think the rule's a bad and limiting one, but I can't think of an especially good alternative other than tagging either side of the line by default, and *just maybe* having separate categories for evidence-backed assertions and, er, statements of belief.

It's a hard problem. Uploaders make assumptions all the time, even regarding species, but outright errors can be corrected. Grey areas can be tagged both sides of the line without upsetting anyone else's filters. Indeed, if someone wants to filter out everything tagged male, they're probably not going to want anything ambiguous and tagged male herm either.

Another gender thing that's been bothering me is when you see a pic of a chick with a dick, but you can't see they don't have a vagina, do you tag dickgirl, or give them the benefit of the doubt and tag herm?

Anomynous said:
Up to a point. What degree of inference is permissible? It'd be nice to have some vaguely concrete guidelines, with examples. What about...

• renamon is female in more countries than she is male, including all English-speaking ones. Therefore when seen from the back with no other cues than an accentuated hourglass figure, she is tagged female. (Yeah but how is this different from "artica sparkle is more often depicted as a herm, therefore when seen from the back..."?)

• my little pony..ies have adorable little eyelashes, hairstyles and facial profiles, but it's not like the ones on the show or in most artwork have primary sexual characteristics. All the same, those who know the fandom can tell, therefore you get to assume if you see those secondary characteristics, and tag what you think (cartoonlion's longponies being an exception sometimes).

If you see a character with an accentuated hourglass shape from behind, that should most likely be female. An accentuated hourglass shape is a trait of a female body. Of course that doesn't mean that the character itself is female, but again, it's what the evidence points to. You need a clear indication within the image that the character's gender is NOT what it might seem in order to justify tagging it as such.

ah, guess then I should go about and fix the tags on my works I posted that are listed as Incest while the chars tend to appear not as relatives.

Hello? Can I get an answer to my question, plzkthnx?

Riversyde said:
Hello? Can I get an answer to my question, plzkthnx?

No fuck off.

Riversyde said:
Another gender thing that's been bothering me is when you see a pic of a chick with a dick, but you can't see they don't have a vagina, do you tag dickgirl, or give them the benefit of the doubt and tag herm?

I'd tag dickgirl, to be completely honest. Unless I am seeing vagina, I no tag vagina or anything related.

ExplosiveBlaziken said:
No fuck off.

Whore. :<

I'd tag dickgirl, to be completely honest. Unless I am seeing vagina, I no tag vagina or anything related.

You see a girl with a penis and your first thought would be "herm", right? It's only after you don't see a vagina where a vagina should be that you should call them a dickgirl.
Plus, more would search herm than dickgirl to find these sorts of pictures.

Riversyde said:
You see a girl with a penis and your first thought would be "herm", right? It's only after you don't see a vagina where a vagina should be that you should call them a dickgirl.
Plus, more would search herm than dickgirl to find these sorts of pictures.

No, my first thought is "why the fuck does she have a cock", but the second would be 'futanari', not 'dickgirl' or 'herm'.

ExplosiveBlaziken said:
No, my first thought is "why the fuck does she have a cock", but the second would be 'futanari', not 'dickgirl' or 'herm'.

k but not everyone's a weaboo who uses terms like futanari, shota, yaoi, shoobiboo blah blah

Anyway, I think a lot of these questions can be answered by just using your best judgement. We have a comments section if someone thinks a character should be tagged dickgirl rather than herm, etc.

ippiki_ookami said:
Anyway, I think a lot of these questions can be answered by just using your best judgement. We have a comments section if someone thinks a character should be tagged dickgirl rather than herm, etc etc.

What about tag what you see? I see a girl with a dick, thassa herm until I see they don't got no vag.

The problem I have is: I usually search "intersex" for my herms/dickgirl needs. Does this mean that I'd have to make a seperate search for "Artica Sparkle" if one of her pictures is tagged "female" and not "intersex"? I call some baby back bullshit.

Pictionary said:
The problem I have is: I usually search "intersex" for my herms/dickgirl needs. Does this mean that I'd have to make a seperate search for "Artica Sparkle" if one of her pictures is tagged "female" and not "intersex"? I call some baby back bullshit.

If you're looking for intersex, then you don't want to see any pictures of Artica Sparkle where you can't tell if she's intersex, right?

Char said:
If you're looking for intersex, then you don't want to see any pictures of Artica Sparkle where you can't tell if she's intersex, right?

Nope.avi I know she's a herm, and that gets my rocks off :V Same with implied incest, or implied rape. If one of the tags says it is, then I'll paw off to it.

Pictionary said:
Nope.avi I know she's a herm, and that gets my rocks off :V Same with implied incest, or implied rape. If one of the tags says it is, then I'll paw off to it.

Maybe Furaffinity's search system would better suit your needs.

Riversyde said:
What about tag what you see? I see a girl with a dick, thassa herm until I see they don't got no vag.

Tag what you see is the best solution to the dilemma, but it still isn't perfect. Some might say that it's a dickgirl unless they can see a vaj. But if it's a famous character like Artica, we could make an exception. Or not. I'm fine either way, as long as people aren't engaging in tag wars over it.
I won't comment on intersex, because I don't know what that means.

ippiki_ookami said:
Tag what you see is the best solution to the dilemma, but it still isn't perfect. Some might say that it's a dickgirl unless they can see a vaj. But if it's a famous character like Artica, we could make an exception. Or not. I'm fine either way, as long as people aren't engaging in tag wars over it.
I won't comment on intersex, because I don't know what that means.

Intersex means just what it says "inter" as in intermediate, and "sex" as in gender.

Pictionary said:
Nope.avi I know she's a herm, and that gets my rocks off :V Same with implied incest, or implied rape. If one of the tags says it is, then I'll paw off to it.

But you DON'T know that she's a herm in an image where you're unable to tell she's a herm. Is she PROBABLY a herm in an image where you can't tell? Yes. Does that change anything? No.

Tags do not make the image, the image makes the tags. Tags may make the image for you, but that is not their intended purpose. They are there to describe what an image is, not tell you what the image could maybe possibly be.

Char said:
But you DON'T know that she's a herm in an image where you're unable to tell she's a herm. Is she PROBABLY a herm in an image where you can't tell? Yes. Does that change anything? No.

Tags do not make the image, the image makes the tags. Tags may make the image for you, but that is not their intended purpose. They are there to describe what an image is, not tell you what the image could maybe possibly be.

If the artist, nay, if the owner of the character says it's a herm. I'll be damned if I'll have to make a second search just to find some sexy pictures of a character that I'd otherwise find with one.

Pictionary said:
If the artist, nay, if the owner of the character says it's a herm. I'll be damned if I'll have to make a second search just to find some sexy pictures of a character that I'd otherwise find with one.

If you don't like it you are free to leave.

Pictionary said:
If the artist, nay, if the owner of the character says it's a herm. I'll be damned if I'll have to make a second search just to find some sexy pictures of a character that I'd otherwise find with one.

And what about those people who DON'T know that the character owner has defined the character to be a herm? Are they just SOL because they don't have this insider information? If I'm searching for female, you can be sure I'd love to see pictures of "herms" too if there's absolutely no indication that they're anything more than female in the picture.

Pictionary said:
If the artist, nay, if the owner of the character says it's a herm. I'll be damned if I'll have to make a second search just to find some sexy pictures of a character that I'd otherwise find with one.

Just search the character's name. Problem solved. If you don't like the way the bits are illustrated, click the back button and try another image.

Pictionary said:
Nope.avi I know she's a herm, and that gets my rocks off :V Same with implied incest, or implied rape. If one of the tags says it is, then I'll paw off to it.

If you want Artica_Sparkle, just search on hir name. How HARD is that? If you can't be arsed to do so, then you will miss out on those images that ain't tagged Herm for hir.

Example, I search for Dragon, then I will see Dragons and not Lizards. If I want to see both I can search for Reptile, but some of the Dragon images aren't tagged as Reptile so I miss out on a few images there. So what? It ain't the whole world.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The rule is simple. If I see a Male I see a Male whether it be from the back with clothes on or not. A male has its own charestics. A Girly male is still a Male, just that they have a more womenly form, but it still can be seen that it is a Male whether or not he has clothes on.

I might know a lot about an individual character, that it might be a herm, but if I only get to see that it is a cock, it is more appropriate to tag it as Male, and if you see both cock and breasts, then either Dickgirl or Shemale. But clothed Herms are the hard part, since then it can be either three, though tagging what you see is better all around.

while on the subject of tagging things as what you see, people sometimes seam to have a problem remembering tagging a pictures sexual orientation, I been editing the tags on quite a few gay pictures that was not tagged such.

And I´m sure there people of other sexual orientations that had similar problems.

Rape may actually just be a poor tag, for use only in a limited number of images, since context is so important and so hard to establis

Rape is one of those tags where it's better to err on the side of tagging too many then too few.

A lot of people often forget that rape in real life is a traumatic thing and for some people, certain words, images, etc can be "triggering"... a "triggering" thing can lead into a panic attack, or depression, or the urge to self harm or other things. While one could argue that one shouldn't be browsing e21 if they're 'at risk' of a mistagged image triggering bad memories. the fact of the matter is that we provide a blacklist so that people don't have to see things that they don't want to see.

Thus, in this case.. it's rather important that 'rape' as a tag is used, and that we don't 'cut corners' on what's tagged with it. It's a subjective tag, in many ways, but it's better to err on the side of safety, here. Most people don't care. those that do will either search for it or blacklist it.

Agreed on rape- Ahogai face? rape it.

...That sounded wrong when i thought it, still sounds wrong now that I've wrote it. Ah well- you know what I mean.

Char: Considering that we're reverting to a true "tag what you see", will this have any asjudication regarding the issue of breast sizes being tagged in descending order (thus, hyper_breasts are huge_breasts and big_breasts as well)?

SnowWolf said:
Rape is one of those tags where it's better to err on the side of tagging too many then too few.

The biggest issue here is people are trying to set rigid guidelines while at the exact same time trying to add in clauses for particular characters and situations. So...these rigid guidelines apply to all images...except the ones that certain people believe they shouldn't apply to?

Lets say we have a TMNT incest pic, that *does not* contain Leonardo saying to Raphael "Oh brother, do me harder!" These rigid guidelines state that it should *not* be tagged incest. It obviously is, but we shouldn't tag it as such. So, when I search for incest, I won't find that pic. This situation seems like improper tagging. Would this situation fall into one of the aforementioned "special situation" clauses? Who's the one to decide?

Basically, you're trying to clear up any/all tag discrepancies. The only way to do that is to set 100% completely rigid guidelines that apply to all pictures, always, no matter what. Otherwise, there will always be the same amount of discrepancies, as people will constantly argue whether certain images should be tagged in a special manner or not.

I understand the point you guys are trying to make, and the situation you're trying to solve, but in the long run you aren't accomplishing anything. The "Tag What You See" rule was just fine. As mods/admins its your job to resolve individual tag conflicts while acknowledging that different situations require different measures.

ExplosiveBlaziken said:
If you don't like it you are free to leave.

i agree.
if you dont like the way the site is set up there are hundreds more for you to visit.

123easy said:
Agreed on rape- Ahogai face? rape it.

...That sounded wrong when i thought it, still sounds wrong now that I've wrote it. Ah well- you know what I mean.

Char: Considering that we're reverting to a true "tag what you see", will this have any asjudication regarding the issue of breast sizes being tagged in descending order (thus, hyper_breasts are huge_breasts and big_breasts as well)?

As far as I know each of the above Breast tags are tags. It describes what you see, like huge breasts are huge. Rather than small breasts. Some might want to see the huge breasts rather than average or smaller sizes so they search for Huge_Breasts while Breasts only says that there are breasts in the picture (Refering to Female Breasts and not a male's chest lol).

Here's my 5 cents...

In my humble opinion, it's best respect the authors's will (remember: s/he is who made the thing you're fapping to. :p) and whom cares about this kind of stuff.

Why not create a new tag? Like:
- "herm_but_dont_looks_like"
- "herm_but_no_cocks_on_image"
- "herm_but_looks_like_male/female"
- "clean_herm"
- "sheisherm" or "heisherm"
- "itsatrap" or just "trap"
Not sure if this really works, but what do we know if we don't try?

Edit: the rest wasn't anything interesting. :p

Atani said:
The biggest issue here is people are trying to set rigid guidelines while at the exact same time trying to add in clauses for particular characters and situations. So...these rigid guidelines apply to all images...except the ones that certain people believe they shouldn't apply to?

Lets say we have a TMNT incest pic, that *does not* contain Leonardo saying to Raphael "Oh brother, do me harder!" These rigid guidelines state that it should *not* be tagged incest. It obviously is, but we shouldn't tag it as such. So, when I search for incest, I won't find that pic. This situation seems like improper tagging. Would this situation fall into one of the aforementioned "special situation" clauses? Who's the one to decide?

The TMNT have a very distinctive style and very, very similar physical characteristics. That image would be tagged incest for the same reason post #18350 is tagged incest.

I've always been more of a tagger than an uploader myself... to be honest, this thread is actually a little breath of fresh air for me, because I always hesitate to tag the "everyone knows they're really a herm even if they aren't showing it here" characters properly, knowing everyone will get mad at me if I do.

Hey Char! :3

Char said:
If you see a character with an accentuated hourglass shape from behind, that should most likely be female. An accentuated hourglass shape is a trait of a female body. Of course that doesn't mean that the character itself is female, but again, it's what the evidence points to. You need a clear indication within the image that the character's gender is NOT what it might seem in order to justify tagging it as such.

Yeah. Not to forget: if someone walks into a bar dressed as a female but is a male/herm/whatever, you'll probably greet them first as "hello miss!" anways cuz they want it so, otherwise they wouldn't dress themselves as male/female.

You assume it's a woman because he/shee looks like one. If they want to get accepted as a man, they dress like a man. If they want to get accepted as a woman, they dress and act like one. Most times you can't tell what's really a man and what's a woman on real life cross-dressers.

Where's your guys problem anyways?
Actually you can't see who's a herm and who's not when they dressed properly; you'll know if it's a herm/male/female when they have no cloth but that's not the case on every image here.
Let them characters dress as they want please, it's a way of self-expression for them toonies! D:
Leave hidden penisses/pussies alone plieX.

Nobody wears a "I'm a man!" nor "I'm a woman!"-dog tag around their neck to get classified as a certain gender. It's all about what you can see, not what you CAN'T.

Well, at least not everyone of us or them toonies...

On the subject of proper tagging in general, I have a question for the mods.

Every so often, I run a search for "dragon female -breasts" and tag all the breasted dragons I find. According to breasts we're supposed to tag breasts when they're "bare" or "prominently featured." Where does that leave pictures like post #87594? The breasts are -technically- bare, but there's no nipples to indicate they're actually breasts in the feminine sense, and they aren't "prominently featured" either. I've been letting these types of pictures slip by for now, since I'm not sure which side to err on.

Well, if I wanted breasts, I wouldn't mind seeing that image, and if I didn't want breasts, I wouldn't want that in a search (though perhaps -female would work better... I hope that breast size tagging thing is actually implemented).

Morhe said:
On the subject of proper tagging in general, I have a question for the mods.

Every so often, I run a search for "dragon female -breasts" and tag all the breasted dragons I find. According to breasts we're supposed to tag breasts when they're "bare" or "prominently featured." Where does that leave pictures like post #87594? The breasts are -technically- bare, but there's no nipples to indicate they're actually breasts in the feminine sense, and they aren't "prominently featured" either. I've been letting these types of pictures slip by for now, since I'm not sure which side to err on.

Breasts without nipples are actually butts. True story.
But seriously, you see those bumps on her chest, tag breasts.

While I understand where you're coming from, tag what you see... This works normally, but when info is stated on the artists page 'this is this' I do not think it should be omitted just because it isnt visible. In that case we might as well remove size difference and leave them all cubs because they dont look like adults, or just put a different character name because they look like another, despite info stated otherwise.

So... If you don't know its herm, tag it male or female, but if it's CLEARY marked herm on the artists page as herm, tag as herm.

Meh, don't like this rule, but no choice but to deal with it.

Jaxinc said:
So... If you don't know its herm, tag it male or female, but if it's CLEARY marked herm on the artists page as herm, tag as herm.

That's not it at all! Only tag herm if the image infers they're a herm. No-one cares what the artist or character owner say.

Riversyde said:
Breasts without nipples are actually butts. True story.

I suppose a better example would have been post #134776 or post #103146.

Jaxinc said:
Meh, don't like this rule, but no choice but to deal with it.

Well, let's look at this from the opposite direction. I have a character I've been writing about and roleplaying for over 13 years. If I see a picture of her on this site with a dick between the legs, should I tag the picture female because "she's my character, and she's always female?"

Morhe said:
Well, let's look at this from the opposite direction. I have a character I've been writing about and roleplaying for over 13 years. If I see a picture of her on this site with a dick between the legs, should I tag the picture female because "she's my character, and she's always female?"

This.

It really, really, really doesn't matter what the artist says the character is. Not trying to say artist's preferences, opinions, and the like aren't actually important, but when it comes to how the image should be tagged, they're not. Tags indicate what a picture depicts, not what a picture is. If dicks+tits are the only things that make me hard, then I'm going to be pretty effing disappointed when I get post #155636 . Cute girl, sure, but where's her throbbing cock? I don't see it. That picture isn't what I searched for. If, on the other hand, herms make me puke, that picture is totally cool and I'd fap to it. IF simply knowing that Artica Sparkle is USUALLY depicted as a herm is enough to turn me off, I'll have blacklisted her anyway. And what about post #133682? "BUT KRYSTAL'S A GIRL WHY IS THIS TAGGED INTERSEX IT SAYS SO RIGHT ON THE STARFOX WIKI HAVEN'T YOU IDIOTS PLAYED THE GAME KRYSTAL'S A GIRL." "She" has a dick. Look, there it is. Not a female in this one. Don't tag it female. Tag what you see.

If I know a character is gender X, and I see that character, I know their gender is X.

So I will continue tagging based on what I see <3

JustFrame said:
If I know a character is gender X, and I see that character, I know their gender is X.

So I will continue tagging based on what I see <3

If I know a character is gender X, and I see that character, I don't assume their gender remains X in that picture.

Let me bring your attention to post #133682 once more. I know Krystal's a chick, but it looks to me like there's a big ol' dick right there. By your method, I tag female anyway. 'cause Krystal is a girl, right? Every time. So even though she's sprouted a dick, it's cool. She's still a girl. I'll tag it "female" anyway. Because I know she's a girl and I see her, so I see a girl.

RedOctober said:
If I know a character is gender X, and I see that character, I don't assume their gender remains X in that picture.

Let me bring your attention to post #133682 once more. I know Krystal's a chick, but it looks to me like there's a big ol' dick right there. By your method, I tag female anyway. 'cause Krystal is a girl, right? Every time. So even though she's sprouted a dick, it's cool. She's still a girl. I'll tag it "female" anyway. Because I know she's a girl and I see her, so I see a girl.

Well obviously in that case, yes, I would tag it as something else. That's just common sense. But in cases without further indication, I'd tag the character of it's typical gender.

JustFrame said:
Well obviously in that case, yes, I would tag it as something else. That's just common sense. But in cases without further indication, I'd tag the character of it's typical gender.

And thus you are obviously ignoring the first post. Don't do that. Don't do it. The administration says don't do that. So don't. Stop it. Tag it as you see it. It doesn't matter what it usually is, tag what is DEPICTED IN THAT PARTICULAR IMAGE. If there's no dick, no hint of a dick, no indication that there might ever be another dick again, in THAT IMAGE, don't tag anything related to dicks. Tag it as you see it. That's the Prime Directive of e6. This forum post wasn't put up by Char for discussion of the rules. It was put up to explain, clarify, and reinforce the rule already in place. Tag it as you see it. Tag. It. As. You. See. It.

Char said:
TAG ONLY WHAT YOU SEE, ALWAYS

There, see? I even put it right here in case you're too lazy to go to the first page and read the TL;DR that Char so nicely put at the end of his post. Tag what you see. Every time. It's really not hard. And it's clearly not up for debate.

^I am tagging what I see.

If there's a loop hole in the rule some how, then that's Admin's problem.

JustFrame said:
^I am tagging what I see.

If there's a loop hole in the rule some how, then that's Admin's problem.

There isn't. It's not a loophole, it's ignoring the rule. You tag what you SEE. Not what you assume is there based on what you see. You're assuming that because you see Artica Sparkle, there's a dick down below. But there are plenty of pictures of her where there isn't. So don't tag her as a herm, because you can't see that she is. You can see that she's a female. So tag that. You're tagging what you infer, not what you see. Every picture is different. Gender-swapped images are pretty common, so you can not[/i] make any assumptions. Don't assume. Never assume. Never infer. Never, ever ever. Tag what you see, not what you infer. What you're describing is "Tag what you infer." And what Char is saying is: DON'T EVER DO THAT.

Not at all. I am tagging what I see. I see Captain Picard in a picture, it's a male.

But by the token of a gender-swapped image, how would you know it's gender swapped unless you can SEE it? Your own logic doesn't work in your own argument. Are you saying that people's gender changes mysteriously when we are not looking at their penis/vagina?

JustFrame said:
Not at all. I am tagging what I see. I see Captain Picard in a picture, it's a male.

But by the token of a gender-swapped image, how would you know it's gender swapped unless you can SEE it? Your own logic doesn't work in your own argument. Are you saying that people's gender changes mysteriously when we are not looking at their penis/vagina?

No. My point is that if you can't see a penis, you can NOT know if it's a male or not. Not that it changes, just that you have no clue what it is. You can't know. You tag what's visible. Maybe that's a better way to phrase it. "Tag what's visible." Because of gender-swapping in the fandom, if you don't see a dick on that usually-herm, you can't know that it's a herm in that image. Not that it isn't, that you can't KNOW. So don't tag it. That's inferring. That's assuming.

JustFrame said:
^I am tagging what I see.

If there's a loop hole in the rule some how, then that's Admin's problem.

Exploit any loopholes, I will send you to the moon for a thousand years. I know your lookin for em now, and I will punish you severely.

Actually it sounds like you're the one assuming that a character doesn't start with a default gender.

Why should we be led to believe it changed unless we can visibly see that? That's much more of an assumption than going 'I see Captain Picard, who is male, even though his clothes are still on so I will tag this male.'

I strongly disagree with this in every possible sense of the word. I mean, so does this mean that if a character is a herm, but we can see only her penis and not her vagina in the pic, then does that automatically make her shemale? Or hey, what if it's an underaged, feminine-looking male-herm, does that mean it's automatically just a regular herm? Sorry, but no, this logic is just extremely flawed. <.<

-shrugs- I abandon you to your fate. Rules is rules, brosef. Follow 'em. Char pretty clearly outlined exactly what the admins expect. In the end it doesn't actually matter what you or I think of the rules, because we don't make them. Good luck, and godspeed.

OK. I'm going to make it VERY Clear to Everyone in this room, ignoring this or hunting for loopholes WILL result in account demerits, and Bans.

TAG WHAT YOU SEE: If a Character is depicted as ANY Gender, then you tag what gender you see. If it appears Female, you tag it female. If it appears male, you tag it male. If it has No Discernible Gender, you tag it ambiguous gender.

T.V Show characters are given a special Clause, However 99% of the time, they will also fall under the gender tagging rules. If leonardo appears, stark naked, without any bits of any kind ambiguous. If Renamon appears flat chested, with no parts of any kind, ambiguous. If Renamon appears clothed, but has a large bulge in the chest, Female. So on and so on.

Yes, I know articas a Hermaphrodite. HOWEVER. I've also seen a LOT of her as purely female, same with a lot of herms. if it doesn't have a dick, or a dick bulge with female tits or vag, do NOT tag it intersex. NO Exceptions.

If a character is showing, that is a hermaphrodite. If you can see its Dick, but not its Vag, and it has boobs. It is a DICK GIRL. If a character is showing, and it has a cunt and dick, but no boobs, it is a Hermaphrodite. {Male herm is NOT a tag here, nor will it ever Be.} If it has Boobs, a Vag, and a Dick, it is a Hermaphrodite. And if it has a CUNT but no boobs, it is a Cuntboy. {Not Boi, fuck that word.}

ANY Loophole exploits WILL result in a ban.

Princess_Celestia said:
Exploit any loopholes, I will send you to the moon for a thousand years. I know your lookin for em now, and I will punish you severely.

You need to realize I'm not necessarily the one who will exploit it. That's the risk you take when you make confusing rules that make themselves available for exploitation. If not for me, you wouldn't even be aware of it.

But if you want to ignore the rest of the userbase and focus entirely on me so you can 'punish' me for pointing out your mistakes, go ahead. It's a typical response I've gotten used to.

Pictionary said:
If the artist, nay, if the owner of the character says it's a herm. I'll be damned if I'll have to make a second search just to find some sexy pictures of a character that I'd otherwise find with one.

Well since you know that character is a herm, presumably you could search by the character name and find images of hir whether or not they appeared to be herm. Those of us who've never heard of hir, but otherwise like herm images would probably would prefer to be able to search on herm and find images that actually showed evidence that at least one character in said images was a herm.

Venti_Mocha said:
Well since you know that character is a herm, presumably you could search by the character name and find images of hir whether or not they appeared to be herm. Those of us who've never heard of hir, but otherwise like herm images would probably would prefer to be able to search on herm and find images that actually showed evidence that at least one character in said images was a herm.

This so hard. That's the idea, the whole point of tagging what you see. So you can get what you want to see by searching. lol.

Princess_Celestia said:
OK. I'm going to make it VERY Clear to Everyone in this room, ignoring this or hunting for loopholes WILL result in account demerits, and Bans.

TAG WHAT YOU SEE: If a Character is depicted as ANY Gender, then you tag what gender you see. If it appears Female, you tag it female. If it appears male, you tag it male. If it has No Discernible Gender, you tag it ambiguous gender.

T.V Show characters are given a special Clause, However 99% of the time, they will also fall under the gender tagging rules. If leonardo appears, stark naked, without any bits of any kind ambiguous. If Renamon appears flat chested, with no parts of any kind, ambiguous. If Renamon appears clothed, but has a large bulge in the chest, Female. So on and so on.

Yes, I know articas a Hermaphrodite. HOWEVER. I've also seen a LOT of her as purely female, same with a lot of herms. if it doesn't have a dick, or a dick bulge with female tits or vag, do NOT tag it intersex. NO Exceptions.

If a character is showing, that is a hermaphrodite. If you can see its Dick, but not its Vag, and it has boobs. It is a DICK GIRL. If a character is showing, and it has a cunt and dick, but no boobs, it is a Hermaphrodite. {Male herm is NOT a tag here, nor will it ever Be.} If it has Boobs, a Vag, and a Dick, it is a Hermaphrodite. And if it has a CUNT but no boobs, it is a Cuntboy. {Not Boi, fuck that word.}

ANY Loophole exploits WILL result in a ban.

Bans for tags? That's just silly. You're such a silly pony, Princess Celestia. Also, in regards to the Cuntboy tag comment: I didn't realize flat-chested women were so rare, we had to always assume that they are in fact FTM transgenders. I'll make sure to call every flat-chested woman I meet in the future a cuntboy until they tell me otherwise (though I think to be sure I'll just require all of their medical records, so I know for a fact they aren't hiding anything from me)

I appreciate this increased vigilance in tagging, I really do, but it seems you guys have drawn the line over in "excessively overzealous" land. I'm all for "Tag What You See". I'm all for tagging Artica Sparkle as male if I can't see vag. But at the same time, if I see Artica getting fucked from behind, and it isn't plainly obvious that its in hir ass, I'm going to assume its a herm pic.

As for the people who say "I wanna search for herm and find every single image containing Artica!" You guys are idiots. If you want pics of Artica, search for her. If you want pics of herms, search for herms. If you want both, make two searches. If your browser doesn't support tabs, I pity you. It really does making fapping image appreciation so much easier.

Char said:
tl;dr: TAG ONLY WHAT YOU SEE, ALWAYS

Simple enough. Nice, rigid guidelines.

Char said:
Again though, "incest" not being tagged properly doesn't hurt as bad as gender not being tagged properly, so it's not much of a concern at the moment (to me at least).

Oh....ok. So these guidelines are usually rigid? I do agree, gender tagging is much more of an issue, but in the end, you're saying one set of tags require more rigidness than another.

Char said:
If you see a character with an accentuated hourglass shape from behind, that should most likely be female. An accentuated hourglass shape is a trait of a female body. Of course that doesn't mean that the character itself is female, but again, it's what the evidence points to. You need a clear indication within the image that the character's gender is NOT what it might seem in order to justify tagging it as such.

I can respond in two ways. I do this because I actually can't tell for sure whether you're saying we should or shouldn't tag based on feminine features (e.g. hourglass shape, girl hips/face)

Response A: If you're saying we should tag images as containing females based on body type and nothing else, I completely disagree. That absolutely goes 100% against you previously stating absolute rigidness on gender tagging.
And, the perfect "Real Life Example": From behind, I have an hourglass figure. I have long hair, as well. A person with common sense would not assume I am female, nor would they assume I am male. They would go with the choice of "Ambiguous" until further evidence is gathered. This would be the correct assumption, as I am in fact completely male. Penis and everything. True story.

Response B: If you're saying we shouldn't tag images as containing females based on body type and nothing else, I completely agree. There's a reason why we have the Ambiguous_Gender tag.

This line in particular leads me to believe you're saying we should tag images based on guesswork (figure/frame, facial structure, etc), rather than what is apparent, what can actually be seen:

Char said:
You need a clear indication within the image that the character's gender is NOT what it might seem in order to justify tagging it as such.

This is both improper tagging technique, AND it goes directly against the guidelines you are pushing. Again, I can't tell for sure which side you're taking in that post, hence the double response. I'm just saying it seems like you're saying one thing, while it may in fact be entirely not the case. (There's some sort of nifty double-meaning to that last line. Isn't that perfect? It is both a reference to my confusion, and a nice little example of how that logic is wrong.)

In conclusion: I love this site. I love the content, I love the comments, and the mods/admins aren't half-bad either lol. As a standard user, I don't get to see most of the tag wars that go on, so it is entirely possible that this situation is more of a concern than I'm actually aware of. I don't know if these rules will fix the problem or make it worse. From my point of view, I can see it going either way. Lots of stubborn users, stereotypical drama-furs. Either way though, I really don't think banning should ever be brought into the equation unless a particular user is going really, really far out of his/her way to cause tag-mayhem. That just seems ridiculous.

I don't see what's so hard to understand about "Tag what you see" >_>. E621 isn't a democracy so why act like your "rights are being infringed upon" xD

The tagging policy is certainly practical and efficient for what is an imageboard of fap material; guy wants some tits and ass, he types female, guy wants dicks and ass he types male, if guy wants tits and dicks he types herm. What's the big issue? =p

I think people should just shut up and obey what the mods say. If you don't like it, you're of course free to leave. As Not said, this is not a democracy.

NotThatGuy said:
I don't see what's so hard to understand about "Tag what you see" >_>. E621 isn't a democracy so why act like your "rights are being infringed upon" xD

The tagging policy is certainly practical and efficient for what is an imageboard of fap material; guy wants some tits and ass, he types female, guy wants dicks and ass he types male, if guy wants tits and dicks he types herm. What's the big issue? =p

I do like the tags here. They are very useful and thorough.
The issue is:

ExplosiveBlaziken said:
I think people should just shut up and obey what the mods say. If you don't like it, you're of course free to leave. As Not said, this is not a democracy.

A. That's quite the "dick" way of putting things.
B. I don't mean to be rude to the mods, but they're acting like they've drawn a distinct line without actually having done so, and then threatening bans if someone crosses this line. Goddammit, do I tag someone with a female figure as being female if there isn't a single discernible characteristic otherwise? One of Char's posts seems to be saying that, BUT I CAN'T TELL D:
C. No one said anything about democracy, but everyone knows the best of imageboards/forums (and I do consider this site to be among the best) have moderators that actually listen to us bottom-feeders. Sometimes situations arise in which the only way to come up with a good solution is to ask us for our opinions. It's their job to sift through the bullshit ideas to find the useful advice/suggestions, polish them a bit and put it into use.

Atani said:
snip for length

A.) I'm not about to varnish the truth for you.
B.) It's their job to ban anyone who dosn't follow the rules. Follow the rules and you won't be banned. You follow their words to the letter until you are told differently. If it looks female, tag female. If it is replaced with a more fitting tag, leave it be.
C.) No, actually, the job of the users is to obey the admins, not to question them. That's a little thing called 'backseat moderating'.

ExplosiveBlaziken said:
A.) I'm not about to varnish the truth for you.
B.) It's their job to ban anyone who dosn't follow the rules. Follow the rules and you won't be banned. You follow their words to the letter until you are told differently. If it looks female, tag female. If it is replaced with a more fitting tag, leave it be.
C.) No, actually, the job of the users is to obey the admins, not to question them. That's a little thing called 'backseat moderating'.

Your post would have been slightly more relevant if it weren't for the fact that my previous two posts have shown that you can't exactly follow a mod word-for-word "until told differently" if the mod seems to be saying certain situations call for going against his rules.
"Backseat moderating" is when a person goes about, telling other bottom-feeders what to do, what rules to obey, what they're doing wrong and altogether acting with a mightier-than-thou attitude. Similar to how you're acting. On the other hand, when a bottom-feeder offers suggestions in a calm, collected manner, or suggests where improvements can be made in general, its far from "backseat moderating". Its called being productive, something that should be approved of, not looked down on.

Atani said:
Similar to how you're acting.

Hahaha. Oh, wait, you're serious. No, I'm saying you're acting like a second-guessing asshole when you were already told what to do. But nice going, twisting words like that.

ExplosiveBlaziken said:
I think people should just shut up and obey what the mods say. If you don't like it, you're of course free to leave. As Not said, this is not a democracy.

Will you PLEASE stop saying this? THIS IS NOT THE ATTITUDE THAT E621 HOLDS AT ALL. I guess as long as people understand that I completely disagree with your statement above then you're free to continue saying it. But I absolutely disagree with the attitude of "sit down and shut up, this is how we're doing things". I fully expected push-back from making this forum post, and I welcome the counter-arguments.

Atani said:
I'm all for tagging Artica Sparkle as male if I can't see vag. But at the same time, if I see Artica getting fucked from behind, and it isn't plainly obvious that its in hir ass, I'm going to assume its a herm pic.

What rules her out as being a female in that pic? Unless you're saying that you can see a penis, but no boobs and no vag. Then yes, at that point it would entirely depend on the positioning of the dick that's fucking her. Too high, and it's in the ass and she's POTENTIALLY just a male. Too low, and it's in her vag and she's definitely a herm. You are ALWAYS going to find some image that's going to potentially be an exception to any "concrete" rules we lay down. The point of my argument about tagging gender properly is to make sure you are NOT tagging gender using information that you have inferred about the character externally from the image itself. If it's difficult to infer the information of gender WITHIN the picture itself, that's completely fine and sometimes expected.

Atani said:
Oh....ok. So these guidelines are usually rigid? I do agree, gender tagging is much more of an issue, but in the end, you're saying one set of tags require more rigidness than another.

I'm saying one set of tags is MORE IMPORTANT than another set, yes. Tagging "incest" properly is an entirely separate issue that I'm not looking to tackle right now, save for mentioning that it still falls under tagging what you see. HOWEVER, I am perfectly willing to concede the point that MAINSTREAM characters such as The Chipmunks and such SHOULD be assumed to be siblings/related. Why? Because they're extremely popular and well known characters, even outside the furry fandom. "EVERYONE" knows that The Chipmunks are brothers. NOT EVERYONE knows that Furry Artist X's personal characters are brother and sister. That's what makes the difference to me.

Atani said:

Response A: If you're saying we should tag images as containing females based on body type and nothing else, I completely disagree. That absolutely goes 100% against you previously stating absolute rigidness on gender tagging.
And, the perfect "Real Life Example": From behind, I have an hourglass figure. I have long hair, as well. A person with common sense would not assume I am female, nor would they assume I am male. They would go with the choice of "Ambiguous" until further evidence is gathered. This would be the correct assumption, as I am in fact completely male. Penis and everything. True story.

I am in fact saying that body type is usually a good indicator of gender. If you look like a girl from behind, I'm going to assume you're a girl. Am I going to KNOW you're a girl? No, of course not. But I am still inferring information about you based SOLELY on what I see right in front of me, and not what I heard somebody else say about you. If you look like a girl from behind, chances are good you really are a girl. Again, this hits on "tag what you see". Do they look like a girl? Yes. Do we know they're a girl? No. The resulting tag is: female. Why? Because we have enough information to make an EDUCATED GUESS that they are female, and we assume that the majority of users who see the character will ALSO say the character is female. This is NOT a case where ambiguous_gender should be applied, because we HAVE information that SUGGESTS a particular gender. Ambiguous_gender should only be applied when you honest-to-god-can-not-tell-one-way-or-the-other what the gender of the character might be, NOT simply because you don't KNOW FOR SURE what the gender really is.

Atani said:
Either way though, I really don't think banning should ever be brought into the equation unless a particular user is going really, really far out of his/her way to cause tag-mayhem. That just seems ridiculous.

I won't be banning anyone over this. I appreciate all the feedback.

Blaz: We aren't part of the "like it or leave it" camp. And It annoys me to see people use that excuse.