There are a lot of pictures on e621 which contain Tauren but clearly contain no Bovines, but will still turn up in a search of "Bovine" because of the Tauren->Bovine implication.

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Now, I'm not entirely certain what the solution to this is, as it seems to me that this is more an issue with the shapeshifting than the species. In an ordinary image in which one character has shapeshifted to another species, the original species simply isn't tagged at all: tag what you see. The Tauren druid forms, however, are so characteristic of them that people familiar with the game can tell that they are Tauren even in their alternate forms.

Thus we have two possible solutions: either remove the Tauren->Bovine implication (Ruling: a Tauren is not always a Bovine) or stop tagging Tauren in shapeshifted forms as Tauren (Ruling: gender style "tag what you see without outside knowledge").

I'm leaning towards option 1, personally. I'd rather not have cat-form and bear-form Tauren showing up in my bovine searches, and neither would anyone unfamiliar with the Warcraft universe. (Hey, don't look at me like that!) But on the other hand, if someone else wanted to look up the Tauren cat form, it makes sense for that to show up in a search of "Tauren Feline."

As someone who doesn't play WoW, I'd rather see option 2. Not only does it make sense to tag a character as the thing it's shapeshifted to, it also follows the site's "tag what you see" rules.

Or we could keep the implication, and start tagging shapeshifted Taurens like tauren_druid or tauren_(cat/bear_form).

I like tauren_druid (and night_elf_druid, troll_druid, worgen_druid).

tony311 said:
I like tauren_druid (and night_elf_druid, troll_druid, worgen_druid).

This.

Well, bovine means cow-like (Specifically, "Of, relating to, or resembling a ruminant mammal of the genus Bos, such as an ox, cow, or buffalo.") and when you look at any of the Tauren morphs, they all have horns on their heads- bull horns. Like what bulls/oxen have. Thus, calling them bovine is actually completely correct as they have cow-like aspects to them.

Note this in no way interferes with the various druid tags, aside from tauren_druid needing a bovine implication as well.

This said, I disagree with this, as Tauren are distinctly WoW creations, and as such follow the same general applications of characters like Alvin and the Chipmunks; We know them well enough through popular culture to make them recognizable as such on sight.

123easy said:
Well, bovine means cow-like (Specifically, "Of, relating to, or resembling a ruminant mammal of the genus Bos, such as an ox, cow, or buffalo.") and when you look at any of the Tauren morphs, they all have horns on their heads- bull horns. Like what bulls/oxen have. Thus, calling them bovine is actually completely correct as they have cow-like aspects to them.

Note this in no way interferes with the various druid tags, aside from tauren_druid needing a bovine implication as well.

This said, I disagree with this, as Tauren are distinctly WoW creations, and as such follow the same general applications of characters like Alvin and the Chipmunks; We know them well enough through popular culture to make them recognizable as such on sight.

Mooooooooooo~ Their all cows.

Implications are evil.

I'm in favour of getting rid of the tauren +> bovine implication.

Tagging "tauren" without "bovine" in these examples is the more pragmatic response for the sake of what tags/aliases exist for in the first place - to help find specific content.

When people search "bovine," they're looking for cows, not a cow that happens to have shape-shifted into a sea lion so he can fuck an elf who happens to have shape-shifted into a raven; probably the most unlikely scenario I've ever described for the sake of argument. I digress.

Tagging "tauren" makes enough sense. If you play Warcraft or know enough about it to know what a tauren is (or a tauren druid, more specifically), you'll know what you're looking at when you see a bear with bull horns fucking a cat with antennae for eyebrows. If you've never heard of Warcraft and you think of Dairy Queen whenever someone mentions "Blizzard," your search for "bovine" may end in confusing results such as the aforementioned.

If there's a tauren in the content who happens to be a man-cow/anthro-cow, tagging "bovine" is perfectly reasonable. Otherwise, it's misleading.

Thanks for the talking point, Morhe. This is probably one of the few reasonable questions about tags I've seen in some time.

Tauren are bovine. End of story. Not tagging them such would be improper and incorrect. It'd be like tagging an anthro tigress not feline.

tony311 said:
I like tauren_druid (and night_elf_druid, troll_druid, worgen_druid).

The problem with x_druid tags is that you're tagging based on metadata. I suppose that could fall under the "well known characters" exception (or in this case, a well-known species), but it would probably cause confusion if you were allowed to tag the example images "tauren_druid" but not "tauren." A lot of people would see "tauren_druid" and "fix" the image by adding the Tauren tag back in. It's probably better to remove the implication than generate new tags as a workaround.

123easy said:
Tauren are bovine. End of story. Not tagging them such would be improper and incorrect. It'd be like tagging an anthro tigress not feline.

Tauren stop being bovines when they shapeshift into feline or ursine forms. That's the problem here. If an artist draws a character as something other than their usual species, the image gets the tags of that species and not their usual so that it doesn't throw of searches. The same should apply to shapeshifted characters.

Besides, there is no "end of story" for images on this site anyhow; characters are constantly being gender/species shifted.

No, the end of story is that they are still bovine even in feline or ursine forms, because they still have those cow horns. Again, bovine means "bos-like" where bos stands for the genus that cows belong to; Much as we use equine ("equus-like") to refer to someone or something that is horselike, as equine is of the genus equus.

A bear with bull horns is still bovine, as anything with long pointy ears is still elfin.

123easy said:
No, the end of story is that they are still bovine even in feline or ursine forms, because they still have those cow horns. Again, bovine means "bos-like" where bos stands for the genus that cows belong to; Much as we use equine ("equus-like") to refer to someone or something that is horselike, as equine is of the genus equus.

A bear with bull horns is still bovine, as anything with long pointy ears is still elfin.

I could agree with that if it was a mod ruling, but it seems like stretching the issue into technicality territory pretty fast. Bovines aren't the only creatures with horns. They are one of the few categories of real animals with forward-swept horns, but those show up in art featuring demons and other mythical races that aren't bovine as well.

Would you consider a foxgirl canine because she has fox ears? No.
Would you consider a dragon part rodent if someone shoved mouse ears onto it? Probably not.
Just because a character who is not a bull has been given bull horns is no reason to call it bovine. It just means it has bull horns.

123easy said:
A bear with bull horns is still bovine, as anything with long pointy ears is still elfin.

By that logic, if I get surgery to make my ears long and pointy, I am automatically an elf?

And equine is for species of the genus Equus, not any of their body parts. We wouldn't implicate horsecock to equine.

Morhe said:
I could agree with that if it was a mod ruling, but it seems like stretching the issue into technicality territory pretty fast. Bovines aren't the only creatures with horns. They are one of the few categories of real animals with forward-swept horns, but those show up in art featuring demons and other mythical races that aren't bovine as well.

It's a bovine trait, all I'm saying. There are a multitude of other bovine traits that tauren have, and thus they are bovine by nature. They are iconic characters, as much as (using the same example again) Alvin and the Chipmunks are, so when their druids are in a different shape due to their inherant shapeshifting ability, why would it not be known that the tauren is a bovine? This is all following Char's point of well known characters.

123easy said:
It's a bovine trait, all I'm saying. There are a multitude of other bovine traits that tauren have, and thus they are bovine by nature. They are iconic characters, as much as (using the same example again) Alvin and the Chipmunks are, so when their druids are in a different shape due to their inherant shapeshifting ability, why would it not be known that the tauren is a bovine? This is all following Char's point of well known characters.

Char's point about well-known characters was with regards to incest, which is incredibly difficult to prove without outside knowledge. With regards to gender, he has (repeatedly) stated the exact opposite. Atani's clarification of this rule regarding gender-shifting is as follows:

Atani said:
Clarification on the subject of default genders for "Well-Known Characters".
--If it's a character from a television show, it can have a default gender. Batman is male (unless it is apparent that isn't the case)

If we were to apply this to species, Tauren have a default species of bovine, unless it is apparent that this isn't the case. Shapeshifting is one obvious example of when this wouldn't be the case.

Using your example, would a picture of human versions of Alvin and the Chipmunks still be tagged "chipmunk?"

123easy said:
No, the end of story is that they are still bovine even in feline or ursine forms, because they still have those cow horns. Again, bovine means "bos-like" where bos stands for the genus that cows belong to; Much as we use equine ("equus-like") to refer to someone or something that is horselike, as equine is of the genus equus.

We use equine to refer to the genus equus, not "anything horse-like" (or should horsecock imply equine?). We use "feline" to refer to the subfamily felinae, not "anything cat-like". Similarly, bovine should be taken as referring to either the genus bos or the subfamily bovinae, not "anything cattle-like".

And since you like quoting the dictionary, here's a different definition:

bo·vine 
 /ˈboʊvaɪn, -vɪn, -vin/
adjective
1.
of or pertaining to the subfamily Bovinae, which includes cattle, buffalo, and kudus.

123easy said:
...as anything with long pointy ears is still elfin.

As a longtime follower of numerous fantasy genres, universes and settings this could not be more laughably incorrect.

As much as I hate digging a thread off the second page, could I get a mod's say one way or another on this issue? I promise to let it die no matter what the decision is. :3

This implication will stay.
Tauren druids will be tagged tauren_druid, and will not implicate anything. This includes Tauren, because Tauren in their shapeshifted form are not actual Tauren, but a separate species of animal.
The horns can be tagged if you so decide, but they do not make the creature bovine.