post #147839

Nuff said? What is the criteria for creating a tag, so to speak. When I tag an image and see that said tag happens to have a count of one afterwards I just delete it. Also, there's a tag in this post in a language other than english.

Well, I think the very least is that tags should be in English. I'm not a fan of 1-instance tags. If someone wants to create a new tag, they should add it to a bunch of images, not just 1.

As for other tagging critiquery (solely my opinion, but the reasons I used to change the tags)...

• Seriously, they put "bindle"? I had to look up the meaning there. That seems overly-specific. It's a bag or a sack. I saw someone had already tagged it with sack.

• Vote against animated_film. In general we don't tag pictures from animated films as such, else there'd be hundreds, if not thousands, of instances of that tag. Again, if someone wants to add it, add it to more than just 1 image.

• "apparition" to me seems like "ghost", which I don't really see on the image. We can only see the pony's head, but it's in a dense fog/mist. I don't imply a ghost, here, or a figment of the hedgehog's imagination, just a pony being creepily inserted in place of an owl, at an appropriate scale.

• Vote against "soviet". Reason: "Tag what you see", and I don't see soviet imagery anywhere. Should we start tagging random stuff as "american", "french", "spanish", et al? It seems like if the intention was to call out the cultural heritage of the stories that inspired this image, they should have also included "american" to cover the mlp.

• "frightening" seems to be covered by "nightmare_fuel".

• "looming" strikes me as really borderline. I left it alone, but is there a more common word we can use, instead? If so, perhaps someone can suggest an alias.

I created a tag called: full_of_daww mainly for post that when you them, no matter what mood your in, it will make you daww

0904255 said:
I created a tag called: full_of_daww mainly for post that when you them, no matter what mood your in, it will make you daww

We have cute for that.

This is the #1 problem that caused me no end of rage: fixing stupid tags that were used when there were already perfectly good tags that meant the same things to be used instead.

ikdind said:
Well, I think the very least is that tags should be in English.

Just wanted to note an exception to this: some artists/characters don't have an English name, and hence can't be tagged in English.

Lyokira said:
some artists/characters don't have an English name, and hence can't be tagged in English.

In that case, the name is usually translated into English as best as possible. For instance, even if there weren't an official name for Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, nobody would tag it as 魔法少女リリカルなのは, they'd either self-translate the name or would tag it mahou_shoujo_ririkaru_nanoha.

swamprootwolf said:
Nuff said? What is the criteria for creating a tag, so to speak.

the ability to type, mostly.

When I tag an image and see that said tag happens to have a count of one afterwards I just delete it. Also, there's a tag in this post in a language other than english.

that said, a GOOD tag is one that can be applied to multiple images.. however, sometimes, a tag DOES only apply to one or two images post #147651 has several tags that only apply to it, yet jim butcher should be tagged, as is codex_alera and other such things... a count of 1 doesn't mean it's a BAD tag.

Just that it's not used. Or maybe that it's mispelled. Take 'voluptuous' for example. An easy typo would make that have a tag count as one. Or maybe you don't know how to spell it, so you tag curvey, or curves or full_figure or something. It's not the RIGHT tag, but it's still applicable. and in other cases, sometimes it's just a tag that needs to be applied to more images. take, for example, my pet tag tail_button_bottoms.

ikdind said:
Seriously, they put "bindle"? I had to look up the meaning there. That seems overly-specific.

Agreed~

Vote against animated_film. In general we don't tag pictures from animated films as such, else there'd be hundreds, if not thousands, of instances of that tag. Again, if someone wants to add it, add it to more than just 1 image.

Agreed... (though at the same time I wonder if maybe we should have a tag for something like this.)

• "apparition" to me seems like "ghost", which I don't really see on the image.

Apparition could be, linguistically, a different thing... but visually may have little difference. It may be a reference to the movie though? I havn't seen it.

• Vote against "soviet". Reason: "Tag what you see", and I don't see soviet imagery anywhere.

Agreed, though more becauseo f the terrifying idea of what the 'japan/japanese' tag would look like. that said, the WIKI for hedge hog in the fog should mention it's soviet heritage.

• "frightening" seems to be covered by "nightmare_fuel".

No. Nightmare fuel is... different then frightening. night mare fuel applies to this image, as it's likely to make people go "OH GOOD GOD" and "CANNOT UNSEE D:" but frightening--or similar words in this case -- would refer to the idea that the image is suposed to invoke 'fear' or tension, be it in the viewer or the characters in the image. Nightmare fuel is more.. "WHY WOULD YOU DRAW THAT" as opposed to "EE SCARY!"

that said, frightening is not hte right tag, and a better 'scary word' should be used. :)

• "looming" strikes me as really borderline. I left it alone, but is there a more common word we can use, instead? If so, perhaps someone can suggest an alias.

looming is an awesome word that should be tagged more. I don't think there's a 'better word' here.

full_of_dawww and "We have cute for that."

we already have dawww which SHOULD be being used for.. not just "aww, cute kitty" but tenderness and... emotion. it's pretty subjective, but worth separating out, I think. post #87929 is a wonderful example of this.. that said, I need to clean out dawww as there are definetly some un-dawwwwish things in there.

SnowWolf said:
the ability to type, mostly.

Welp, I'm screwed then!

Personally, it really bugs me when people are using the wrong tags for things... users slyroon and Neitsuke are notorious to me for constantly tagging the pokemon pictures they upload as "feral"... This irks me because a pokemon holding things in it's hands, or wearing clothes, or acting like a little human is obviously *not* feral!

Feral can describe something domesticated that goes wild, and here we tend to use it to describe wild animals or non-anthro characters... It is no end of frustrating to search for "feral" and find hundreds of images of pokemon holding things in their hands and acting like little people!

Violet said:
Personally, it really bugs me when people are using the wrong tags for things... users slyroon and Neitsuke are notorious to me for constantly tagging the pokemon pictures they upload as "feral"... This irks me because a pokemon holding things in it's hands, or wearing clothes, or acting like a little human is obviously *not* feral!

Feral can describe something domesticated that goes wild, and here we tend to use it to describe wild animals or non-anthro characters... It is no end of frustrating to search for "feral" and find hundreds of images of pokemon holding things in their hands and acting like little people!

We've already aliased non_anthro to feral, because the distinction isn't really important/clear enough to warrant two tags. You can always search for feral -pokemon.

Violet said:
Personally, it really bugs me when people are using the wrong tags for things... users slyroon and Neitsuke are notorious to me for constantly tagging the pokemon pictures they upload as "feral"... This irks me because a pokemon holding things in it's hands, or wearing clothes, or acting like a little human is obviously *not* feral!

Feral can describe something domesticated that goes wild, and here we tend to use it to describe wild animals or non-anthro characters... It is no end of frustrating to search for "feral" and find hundreds of images of pokemon holding things in their hands and acting like little people!

Feral mostly means 'basic animal form'.. as in, unmodified. A squirrel, monkey, racoon, etc could still be feral, despite holding things in their paws.

I might suggest, honestly, that you search feral -pokemon rather then just feral... ooor.. if you still like pokemon. blacklist the pokemon that normally don't suit the bill

What about i'm_so_gay_i_shit_rainbows? :(

:33 said:
What about i'm_so_gay_i_shit_rainbows? :(

I may have hurt something laughing at the one post tagged with that

What about it? <3

Okay, okay.. after some thought and digging, I discovered we have a super_gay tag. So I defined Super_gay, and am now searching *gay* to clean up any "odd" tags like i'm_so_gay_I_shit_rainbows.

SnowWolf said:
I may have hurt something laughing at the one post tagged with that

What about it? <3

Okay, okay.. after some thought and digging, I discovered we have a super_gay tag. So I defined Super_gay, and am now searching *gay* to clean up any "odd" tags like i'm_so_gay_I_shit_rainbows.

The sad thing is that the King of all Cosmos would be clearly marked as super_gay despite being married. :p

Lyokira said:
The sad thing is that the King of all Cosmos would be clearly marked as super_gay despite being married. :p

Yes, yes he would :3

tony311 said:
We've already aliased non_anthro to feral, because the distinction isn't really important/clear enough to warrant two tags. You can always search for feral -pokemon.

No, no, no... forgive me, but you've missed my point. If the creature in question is walking around, using their hands, wearing clothes, or generally acting like a little human and not a wild animal... then it seems like that wouldn't be feral. I wouldn't call Mickey Mouse or Tom and Jerry ferals, either. I think that falls under the category of "anthromorph" don't you?

If it's a four-footed pokemon acting like an animal, then okay. I can even see exception for squirrel and monkey based creatures, etc, but it's frustrating to keep seeing "feral" being used for "I needed more tags for my pokemon picture" regardless of what that pokemon is doing, how it's acting, etc.

Violet said:
No, no, no... forgive me, but you've missed my point. If the creature in question is walking around, using their hands, wearing clothes, or generally acting like a little human and not a wild animal... then it seems like that wouldn't be feral. I wouldn't call Mickey Mouse or Tom and Jerry ferals, either. I think that falls under the category of "anthromorph" don't you?

If it's a four-footed pokemon acting like an animal, then okay. I can even see exception for squirrel and monkey based creatures, etc, but it's frustrating to keep seeing "feral" being used for "I needed more tags for my pokemon picture" regardless of what that pokemon is doing, how it's acting, etc.

If it's walking around on two feet, wearing clothes and using its hands then it probably shouldn't be tagged feral in the first place.

i acatually tagged a post with spontaneous_combustion today. Maybe I should have just used immolation sine there's now only one spontaneous_combustion tag.

post #148495 NSFW
I'm pretty sure this was explicit already. Someone changed it to safe since then.

edit* I'M TELLING!!!!! http://e621.net/user/show/41356

edit* So many MLP posts are listed as Q when they are obviously safe. ugh. Also, we have tag for non, nom_nom, and om_nom_nom. bleh.

edit* For some reason, I can't remove the 'overweight' tag from post #144210 NSFW. It's the only one of it's kind and refuses to die.

swamprootwolf said:
post #148495 NSFW
I'm pretty sure this was explicit already. Someone changed it to safe since then.

the sad sad life of a tag vandal...

edit* For some reason, I can't remove the 'overweight' tag from post #144210 NSFW. It's the only one of it's kind and refuses to die.

because it also has the tag of chubby. overweight is implicated when chubby is used. .. but there is already another forum topic on this matter.

tony311 said:
If it's walking around on two feet, wearing clothes and using its hands then it probably shouldn't be tagged feral in the first place.

I think thats the point - because some people tag pokemon as non_anthro for no fucking good reason. And since non_anthro automaticly adds feral ...

swamprootwolf said:
edit* So many MLP posts are listed as Q when they are obviously safe. ugh.

Yeah, working on that... slowly...

Murmillos said:
I think thats the point - because some people tag pokemon as non_anthro for no fucking good reason. And since non_anthro automaticly adds feral ...

non anthro was never meant to be what you're describing it as. Non anthro as defined preiously was suposed to be, like "a funny chart" or "A papercraft cat"... as well as "a thing that isnt' an animal in it's natural form--like an alien, or a brainmonster.

the problem is, EVERYONE used this to describe feral wolves and dogs and cats ad stuff.

maybe there's a "need" for a tag to describe.. well, whatever this counts as, but I don't know what it is.

*MY* first thought honestly is to go through, and remove feral from all the pokemon and instead tag the anthro/changed pokemon as something (pokemorph? anthro_pokemon?) specific.

SnowWolf said:
the problem is, EVERYONE used this to describe feral wolves and dogs and cats ad stuff.

I KNOW; that is what I am saying. People incorrectly use the non_anthro tag and its leading to the problems as listed above.

I can't make people use the non_anthro correctly. Perhaps you can.. or the other mods can. Perhaps the non_anthro tag needs a reboot and we let it live how its currently used by the general masses and unimplicate feral from it. Or just make non_anthro an invalid tag.

the problem with doing that is.. well, I went through nonanthro the other day... retagged, by hand, about 700 or so pictures that were just 'feral' animals. I was left with about 5 "non anthro" pictures... it's such a misused tag to the score that I don't thin we CAN enforce it.. and i' m not sure we should. nonanthro IS common fur sang for feral critters, after all.

pokémorph has over 3000 uses...

I'm the poster of the post the OP is in such a snit about. Rather thin criticism though.

This is a bit more like it:

ikdind said:
Well, I think the very least is that tags should be in English. I'm not a fan of 1-instance tags. If someone wants to create a new tag, they should add it to a bunch of images, not just 1.

Tagging to me is about adding lightweight metadata, not creating new folders for things and making fussy little hierarchies. There's power in adding tags that are one-offs on the offchance that someone might find them useful: to me it's just fine to have tags out there on the long tail of the power law distribution.
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post #147839

As for other tagging critiquery (solely my opinion, but the reasons I used to change the tags)...

• Seriously, they put "bindle"? I had to look up the meaning there. That seems overly-specific. It's a bag or a sack. I saw someone had already tagged it with sack.

That was me both times. Yes, seriously. "Sack" is a nice general term, but covers lots of different kinds of object. "Bindle" is something very specific, a term for the sack or knotted sheet used by tramps or hobos to carry their possessions. It's good to have both terms, even if one is obscure, since they add intelligible meaning. If one is an obscure term I leave in the more general one of course; searching and helping people out matters.

Widespread ignorance of the meaning of a word is not a good reason to remove a term, and it may help create a set of tags that carry more finely shaded meaning. This is IMO, a good thing: tagging conveys meaning to users as well as strings for searches, and using precise meaning is good.

(ctd.)

• Vote against animated_film. In general we don't tag pictures from animated films as such, else there'd be hundreds, if not thousands, of instances of that tag. Again, if someone wants to add it, add it to more than just 1 image.

I haven't the time right now, but I do hope it'll catch on.

Tagging is also suggestion because other users will read your tags, and if they like the idea of a tag they'll copy and reuse them. This is IMO a feature, some sort of order frequently emerges from this setup, and if it bothers you to put up with a few hundred thousand long tail tags, I for one am not bothered by this in the slightest.

In my head I intended it to be like the established video games tag, following the same slightly formal pattern of terminology for pics that are about video games or their characters in a general sense rather than actually depicting the games themselves.

In this case, the animated film is Hedgehog in the Fog - a Soviet-era short from 1975. But you know that.

• "apparition" to me seems like "ghost", which I don't really see on the image. We can only see the pony's head, but it's in a dense fog/mist. I don't imply a ghost, here, or a figment of the hedgehog's imagination, just a pony being creepily inserted in place of an owl, at an appropriate scale.

Hey ho. An apparition is just something that emerges or appears, in this case looming out of the fog. There's a difference though: an apparition can be physical and mundane, and modern-day imaginings of ghosts aren't really that. YMMV, of course, and I note that you get that the pony is substituted for the (pretty damn creepy) owl of the original.

• Vote against "soviet". Reason: "Tag what you see", and I don't see soviet imagery anywhere. Should we start tagging random stuff as "american", "french", "spanish", et al? It seems like if the intention was to call out the cultural heritage of the stories that inspired this image, they should have also included "american" to cover the mlp.

yeah, this one's pretty tenuous.

Partly a reference to the visual style, but that seemed iffy to me too since the style is pretty unique for that little short anyway. And of course the film is Soviet-era Russian. The two together made it for me, just.

Most things are American in origin here, so that's implicit - much as we don't tag "anthro" or "furry" everywhere, but tag the exceptions. As for tagging other cultures that are related to a pic: well, we do tag those. Should we extend it to the visual style of a piece, or the origin of something referenced? Maybe not, so good call.

Does it meet tag what you see? Well, tenuously. If you know what the film is, i.e. if you understand the reference from the style and execution, that is what you see. It's second-order knowledge, but to me it's referencing "that creepy (1st) Soviet (2nd order) film (2nd order) with the fog (1st order) and the hedgehog (2nd)". And if you like, that's how I see it.

But support for my original argument, if you can call it that, is creaking. Better for me to drop this one.

Apologies for the multiple posts, had to split.

• "frightening" seems to be covered by "nightmare_fuel".

Didn't quite seem nightmare-inducing enough to me for the latter. But I'll pass on that - it's always good to get second opinions, particularly for slightly subjective tags that I think should be kept a bit special.

There's certainly fright happening in there. Kind of a "boo!" thing going on - or a "who?" anyway.

• "looming" strikes me as really borderline. I left it alone, but is there a more common word we can use, instead? If so, perhaps someone can suggest an alias.

"Threatening" or "towering" doesn't seem to quite cover it. "Ominous", heh. I'd go by whatever seems descriptive and might be something that someone might search for (perhaps using a stem and wildcard).

I'm not suggesting an alias, just some synonyms for consideration.

Anomynous said:
Tagging to me is about adding lightweight metadata, not creating new folders for things and making fussy little hierarchies. There's power in adding tags that are one-offs on the offchance that someone might find them useful: to me it's just fine to have tags out there on the long tail of the power law distribution.

Widespread ignorance of the meaning of a word is not a good reason to remove a term, and it may help create a set of tags that carry more finely shaded meaning. This is IMO, a good thing: tagging conveys meaning to users as well as strings for searches, and using precise meaning is good.

These are valid points, and ones I don't often think about and sometimes forget. I tend to favor thinking of long-tail tags as unlikely to be searched for and thus of questionable value, especially if they become misused. The extreme case of this is the 1-instance tag, where I ask myself, "If, after more than 150,000 posts, this is really the only image worthy of this tag, is the tag useful?"

Though I felt compelled by the OP to comment on why I changed the tags that I did, I don't feel strongly enough about "bindle" or "apparition" to get into an extended competition over their use on that particular post, and if they suddenly re-appeared, I would conclude that someone felt more strongly about them than I, and I wouldn't contest it further. To me, that's the real value in "everyone can tag": We can disagree, cast our votes by changing tags, and let the cumulative will of the majority (or at least that of the more interested minority) sort it out.

Though I still think "apparition" as used to describe mundane objects has fallen out of favor, and that people would expect it to describe non-physical or supernatural objects, probably ones with visual clues such as transparency or a glow that might be described as "ethereal".

In the case of animated_film, I understood what you were going for, I just happen to disagree, so I cast a vote against it. I also disagree with the current use of video_games, and would prefer a tag more like "video_game_character", instead. There's a huge amount of momentum behind the use of video_games, though, so I leave it alone. That momentum doesn't exist yet for animated_film, and I like it that way. :) Still, if the will of the majority springs it to life because they consider it useful, I would begrudgingly accept it as I do video_games.

I do feel more strongly that tags should be in English. This site is in English, its members seem to predominantly speak English, and I would assume the majority of us use keyboards with the English character set. So, I think tags using non-English characters should be discouraged similar to the way unicode characters are discouraged (with the exception of ♥ which is aliased from "<3").