SnowWolf said:
Having the my little pony copyright tag means that there are things covered under the 'my little pony' franchise within the image. Not that they are the theme for an image, but that they are part of an image in any form.

I think we're missing something here. Isn't that what I *just said*?

SnowWolf said:
I'm still confused as to what you're even wanting. themes? like.. happy_theme sad_theme? my_little_pony_theme?

I'd like to think I've elaborated on what the idea is well enough, I'm suggesting a tag that identifies if a work is primarily about a particular topic (e.g. my_little_pony), without identifying what's visually present in the image. And I suggested that we change the meaning of copyright tags to do that, because adding a new tag would create tags which are very similar. If it's subjective is no matter, there's other subjective tags.

I think PhrozenFox and people were leading onto all this, I'm just discussing the semantics surrounding the tags, i.e. what do they fundamentally mean, especially considering we can only tag the work itself and not characters in a work, tags attached to a post, or tag definitions themselves.

Copyright tags, artist tags, character tags (and the not-implemented ambiguous tag type) don't carry the same meaning as general tags, or carry additional meaning. The character tags and most general tags imply something's visually present in the image. The rest of the general tags, artist tags, and copyright tags imply a verifiable fact about the work, including the tags it's tagged with, image metadata, etc.

xLuna said:
Indeed, 3 pages and still nothing solved.

Just because there's the potential nothing will be solved, isn't a very good reason to abandon hope. There's good enough reason to believe this will solve a lot of different people's problems, that's good enough to keep exchanging ideas and communication on how we all use the tagging system.
At the very worst I get to learn people's use cases for the website.

ThenIThought said:
I think we're missing something here. Isn't that what I *just said*?

no, you seemed to be suggesting that the copyright tag should be changed so that an image would not have a copyright tag unless the copyright was a substantial part of the image. Thus, that when you search for a copyright tag, you will not find images that only have a reference to them.

I'd like to think I've elaborated on what the idea is well enough,

As I am asking, you have not elaborated clearly enough... for me to feel confident completly that I understand what you're proposing... which is why I asked.

I'm suggesting a tag that identifies if a work is primarily about a particular topic (e.g. my_little_pony), without identifying what's visually present in the image. And I suggested that we change the meaning of copyright tags to do that, because adding a new tag would create tags which are very similar. If it's subjective is no matter, there's other subjective tags.

So... what.. .exactly.. are you suggesting? these are descriptive words, but your'e not telling me what you're proposing.

are you saying that the My_little_pony tag should be used only on images with a high content of My_little_pony images? that rather then create a 'cameo' tag, we should simply remove 'my little pony' from every picture that does not feature my little pony as a primary theme? how do we define primary theme? How d o we determine what is or is not worth having the my_little-pony tag?

More importantly, how is this less work then adding a cameo tag? If we remove the implication of, say, applejack_(mlp) implying my_little_pony, then the end result will be that we have a lot of images that are only of applejack, that do not have my_little_pony on it as a tag, because people will forget to tag my_little_pony. Removing my_little_pony from some images would be almost the same amount of work as adding cameo to the same images.

Only, when adding a new tag, people will ask "what does this tag mean, it is different and new" and will look it up. But when removing a tag, people will continue to use it, and see others are tagging inadaquatly when they don't include the tags they thing should be included on an image. it is easier to add to the collective consiousness then it is to change somethign that already exists.

I think PhrozenFox and people were leading onto all this, I'm just discussing the semantics surrounding the tags, i.e. what do they fundamentally mean, especially considering we can only tag the work itself and not characters in a work, tags attached to a post, or tag definitions themselves.

Copyright tags, artist tags, character tags (and the not-implemented ambiguous tag type) don't carry the same meaning as general tags, or carry additional meaning. The character tags and most general tags imply something's visually present in the image. The rest of the general tags, artist tags, and copyright tags imply a verifiable fact about the work, including the tags it's tagged with, image metadata, etc.

a copyright tag suggests that within an image, there is something of relevance to the franchise in question. It's important to note that the copyright tags do not only cover things like my_little_pony, but also thingslike the furoticon cardgame, or the my_life_with_fel comic series, stuff from gideon's_corral, softpaw, pixiv_fantasia and many, many, many, many others. Copyright tags suggest the presence of some kind of COPYRIGHT about the work. and that copyright exists regardless of if the picture is 100% about the copyright, or if the character in question is just darting in on the corner of the screen. In ways, they are a form of ass-covering for the site. They are not really negotiable, as a whole. Adding the cameo tag is a much better idea then redefining what a copyright tag is used for.

Just because there's the potential nothing will be solved, isn't a very good reason to abandon hope. There's good enough reason to believe this will solve a lot of different people's problems, that's good enough to keep exchanging ideas and communication on how we all use the tagging system.
At the very worst I get to learn people's use cases for the website.

We do encourage ideas and suggestions here. there's jsut a point when an idea would require massive tiers of restructuring that are not realy feasible... not when you consider the number of users that do not visit the forums, that do not read hte news or the wiki, and yet still tag and such anyway. we've instituted some massive tag changes in the past and we have struggled with it. WE struggle even to get people to do things as basic as to tag a picture of two men havings sex with 'male' and 'gay'. :C An idea of this magnitured --assuming I understand you correctly-- would need some very convincing arguements to overpower the status quo.

SnowWolf said:
no, you seemed to be suggesting that the copyright tag should be changed so that an image would not have a copyright tag unless the copyright was a substantial part of the image. Thus, that when you search for a copyright tag, you will not find images that only have a reference to them.

Yeah, I was suggesting it should be changed to that, and I identified what the tag category currently means for comparison. And for the reasons you've identified, the change would be largely un-workable.

I don't see the 'cameo' tag as being any more workable, though. For starters it seems to violate the "don't tag what's not there" corollary. Take for instance how the "no_nipples" tag (iirc) was shot down, even though you might argue "well you can *see* the absence of nipples on a bare breast!" (I actually like this argument, breasts -nipples doesn't really cut it, but whatever.)

The tag by itself isn't tied to any other tag in a search-friendly way, as previous posts have pointed out. I'd describe it like this: If there's any cameo from anything present in the image, all tags could potentially be the cameo. You're left with, instead of inconsistent tagging, indecisive search results. And at least the former case is correctable, the latter case is not. Also in some significant number of cases I'd guess people would be left wondering what in the image 'cameo' is referring to, though this isn't a problem as such, except it's on top of the fact it's slightly subjective.

I prefer specific tags: Maybe we want to decide on a few of the most popular cameos we want to tag, and tag them specifically, i.e. my_litle_pony_(cameo).

I think, alternatively, if there was an "except" tag for blacklists that might work?

my_little_pony (except) anthro

Which would remove any picture except the ones with anthro tag, and we can figure out the best combination ourselves.

Perhaps?

That would solve the problem regarding having to tag everything, but cause extra work for the databasers.

PhrozenFox said:
I think, alternatively, if there was an "except" tag for blacklists that might work?

my_little_pony (except) anthro

Which would remove any picture except the ones with anthro tag, and we can figure out the best combination ourselves.

Perhaps?

That would solve the problem regarding having to tag everything, but cause extra work for the databasers.

You can already do that.

my_little_pony -anthro

on one line will blacklist all posts tagged my_little_pony unless they are also tagged with anthro.

Aside from that, I think cameo, similar to crossover, would be much, much easier to implement. As for it returning results from any franchise making a cameo in the originally blacklisted franchise, there is a way to make it work.

For example:
If you have mlp blacklisted except for cameos (my_little_pony -cameo) then it's true you could have an mlp and tf2 post show up.

But if you don't like tf2 you can have it blacklisted on it's own line so that it won't show regardless.

Or if you don't mind tf2 but don't want to see it with mlp, then have my_little_pony team_fortress_2 on another line.
It might have it's limitations but that's like any tool. This is still beats revising the entire index by tagging "what is considered mostly this franchise or mostly this character."

Rainbow_Crash said:
You can already do that.

my_little_pony -anthro

on one line will blacklist all posts tagged my_little_pony unless they are also tagged with anthro.

Aside from that, I think cameo, similar to crossover, would be much, much easier to implement. As for it returning results from any franchise making a cameo in the originally blacklisted franchise, there is a way to make it work.

For example:
If you have mlp blacklisted except for cameos (my_little_pony -cameo) then it's true you could have an mlp and tf2 post show up.

But if you don't like tf2 you can have it blacklisted on it's own line so that it won't show regardless.

Or if you don't mind tf2 but don't want to see it with mlp, then have my_little_pony team_fortress_2 on another line.
It might have it's limitations but that's like any tool. This is still beats revising the entire index by tagging "what is considered mostly this franchise or mostly this character."

That blacklist combination actually solved my problem, except for the fact that as most people still consider this an anthro only site, nobody sees the need to tag anthro. Agh.

Try
my_little_pony feral -anthro

"feral" should be on the majority of mlp posts (see forum #37771), so add it if it isn't there and should be. Per the wiki, "anthro" should only be tagged if both anthro and feral characters are in the image, so don't add it to every non-feral MLP post (but please do add it where appropriate).

Yes, that takes effort. But it improves the tagging that we're already using, so it helps everyone.