Question: When you see tentacles coming from off-screen in an image, do you think there exists a creature that's controlling them?
Answer 1: Yes, tentacles are a body part that's most likely part of a hidden (off screen) monster character.
Answer 2: No, tentacles are a natural non-character occurance, like wind.

This poll is to get some general input on whether tentacles should count as a character. This is due to inconsistency regarding the handling of disembodied body parts. disembodied_penis currently counts as male character and images with 1 character and disembodied_penis are tagged as duo. However, currently tentacles do not count as character, and images with 1 character and disembodied tentacles need to be tagged as solo.

consider the existence of solo_focus tag

First of all: currently admins clearly stated in the past that correct rule is Answer 2 Polls like that are not the way how things are changed, don't go tagging things like you want or you're going to get banned.

That thing aside I think that current treatment of tentacles is okay. If tentacles are characters then it raises more questions, like:
- How do you count characters? Each tentacle is a single character?
- Characters are tagged with gender tags. What about gender of tentacles? What about sex tags like male/male etc. (Currently tentacle buttfucking a male is not tagged with male/male or female/male.)

...and there are probably more tagging issues connected to tentacles being treated as a character

Edit:

Granberia
Contributor
11 seconds ago

parasprite
Admin
3 seconds ago

FIRST!

I'd like to support having discussion on this, but I wanted to clarify something before there was any confusion.

Currently tentacles do not count as a character for tagging purposes, and are instead treated more like a dildo. This includes things like character count (solo/duo/etc.), gender (regardless of features like penis_tentacles), and gender/gender pairings (e.g., a male getting anally penetrated by penis tentacles doesn't count as male/male). This discussion is something that would affect how tentacles are handled in these cases.

Granberia said:
Edit:
FIRST!

Second :P

Granberia said:
First of all: currently admins clearly stated in the past that correct rule is Answer 2.

Where? Because I looked and I didn't find any discussion about it anywhere.

Polls like that are not the way how things are changed, don't go tagging things like you want or you're going to get banned.

I'm not sure what exactly you're accusing me of.

That thing aside I think that current treatment of tentacles is okay.

And I think it's not ok, because when I search for solo, I don't want to see characters getting ravaged by other creatures. But that's just my opinion.

How do you count characters? Each tentacle is a single character?

You tag based on majority's perspective. Most people would think a group of tentacles are coming from a single tentacle monster, or tentacle trap. Even if the tentacles are coming from different directions, and even if they're of different colors and shapes.

Characters are tagged with gender tags. What about gender of tentacles? What about sex tags like male/male etc. (Currently tentacle buttfucking a male is not tagged with male/male or female/male.)

I don't see why this is an issue. Unless there exists an expert on tentacle monster anatomy, all tentacle monsters should get tagged with ambiguous_gender. If any gender at all.

...and there are probably more tagging issues connected to tentacles being treated as a character

Make post about it when you find them.

Delian said:
I'm not sure what exactly you're accusing me of.

He's saying that no matter how your poll ends the decision is ultimately up to the administration, not you.

And I'm for current tagging rules with tentacles. When there is a visible tentacle monster it is tagged as a creature, but just seeing the tentacles you can't know what is at the other end:

• is it a tentacle monster?
• is it a mutated human with added tentacle limbs?
• is it a plant with vines that look like tentacles?
• is it a toy/machine/magical construct?
• are the tentacles coming from one source or many?

And if you start counting tentacles as a creature, what gender do you tag them? I wouldn't agree with male (except maybe penis tentacles). There'd probably need to be discussion about a potential genderless tag if they became a character as ambiguous_gender doesn't seem to fit (to me) most of the time either.

...on tail of that thought, discussion about a genderless tag might be worth considering in any case - but that's a whole different topic I'm not educated enough to start right now.

The e621 rule is "Tag what you see".

If you only see tentacles, tag it as such.

Nyteshade said:
And I'm for current tagging rules with tentacles. When there is a visible tentacle monster it is tagged as a creature, but just seeing the tentacles you can't know what is at the other end:

• is it a tentacle monster?
• is it a mutated human with added tentacle limbs?
• is it a plant with vines that look like tentacles?
• is it a toy/machine/magical construct?
• are the tentacles coming from one source or many?

These can be handled simple enough with a couple rules:

• "Offscreen"-style tentacles:
• 1 character
• No species
• ambiguous_gender
• Gender might be allowed for penis tentacles and similar tags

However, the issue isn't that the rules would be hard to lay out. The issue is this is a more complex way to handle it, and tends to have differing interpretations even with knowledge of the rules. Whereas treating them like glorified dildos hasn't been shown to increase mistags, but actually decrease it. For instance, here are some areas where we would need to enforce usage:

• Tentacles coming from different directions might easily be interpreted as multiple characters, especially if they are different color, shape, sex, etc. And arguing for keeping this as 1 character won't make sense to a lot of people
• Tentacles made out of plants/machines may be tagged characters by some people, and not others
• "Unnatural tentacles" (tentacles coming out of a pussy/mouth) ending up tagged as a separate character because "tentacles are a character"
• penis_tentacles - insertion or penetration?
• Penis tentacles - Should these be tagged with male/male? What if they barely look like penises, or don't look like penises but are squirting cum?

Even if we write the rules for how they are tagged, these examples all create room for alternate interpretations which need to be patched and handled carefully (more confusing generally means more unpredictable tagging).

By saying "tentacles aren't a character" we create a simple, intuitive guideline that leaves little room for alternate interpretations. For example, if we tell someone who is new to tagging here that "tentacles aren't a character", even without other guidelines they can probably infer that "1 character x tentacles" should be tagged: solo (assuming they know what solo/duo/etc. means), with no gender tag, probably no species, and gender/gender tags probably wouldn't apply either.

genderless tag

I am going to go ahead and speak for the rest of the admins when I say that this one is not likely to ever happen. There have been too many issues in the past with using tags like this, and the meaning is already covered well enough by ambiguous_gender and/or featureless_crotch. The benefits from keeping it simple vastly outweighs the drawbacks of needing to sort out the technicalities between using ambiguous_gender and a genderless tag.

parasprite said:
I am going to go ahead and speak for the rest of the admins when I say that this one is not likely to ever happen. There have been too many issues in the past with using tags like this, and the meaning is already covered well enough by ambiguous_gender and/or featureless_crotch. The benefits from keeping it simple vastly outweighs the drawbacks of needing to sort out the technicalities between using ambiguous_gender and a genderless tag.

Understandable. That's why I said "might" and clarified that I'm not educated enough on the subject to actually push for it. Just the observation of the uninformed as it were.

Delian said:
Where? Because I looked and I didn't find any discussion about it anywhere.

tentacles wiki was written by parasprite.
Besides that it was mentioned on forums few times, for example forum #26840 (Sorry, but forum search is not that great sucks and this is the only one I remember how to find.)
And when I checked forum for tentacles I've seen that you were aware that there are existing rules about tentacles since two admins told you here.

Delian said:
I'm not sure what exactly you're accusing me of.

What NMNY said. Sorry if I was too rude about it.

Delian said:
You tag based on majority's perspective. Most people would think a group of tentacles are coming from a single tentacle monster, or tentacle trap. Even if the tentacles are coming from different directions, and even if they're of different colors and shapes.

What makes you sure that this is majority's perspective? For me different colors and shapes suggests that it's not a single tentacle monster.

Delian said:
I don't see why this is an issue. Unless there exists an expert on tentacle monster anatomy, all tentacle monsters should get tagged with ambiguous_gender. If any gender at all.

This change might be as inconvenient to people using ambiguous_gender tag as it is for you when using solo tag.

I maintain my previous position. The probability of tentacles being attached to a known character, given that tentacles are depicted in the picture, is low. Therefore it would be confusing and generally result in mistagging to tag random tentacles as characters.

What makes you sure that this is majority's perspective? For me different colors and shapes suggests that it's not a single tentacle monster.

Indeed. If they don't look the same, it's heavily implied that there's more than one monster. Which makes tagging the character count rather problematic.

Ideally, for me, tentacles would not be considered a character, but they would also not-not be considered a character.

That might be a little bit confusing, so I'll explain how I see it.

Tentacles aren't really a character. But they aren't really a sex toy either. They exist in a weird category of sorts. So if I had complete control over how things were tagged, I think I would do something like this: images with tentacles would not be given a "number" indicator for the number of characters present.

In other words, a picture of a single character being penetrated with tentacles would be neither solo, nor duo, nor group, but would still be solo_focus. A picture of two characters and some tentacles would (probably) be duo_focus, but not duo or group (or solo for that matter, but I'd think that'd be obvious). And, naturally, three or more characters and some tentacles would be group, because it'd be group with or without tentacles.

Keeping the tentacles as a pseudocharacter solves the issue of having to count them, solves the issue of them coming up in irrelevant searches (as far as I can tell), and solves the issue of needing to give them a gender.

That said, I haven't given that much thought to this idea, so I'm not sure what problems that it could cause. But to me that would be the most useful and intuitive way to deal with tentacles. Just an idea. Feel free to rip it apart if you see giant holes in it.

Nyteshade said:
When there is a visible tentacle monster it is tagged as a creature, but just seeing the tentacles you can't know what is at the other end:

• is it a tentacle monster?
• is it a mutated human with added tentacle limbs?
• is it a plant with vines that look like tentacles?
• is it a toy/machine/magical construct?
• are the tentacles coming from one source or many?

• are the tentacles actually coming from a source?

Perhaps the tentacles are like overly inquisitive caecilians or amphisbaenians , some of which resemble detached penises, and thus aren't attached to anything. Unless the source of the tentacles is in the picture, we really don't have any idea if there is a source in the first place.

And if you start counting tentacles as a creature, what gender do you tag them? I wouldn't agree with male (except maybe penis tentacles).

And that's no guarantee, either. About half of all caecilians and amphisbaenians are female, even if they do look like they escaped from someone's crotch.

Clawdragons said:
In other words, a picture of a single character being penetrated with tentacles would be neither solo, nor duo, nor group, but would still be solo_focus. A picture of two characters and some tentacles would (probably) be duo_focus, but not duo or group (or solo for that matter, but I'd think that'd be obvious).

Solo_focus/duo_focus isn't actually meant to be a replacement for solo/duo/group, but more of a supplement. Those should always be tagged with either duo or group (for solo_focus) or group (for duo_focus). In fact, since duo_focus can't be used for anything else, it actually implies group already (we can't do that for solo_focus unfortunately because some are going to be duo, others will be group).

I'm hesitant to add more of these tags when we still have so much left untagged, but I can't help but wonder if using a tag like female_on_tentacles or female/tentacles might help alleviate some of the limitations we currently have with searching tentacles and help make blacklisting a bit easier.

I haven't worked out the details or anything, just a thought I had.

parasprite said:
Solo_focus/duo_focus isn't actually meant to be a replacement for solo/duo/group, but more of a supplement. Those should always be tagged with either duo or group (for solo_focus) or group (for duo_focus). In fact, since duo_focus can't be used for anything else, it actually implies group already (we can't do that for solo_focus unfortunately because some are going to be duo, others will be group).

Yeah, there are still a few posts left tagged with only solo_focus:

solo_focus -duo -group

(which seem to be a combination of all the types of posts mentioned so far). I was planning on finishing that project the other day but I forgot. ^_^'

parasprite said:
I'm hesitant to add more of these tags when we still have so much left untagged, but I can't help but wonder if using a tag like female_on_tentacles or female/tentacles might help alleviate some of the limitations we currently have with searching tentacles and help make blacklisting a bit easier.

I haven't worked out the details or anything, just a thought I had.

So you're talking about making tentacles it's own 'gender'? That might actually work.

When I search for solo_focus, I would expect to find a 1 character being sexed. However, I absolutely do NOT expect to find characters getting raped when I search for solo. The word solo means "a person who works, acts, or performs alone" or "alone; without a companion or partner". Can someone explain how is it possible for a character that is "alone" to be getting raped? It's simply wrong and illogical.

That said, the one thing I can say for certain is that tentacles count as 1 or more characters.

Parasprite said:

• "Offscreen"-style tentacles:
• ambiguous_gender
• Gender might be allowed for penis tentacles and similar tags

Would it be wrong to simply not add any gender? Does adding a gender actually help in some way? I mean, I'm all for ambiguous_gender, just asking why is it important? Also, penis_tentacles hardly say anything about the tentacle monster's actual gender. So I would still say the creature has ambiguous_gender.

• Tentacles coming from different directions might easily be interpreted as multiple characters, especially if they are different color, shape, sex, etc. And arguing for keeping this as 1 character won't make sense to a lot of people

Has anyone actually done any searches on tentacles? I've searched through 10 pages of tentacles and I couldn't find any images that would indicate there's more than 1 source/controller. And even if there was, the image could still easily be explained with having 1 source/controller. So can someone provide some examples where disembodied tentacles are likely to be more than 1 character?

• Tentacles made out of plants/machines may be tagged characters by some people, and not others

It's 1 controller. But please provide examples if there's something unclear.

• "Unnatural tentacles" (tentacles coming out of a pussy/mouth) ending up tagged as a separate character because "tentacles are a character"

Well, they are. The tentacle monster being inside the character. This should get tagged with parasite.

• penis_tentacles - insertion or penetration?

Since they're alive and no one is holding them and inserting them into an orifice, penetration seems logical. I know what you're going to say. Yes, there are images where someone is actually holding the tentacles and inserting them, but that doesn't mean the tentacles cannot move on their own. It's same when character A is holding a penis of character B and inserting it into character C. It's still penetration.

• Penis tentacles - Should these be tagged with male/male? What if they barely look like penises, or don't look like penises but are squirting cum?

Even if the tentacle creature has penis_tentacles, it's still ambiguous_gender. male/male is where two distinctly male characters are having sex. As answered above, penis_tentacles hardly say anything about the tentacle monster's actual gender.

By saying "tentacles aren't a character" we create a simple, intuitive guideline that leaves little room for alternate interpretations.

Simple, yes. Intuitive, no. There's a big difference between dildos and tentacles. Tentacles can rape you. Dildos can not.

Granberia said:
I've seen that you were aware that there are existing rules about tentacles since two admins told you here.

I see you found the post where I first noticed the inconsistency regarding tentacles. Look, I already know what the current rules regarding tentacles are. I'm asking to see how these rules came to be. What sort of twisted logic led to the formation of these rules.

What makes you sure that this is majority's perspective? For me different colors and shapes suggests that it's not a single tentacle monster.

Well, find me these "multi character tentacles" posts so we can have a look at them :)

This change might be as inconvenient to people using ambiguous_gender tag as it is for you when using solo tag.

Umm, how exactly are people using ambiguous_gender? I highly doubt they're using it as a standalone search tag.

savageorange said:
The probability of tentacles being attached to a known character, given that tentacles are depicted in the picture, is low. Therefore it would be confusing and generally result in mistagging to tag random tentacles as characters.

The probability of disembodied tentacles being attached to a character (being known or not does not matter) is exactly the same as the probability of disembodied_penis being attached to a character. But do elaborate on the "confusing" and "mistagging" part. Why do you think handling tentacles as characters would be any more confusing than and causing more mistagging than there currently is? Since we have a rule "if you see tentacle monster's main body on the picture, then you tag it as a character, and if you don't see it, then it doesn't count as a character", not needing this rule anymore would make tagging more simple (less confusing). But that's just my opinion.

Clawdragons said:
images with tentacles would not be given a "number" indicator for the number of characters present.

Well, that's one solution. But we could just as easily tag all the tentacles posts as group, and it would be pretty much the same. The problem with your solution is that, it would make character count tags (solo, duo, group) more inconsistent this way. Sometimes they would return certain characters, sometimes they wouldn't. It would basically just create an exeption where solo/duo/group doesn't work if the post contains tentacles. And as parasprite said, solo_focus is an augmentation tag, that describes a bit more detail, but not a basic tag like solo/duo/group. The tag you're looking for is "partially visible character", whereas solo/duo/group count includes the "partially visible characters" and solo_focus/duo_focus does not.

parasprite said:
I'm hesitant to add more of these tags when we still have so much left untagged, but I can't help but wonder if using a tag like female_on_tentacles or female/tentacles might help alleviate some of the limitations we currently have with searching tentacles and help make blacklisting a bit easier.

It's something we could consider. I mean, usually the users who search for male or female don't wish to see tentacles having this gender, so as long as tentacles don't count as male and female, it's fine. I don't see any problems giving tentacles a tentacles gender. But I think this is something that should be discussed a bit later.

Delian said:
It's something we could consider. I mean, usually the users who search for male or female don't wish to see tentacles having this gender, so as long as tentacles don't count as male and female, it's fine. I don't see any problems giving tentacles a tentacles gender. But I think this is something that should be discussed a bit later.

as in "female character having sex with tentacles" not "the tentacles are female".

I know. I agree with you.

parasprite said:
female/tentacles as in "female character having sex with tentacles" not "the tentacles are female".

So the idea is to have the tag list for let's say this post...
post #636303
include the tags: female, tentacles, solo and something like female/tentacles or female_on_tentacles?

I do see that helping people who want to blacklist posts with either characters having sex with tentacles (as above) or characters who just happen to have tentacles (an octopus, etc) but not both as blacklisting only the tentacles tag would.

Delian said:
I know. I agree with you.

Oh, well that's alright then. :P

DragonFox69 said:
So the idea is to have the tag list for let's say this post...
post #636303
include the tags: female, tentacles, solo and something like female/tentacles or female_on_tentacles?

I do see that helping people who want to blacklist posts with either characters having sex with tentacles (as above) or characters who just happen to have tentacles (an octopus, etc) but not both as blacklisting only the tentacles tag would.

Pretty much. Entries like solo male tentacles rating:e -multiple_images work for a good chunk of posts, but it's extremely difficult to exclude

post #623465 post #560329 post #188592 post #470433 post #66503

While allowing

post #619330 post #590058 post #630508

Tags like male/tentacles could function as a pseudo "gay because tentacles" tag without having to dump them into male/male or rely as much on other things (solo, male/female, etc.) being tagged correctly.

Option 2: Tentacles are like the wind.

Just like the wind, they'll get right under loose clothing.

I say don't fix what isn't broken. There's no need to throw in extra tags for something that functions fine the way it is. People who want to search for solos without tentacles can simply add -tentacles to their searches.

Functions fine? Isn't broken? wow, I completely forgot why I made this thread.

And what sort of argument is that? "Add extra parameters to your search so that it can work correctly". Doesn't this acknowledge that it is, in fact, broken and not fine?

Nonfunctional in your opinion isn't Nonfunctional for everybody else.

And the ability to exclude search terms is there for a reason as well.

NotMeNotYou said:
Nonfunctional in your opinion isn't Nonfunctional for everybody else.

Just because it's "functional" doesn't mean it works perfectly. The site is fully "functional" even without any tags on any posts, because people can just go to the Posts section and look through posts one by one.

And the ability to exclude search terms is there for a reason as well.

Yes, the problem is solvable in that way but, you're not looking at the big picture. The big picture being, that this site will be here for many years to come, while the current system regarding tentacles is inconsistent and confusing for both the taggers and the searchers (I can prove this through logical arguments). Thus, it's not optimal, and that's the whole point of this thread.

Delian said:
Yes, the problem is solvable in that way but, you're not looking at the big picture. The big picture being, that this site will be here for many years to come, while the current system regarding tentacles is inconsistent and confusing for both the taggers and the searchers (I can prove this through logical arguments). Thus, it's not optimal, and that's the whole point of this thread.

Please do the logical argument thing because your current reason for making this thread is

Delian said:
[...]However, I absolutely do NOT expect to find characters getting raped when I search for solo.[...]

You also seem to be the only person in this thread who is confused by the current rules on tentacles, so there should be additional incentive for you to better explain your position past "I see tentacle dicks as a character", as we struggle to see the problem you're seeing.

However, I'm not against a change, as so often Parasprite raises good points, but your approach to treat them as a character has currently no appeal whatsoever in comparison to the other options presented.

And just because I find it funny:

Delian said:
You tag based on majority's perspective. Most people would think a group of tentacles are coming from a single tentacle monster, or tentacle trap. Even if the tentacles are coming from different directions, and even if they're of different colors and shapes.

Where is your majority?
It's certainly not found in this thread.