Topic: Advanced Policy Discussions: Implicative/Conjunctive/Redundant/Mutually-exclusive tag usage [mouseover for simple title]

Posted under Tag/Wiki Projects and Questions

titanmelon

Former Staff

AKA: 1. Tagging things not there, 2. Using 2+ tags to replace 1 tag, 3. Using 'redundant' tags, 4. Assuming only 1 tag from a related set is applicable

[incomplete]

-> If you noticed I haven't included one of your points in the listed pros/cons/examples/other, please DMail me about it (be sure to link to the message/s!)

-> If you have any feedback/suggestions for additional topics/readability improvements/other, please DMail me about them!


Ok this isn't completed, but might as well bring these up in one place while I'm at it in the hopes it'll generate positive discussion and we can come to a useful conclusion about this

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It seems some [citation needed] members are of the opinion:

  • 2. Using multiple tags are an adequate replacement, or even better in a situation where one tag can be made
    • eg. [too many to list right now without going through a bunch of forum posts, TBU]
    • forum #183087 - Tag Alias: clothed_female_nude_male -> cfnm (Feb. 2016)
  • 4. Posts only require at most 1 tag from a set of similar tags to accurately identify the theme of the tag
    • e.g. only tagging one breast size, only one physical age description (young OR adult OR old etc.
    • Somewhat of an interesting case - semi-anthro, which is used for characters that display both 'anthro' and 'feral' qualities

Why?

Further Reading (my posts from elsewhere)
Key
#1 = Implicative tagging (tagging things not there)
#2 = Conjunctive tagging (using 2 or more tags as a substitute for 1 tag.
#3 = Redundant tagging (tagging things that are 'common' to a majority of posts on the site)
  • #2: Conjunctive tagging: blacklisting issues
    • ??? [i'll add the link when i find the post]
  • #2: Conjunctive tagging - forum #187913 (lower down in this thread) - Some Pros and Cons of both cases, with additions from others
  • #2: forum #187919 (lower down in this thread) - An example of using both conjunctive and non conjunctive searches, with results for each case 
Discussions taking/that took place elsewhere (others' posts)
Key
#1 = Implicative tagging (tagging things not there)
#2 = Conjunctive tagging (using 2 or more tags as a substitute for 1 tag.
#3 = Redundant tagging (tagging things that are 'common' to a majority of posts on the site)
  • #2: forum #213642 - Tag idea: furry male/ human female and human male/ furry female (Nov. 2016)
  • #2: forum #210825 - Regarding "open_[garment]" tags (Oct. 2016)
  • #2:  p.forum #199542 - tagging character interaction
  • #2: forum #183087 - Tag Alias: clothed_female_nude_male -> cfnm (Feb. 2016)
  • #2:  forum #182665 - Tag suggestion 2 of 2 (maybe 3): The big suggestion - Implied Species+gender tags (Feb. 2016)
  • #2 forum #164296 - Tag Implication: oppai_loli -> loli (Jul. 2015)
  • #2: forum #141490 - Tag Alias: adult -> invalid_tag (Oct. 2014)
#3 forum #206274 - Should humans get anatomically correct if they have a humanoid penis? (Aug. 2016)
  • #3: 'Redundant' tagging - forum #181559 - white sclera addition? (Jan. 2016)
  • #3: forum #141490 - Tag Alias: adult -> invalid_tag (Oct. 2014)

      

      
  
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titanmelon

        Former Staff
      

      

        

      

      

        
      

    

    

      

        
1. Implicative: Tagging things not present in a scene
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I found an excellent post by furrypickle which sums this up well: forum #81850 (emphasis mine)
No, those tags are actually very useful. It's not the same as tagging something off-screen. These tags are only for instances where the area is completely visible, but the expected part is nowhere to be found. That IS remarkable, unusual, and should be tagged. And it is TWYS. You see a lack of nipples where they normally would be, that's a visible feature. Tagging really shouldn't run off of common assumptions anyways, because you may not need the tag to identify what you're looking at, but it still turns out useful for searching and blacklisting.
If something is reasonably expected to be included, then the fact it's missing is abnormal, unique, and should probably be tagged. No_dragon would make no sense because you can't reasonably expect one to always be there. But no_nipples IS unique because most of the time they are present and expected to be there, both in real life and in art. 
If you want to argue about the theory of expectations and what's worth tagging, then it could be argued that it makes more sense to tag when they're missing than it does to tag when they're there, because missing nipples is the exception. Actually drawn nipples is far less remarkable and easier to make an assumption about. Not that tags should be about assumptions. 
The tag is also important because for some people it is an important feature. I personally find a complete lack of nipples on a chest or breasts to be mildly disturbing. Not quite blacklist level, but I have considered it. Some people find a lack of genitals disturbing, and aren't nearly as reluctant to blacklist things as I am. But removing the tag breaks people's ability to avoid it or blacklist it, which is a pointless headache. Also, by your logic: armless, eyeless, legless, headless, faceless, faceless_male, and every other noticeable lack of something you normally expect to be automatically included would have to go as well. Even topless and bottomless would have to be axed, because why tag a lack of clothes? shouldn't you only tag if clothing is present? 
But I think that these are all are useful tags when something isn't there that should be. Or when the lack of it is useful, like bottomless and topless are useful for searching. 
Bottom line: when something is reasonably expected to be automatically included, and it's missing, then it should have a tag. Most pictures don't need it, but these tags exist for exceptions that do need it. I don't think it's a good idea to collapse them when they serve a purpose. 
This line of logic also assumes that all tagging is complete, so that just searching -nipples would replace the need for a no_nipples tag. In reality -nipples will get mostly pictures where nipples weren't tagged but are visible (incomplete tagging), or there was no place for a nipple to even be expected to show up. So therefore, no_nipples serves an actual purpose different than -nipples. Getting rid of these tags is just ill-thought through.
Now, I'm not saying that we should go around tagging every single image with no_sound, or every single feral snake with no hands, because that defeats the purpose of the tag [citation needed], which is:
Ensuring that atypical situations, scenes or features can be easily found or identified
'Atypical' in this case is defined as 'something which is normally present, or expected to be present'
egs. are:
  • A dog or cat with no tail, (sans tailless breeds)
  • A human with no hands, feet, head, eyes, or any other physical, culturally-'standard' features
  • A furred animal without fur (squirrel, fox)
  • A mammal, or similar species/clade that reproduces sexually, having no external genitalia (human, dog, cat, bird)
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Some purposes for tagging atypical situations:
  • Use with combinative tag searching (see 2. Using multiple tags are adequate, or even better in a situation where one tag can be made)
  • Blacklisting (blacklisting an atypical situation becomes implausible - impossible if said atypical situation is not identified somehow
  • Disambiguation where instances of the scenario and its converse are both present (eg a character with hands, and character with no hands. Both are normally expected to have hands (eg human)
[more on this later with links]

      

      
  
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titanmelon

        Former Staff
      

      

        

      

      

        
      

    

    

      

        
2. Conjunctive Tagging - Using 2>= EXISTING tags as a substitute for 1 NEW combined tag (eg. male/female)
 
  • 1. Post by Genjar (lower down on this page) that (imo) accurately sums up reasons for this very well:
forum #187714
Genjar said:
Because searching for tag combos works well enough, compared to the alternative. Overabundance of tags has resulted in the current mess where nobody has time to actually tag the things that should be tagged. Most of the trivial tags aren't even tagged for 1% of posts that should have them; users just keep adding more and more, and never bother to tag them to more than a handful of posts.
Seriously, we should focus on tagging the basics first. Literally tens of thousands of posts are missing essential tags such as species and genders, and it's getting worse by the minute.
Trying to solve undertagging by adding more tags is not the best of the ideas.
  • 3. Here's a post by (a rather upset) someone else about one of the issues with non-conjunctive tagging I highlighted earlier:
- Blacklisting content relies on other site members to tag the content you're blaclisting (scat, gore, rape, cub, diaper, m/f, young, whatever).
This concerns the blacklisting pitfalls of not using conjunctive tags for specific things
(perceived or otherwise; again, if you know of a better working solution to this, here's the place to say)
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forum #185933 (emphasis mine)
whatthefuckerver said:
So ive seen multiple times on this site admins telling people "If you don't like something then black list it" Which is fine, if you don't want to see something nasty like scat there is no reason to complain because you can block it but not when shit isn't tagged right on this site.
I don't want to see all this disgusting pedophile shit but half of it isn't tagged "young" so it shows up on the page. Its absolutely fucking disgusting and borderline illegal and I don't want it on my computer.
https://e621.net/post/show/842982/2013-black_and_white-black_eyes-claws-digital_medi
So if you don't want people writing comments tag your content right or don't complain about black listing.
INB4 "Just tag it your self" DERR I never thought of that! Then that would mean 1. Its not being tagged right in the first place and im seeing it anyway 2. I would have to go in and click on it further exposing myself to this sick shit
  • 4. And a reply by Ratte to the above which seems like a very valid summary of the general replies to statements like that:
forum #185961 - see link for full context
If the uploaders are abiding by the 4-tag minimum and the tags are valid, there is not really anything we can do about it. Tags aren't added automatically and to assume that absolutely every tag relevant to an image will be added right on the first attempt is pretty silly.
[..]

      

      
  
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titanmelon

        Former Staff
      

      

        

      

      

        
      

    

    

      

        
3. 'Redundant' Tagging - Tagging things that are 'redundant' or 'too common' on posts
 forum #141490 - An interesting post by furrypickle about some pitfalls of redundant tagging
(Emphasis mine)
furrypickle said:
[..]
For what it's worth, I do agree with you that some tags have been aliased away a little too hastily. But that is true of any alias or implication proposal: if the right person doesn't speak up, then something can get overlooked. And then, eventually find out the hard way why that alias or implication wouldn't work. And then we fix it (assuming the mods are willing). But that's just hazards of the job. It means people need to clearly bring up the points that they see, and not assume other people will see it automatically or use sarcasm/"satire" to obscure the point when they're making it.
The adult tag has numerous problems with it as is, content can be found in other ways without it, and the benefits of the tag are limited and already covered by other tags. Your main arguments (the ones that seemed serious-ish) seem to be centered around thoroughness and a more-tags-the-better outlook. But functionally duplicate tags actually hurt search-ability by splitting similar content into separate piles when most people will only check one of them. It's also human nature to look at a trait, tag it once, and then move on feeling that it is tagged/handled/done. So we can get practical levels of thoroughness by making sure everything is possible to find in one way or another, but this doesn't mean keeping every tag. Thoughtfully pruning the tag system is necessary to make it more functional. 
I think snipping the adult tag is one of these cases. Anything "adult" can be found searching -young -old and anything that was young + another age group can be found searching young age_difference. I don't see anything to be gained from fixing and keeping the tag though. Fact is: age is usually drawn ambiguously unless they're going for either extreme in age (young or old) so anything from older teenagers to mid-thirties often looks the same. Age traits can actually vary from one panel to another in a comic depending on how well the artist is at drawing consistently. Age can often be interpreted or debated whether that looks like a 16 year old anthro rabbit or a college aged anthro rabbit, etc. If we kept the adult tag, then those images could easily switch from one tag group to the other from time to time, making it inconsistent which search someone would need to run in order to find it. At least if a searcher is using age_difference then if the age difference is enough to be noticeable, it won't matter that some people think the image looks like an older teenager and others think it looks like a college student. The search required to find it wouldn't change no matter which way people decide to interpret the age being depicted. So using age_difference to find those images instead of "adult" might be a more stable search in the long run.

      

      
  
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titanmelon

        Former Staff
      

      

        

      

      

        
      

    

    

      

        
[Reserved for Case 4]
I'll update the second one soonish eventually, as well as add more relevant forum links to the OP
(Discussion: [color=LimeGreen]OPEN[/color])

      

      
  
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Genjar

        Former Staff
      

      

        

      

      

        
      

    

    

      

        
titanmelon said:
Why?
Because searching for tag combos works well enough, compared to the alternative. Overabundance of tags has resulted in the current mess where nobody has time to actually tag the things that should be tagged. Most of the trivial tags aren't even tagged for 1% of posts that should have them; users just keep adding more and more, and never bother to tag them to more than a handful of posts.
Seriously, we should focus on tagging the basics first. Literally tens of thousands of posts are missing essential tags such as species and genders, and it's getting worse by the minute.
Trying to solve undertagging by adding more tags is not the best of the ideas.

      

      
  
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titanmelon

        Former Staff
      

      

        

      

      

        
      

    

    

      

        
Genjar said:
Things
Hmm, those are all really good points, and I suspect they're gonna be the biggest (sensible) reasons for not doing the stuff in the OP (without alterations at least)
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I do have doubts though, 
Is having more specific tags for things, that ARE being used/tagged regularly worse than, or is the cause of, or [some other reasoning] people not tagging basic ones?
Seems kinda unfair, especially since implications can, and do take care of the most basic ones already
So bottom line about that is:
  • Will adding new, more specific tags that people can use to more easily find obscure things (or find them at all in some cases) do more harm than good? 
  • Will preventing/limiting new tags in demand solve/mitigate the issue of basic tags not being tagged on posts as often as they should be?
  • Is there some limit, physical or otherwise to the tag system?
    • Will anything break if, say, we have a post with 100 tags? What about 250? 500? 1000? 1000+?
It's important to make a distinction between these types of things, otherwise we may end up doing more harm than good in the long run with regards to user satisfaction/accessibility, etc.
i.e 'What's the point of using the site if I can't even find [specific fetish/pairing/scenario] in a timely manner?' x [at least 50% of number of users on the site]
In the worst case, I fear this may be a long-running issue that people aren't even aware of (they accept the difficulty of finding specific content because there's no known easier way)

      

      
  
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Genjar

        Former Staff
      

      

        

      

      

        
      

    

    

      

        
titanmelon said:
  • Will adding new, more specific tags that people can use to more easily find obscure things (or find them at all in some cases) do more harm than good? 
Depends. 
If it's actually something that is needed, and not just added because it can be tagged? Those are okay.
But adding tags that nobody is likely to search for, or tags that are just -already_existing_tag is self-defeating. As is adding ones that can be easily replicated by searching for combos.
One of the reasons why tag clutter is problematic is because it makes it difficult to actually find the tags you're looking for. Especially when some have less than intuitive names. Such as that featureless_breasts tag: easy to miss, even though it's tagged for 1500+ posts. The amount of tags is overwhelming, especially to the newer users. 
There's currently about 60000 general tags. At least half of those are typos or redundant. So it's clear that we can't keep up with the current workload.
As I've said before, I'd be great if we could see what the users actually search for. That'd make it much easier to figure out which ones should be pruned, and which should be split into subtags. 
Will preventing/limiting new tags in demand solve/mitigate the issue of basic tags not being tagged on posts as often as they should be?
Not really. We already have so many tags that even if we completely stopped adding new ones, it'd still take a decade or longer to tag and sort the old ones.
titanmelon said:
Is there some limit, physical or otherwise to the tag system?
Will anything break if, say, we have a post with 100 tags? What about 250? 500? 1000? 1000+?
There's probably no hard limit on a single post, but databases don't have unlimited capacity. Considering how much there, I'm surprised that the e621 servers run as smoothly as they do. But I've definitely noticed that some things are gradually slowing down. Especially the tag history searches.

      

      
  
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treos

        Blocked
      

      

        

      

      

        
      

    

    

      

        
Genjar said:
There's currently about 60000 general tags. At least half of those are typos and redundant tags. So it's clear that we can't keep up with the current workload.
much as i enjoy helping with tagging issues (or directing questions related to them to parasprite as my go-to admin for such things), that might be pushing things quite a bit far... that said, if there happens to be a list then i guess i could at least knock off some of the lower population tags that wind up being redundant.
lol 60k+ tags...i bet the servers just love dealing with that mess.
edit: make that 60,001 (commas for big numbers make them easier to read ;)) as i just saw a new one on a vulpix pic: multi-tailed

      

      
  
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Genjar

        Former Staff
      

      

        

      

      

        
      

    

    

      

        
treos said:
much as i enjoy helping with tagging issues (or directing questions related to them to parasprite as my go-to admin for such things), that might be pushing things quite a bit far... that said, if there happens to be a list then i guess i could at least knock off some of the lower population tags that wind up being redundant.
The master tag list can be used for that: https://e621.net/tag?name=&order=count&page=900&type=0
fishenet, handsome_squidward, pussye, moonities, azure_coyote, tapered_length, ipskirt, all_the_way, somesong, shiney_skin, smug_smile, thightastic, nedial_ring... 
And that's just from a single page. Some of those are likely artists or characters that need to be moved into the correct category.
Just pick a random page after 500, and you're sure to find a lot of things to fix.

      

      
  
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treos

        Blocked
      

      

        

      

      

        
      

    

    

      

        
Genjar said:
The master tag list can be used for that: https://e621.net/tag?name=&order=count&page=900&type=0
fishenet, handsome_squidward, pussye, moonities, azure_coyote, tapered_length, ipskirt, all_the_way, somesong, shiney_skin, smug_smile, thightastic, nedial_ring... 
And that's just from a single page. Some of those are likely artists or characters that need to be moved into the correct category.
Just pick a random page after 500, and you're sure to find a lot of things to fix.
i just went and skipped to the last page and sure enough, changed a tag type for a character then for an artist and there was one SUPER long tag that has already been cleared (the word nigger repeating over and over with no spaces). it's almost up to 1200 pages on that list, that's crazy.
edit: *facepalm* i don't even know how to approach these on post #75911. "yaps yip_(muppets) yip_yip yip_yips" wtf? i haven't seen ANY show remotely related to sesame street since i was a baby.
edit2: looking at this one page of tags alone. it's no wonder we see countless error messages on a daily basis and that the site loads so slowly. heck, just the other night i had to check e621 on "is it down right now":www.isitdownrightnow.com and it showed the entire site down twice for a few minutes each time.
oh, heres a good one. wiskar, a renamon character who looks exactly like a normal unedited renamon in every way.

      

      
  
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DragonFox69

        Privileged
      

      

        

      

      

        
      

    

    

      

        
The way I look at it is that the best set-up is for every post to have as many valid tags as possible to make posts as easy to search for as they can be.
Some searches using basic tags such as renamon solo rating:explicit will return a huge number of posts. However, if you know there was a bottle of wine in the picture and add that to your search renamon solo rating:explicit wine you will recieve only one result, the one you were looking for.
I know that was a very contrived example so I'll elaborate a little:
Having as many tags as possible on every post will help users find any specific post they want easier. If you remember that the post you're looking for just happened to have, say, a pencil lying around on the floor then adding it to your search will greatly increase your chances of finding the post easily (if it is tagged, of course).
All that being said, there is no point in a post having hundreds of tags if the most important tags are missing. Adding them should definitely be the priority but other, more tailored tags, shouldn't be written off.
The way I look at it is with a tagging tier system:
Tier 1: (The most basic tags that every post should have.)
Artist, copyright, species, gender, character count, etc.
Tier 2: (Things people would want to either search for or blacklist)
Positions, locations, actions, fetishes, items in use (sex toys, etc), etc.
Tier 3: (Things to help pinpoint specific posts)
Items not in use (just lying around), expressions, icons, materials, specific types of clothing, background elements (water, vines, clouds, etc), etc.
To me, all these tags are important in their own way to make the site as user friendly as possible, but the priority should always be to start from T1, then T2, and finally T3, as T2 and especially T3 are all but useless without T1.

      

      
  
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treos

        Blocked
      

      

        

      

      

        
      

    

    

      

        
DragonFox69 said:
stuff
one problem with such a plan. see the tag list from a few pages before that one all the way to the last page for the problem and what such a system might be adding to.
if your "tag tier" system were used and happened to start resulting in countless more low count tags then it may wind up doing more harm than good on top of the preexisting mess. in particular, tier 3. theres barely any point to such tagging as it is from what i can tell.
i know the rule is tag what you see but is it really necessary or needed to tag every single insignificant detail of a pic?
hmmm...
Genjar said:
Just pick a random page after 500, and you're sure to find a lot of things to fix.
more like any page after 193 as that's where the tag count drops to 9. that's over 900 pages of rarely ever used tags. and it's another 97 pages back before anything is common enough to be used 50 or more times.
so yeah, tier 2 as a maybe, tier 3...why?

      

      
  
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DragonFox69

        Privileged
      

      

        

      

      

        
      

    

    

      

        
treos said:
one problem with such a plan. see the tag list from a few pages before that one all the way to the last page for the problem and what such a system might be adding to.
if your "tag tier" system were used and happened to start resulting in countless more low count tags then it may wind up doing more harm than good on top of the preexisting mess. in particular, tier 3. theres barely any point to such tagging as it is from what i can tell.
i know the rule is tag what you see but is it really necessary or needed to tag every single insignificant detail of a pic?
hmmm...
more like any page after 193 as that's where the tag count drops to 9. that's over 900 pages of rarely ever used tags. and it's another 97 pages back before anything is common enough to be used 50 or more times.
so yeah, tier 2 as a maybe, tier 3...why?
Well, working off the examples I gave above some tags could be in either T2 or T3 depending on context. Sex toys, for example could be in use or just lying around, but I feel it's more important to tag them if they are being used rather than lying on a bed, etc.
For other T3 tags, like specific types of clothing, many of these tags already have hundreds (and even thousands) of posts:
gloves: 23292 posts.
shoes: 5642 posts.
baseball_cap: 604 posts.
I'm not suggesting adding more tags, I'm just saying we could make use of the tags we already have more effectively. I'm sure I'm safe to say (I'm happy to be corrected on this though) that many of the tags with almost no posts that you are talking about could actually be valid on hundreds of posts, they just haven't been tagged.

      

      
  
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Circeus

        Blocked
      

      

        

      

      

        
      

    

    

      

        
FWIW, I have good visual memory and I can usually narrow to a page or two of pics with 3 or four tags, IF the tags are in use.
I can think of several pics I've uploaded that no_visible_genitalia could help find because they involve full-on sex, but, yet no pussy or penis or even balls.
Amusingly enough, no hands/feet is currently covered by featureless_arm/_leg/_limb (which I created originally for animal crossing-like designs).

      

      
  
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Lance Armstrong

        Janitor
      

      

        

      

      

        
      

    

    

      

        
featureless_crotch, no_sound, etc are useful tags. Don't let the ideal ruin the useful by removing them.

      

      
  
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hslugs

        Member
      

      

        

      

      

        
      

    

    

      

        
titanmelon said:
Tagging things not present in a scene
It's not always the case with negative tags.
Sometimes it's something that is present in the scene, but we have no positive word to describe it.
Featureless chest. Tailless (as opposed to no tail visible, which should not be tagged). The one I stumbled upon recently: no_sclera. It does not mean there's no sclera in the scene, it means a certain type of eye structure. Maybe there's even a proper Latin word for that, who knows.

      

      
  
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Genjar

        Former Staff
      

      

        

      

      

        
      

    

    

      

        
Lance_Armstrong said:
featureless_crotch, no_sound, etc are useful tags. Don't let the ideal ruin the useful by removing them.
I don't think anyone ever opposed the usage of featureless_crotch. It's the tag we came up with to replace no_pussy/no_penis, which weren't viable for various reasons. Featureless_*, on the other hand, is something that can be seen, and therefore tagged.
hslugs said: 
The one I stumbled upon recently: no_sclera. It does not mean there's no sclera in the scene, it means a certain type of eye structure.
Should probably be renamed to something like scleraless_eyes. Otherwise it's bound to get tagged for posts where eyes aren't even visible (or are closed). ...because those have no sclera either, and some taggers take things too literally.

      

      
  
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titanmelon

        Former Staff
      

      

        

      

      

        
      

    

    

      

        
[Reserved for short version of below post] + replies

      

      
  
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titanmelon

        Former Staff
      

      

        

      

      

        
      

    

    

      

        
2. Conjunctive tagging
Can't respond to anything atm, but those are all good points
(No short version this time, sorry!)
-

Note: Once again, this is not an argument for or against any of the above, simply observations based on what is being said 
--
A recent example of the second case is in forum #183087 - Tag Alias: clothed_female_nude_male -> cfnm 
I calculated most of the possible tag combinations for those and listed it on the clothed/nude wiki:
With respect to the following points*:
1. You can use a conjunctive search to find the same content, assuming the constituent tags are reasonably/accurately populated
+ Much less overall tags needed (as much as 16 in this case, not counting the specific intersex genders, and body type combinations such as anthro, feral etc.
+ Less cleanup/tagging projects needed due to people misusing it/not knowing about the tag at all
+ Encourages tagging of the more general tags, which serves a dual purpose of:
  • Ensuring basic searches work (see below)
  • Allowing conjunctive searches to be done with more accuracy
- Requires much more tags, especilly the more specific the criteria.
These extra tags take up query space (for Members, that's a max of 6 tags total to search with), which can be very limiting, and posts that could've been found with a single specific tag + auxilliary (unrelated) tags, may not work
- Blacklisting content relies on other site members to tag the content you're blaclisting (scat, gore, rape, cub, diaper, m/f, young, whatever).
When they don't, you have a couple options, in order of effort required (none are mutually exclusive):
a. Complain about it - Usually doesn't end well because the problem still exists, and nobody likes being told what to do
b. Tag it in yourself - The most useful choice, but it also means you have to tag content you blacklisted in the first place.
Which seems a bit..counter-intuitive.
See forum #189542 for a real case of this
c. Bring it up on the forums - That's this post! Let's see what happens
- The more specific the search, the longer it's going to take to find relevant posts, especially if the individual tags used are highly-populated
----
2. You can use a single, more specific tag combination to do the search:
  • clothed_female_nude_male or clothed_male_nude_female = clothed/nude male female
+ Much easier to find relevant content, especially the more niche it is
+ Works much better with blacklisting, since you can just add * -[specific_tag] to the blacklist, and not have to worry about other members forgetting to tag the more general ones, and breaking the blacklist
(i.e more like a whitelist, rather than a blacklist
- Without an established limit of some kind, there exists a risk of members adding pretty much any number of combinations.
Here's a couple extreme hypothetical examples from one of my other posts like these:
(some inspiration from Wodahseht's post: forum #187916
See forum #187920
- As Genjar hinted about in one of the above posts, this may encourage members to only add specific tags, and neglect the more general ones, which are much more vital to the overall function of the search system
Wodahseht also said, "The more specialized tags you have, the less likely complete tagging will occur."
Which sums that up well
-"My logic is this: there is already a way to get nearly the same result using tags that are already fairly extensively tagged. It doesn't get the exact result this tag gives, but that tag won't give the full wanted results anyway until a massive amount of tagging gets done. " - Wodahseht 
- Introduces entire sets of additional tags (at least 16 for this case, not counting the more specific intersex tags, or animal_humanoids, or body types like anthro, feral, etc.)
- If the implications aren't applicable, there's a greater risk of the more basic tags being forgotten/untagged. Which can break the search system and blacklists in some cases
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titanmelon

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Moved to another post because I ran out of space (yeah that's a thing)
Let's use the clothed_female_nude_male tag as an example:
A conjunctive search would look something like:
clothed/nude female male
Assuming clothed/nude is tagged correctly, this gives results for:
Which can include:
  • female clothed, male nude, other non-female/male characters may be present. clothed/nude state unknown
  • male clothed, female nude, other non-female/male characters may be present. clothed/nude state unknown
  • female nude, male clothed (if >1 females and males are present), non-female/male characters may be present. clothed/nude state unknown
This includes all of the following cases as well:
  • male clothed, non-female nude but female present
  • female clothed, non-male nude but male present
  • non-male or non-female either clothed or nude but male/female present
  • other
----
The corresponding specific tags includes all of the following cases,
clothed_female_nude_male:
  • female clothed, male nude, other non-female/male characters may be present. clothed/nude state unknown
  • female nude, male clothed (if >1 females and males are present), non-female/male characters may be present. clothed/nude state unknown
  • other
---
Based on the above pros/cons, do the benefits of one outweigh the drawbacks enough to be a more viable solution?
--
  • Any additional observations will be added to the above pros/cons

      

      
  
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titanmelon

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1. Implicative tagging
An interesting example of implicative tagging is:
  • not_furry - "tagging a thing that's not there"
'furry' in this case
(added to the OP example)

      

      
  
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titanmelon

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2. Conjunctive tagging
Found a very related post by Genjar about why conjunctive tags in excess are probably going to do more harm than good in the short-mid term. (emphasis mine):
forum #182796 (feb. 2016)
Genjar said:
abadbird said:
The project of linking tags on pre-existing posts would be tremendous and likely never completed, of course.
It definitely wouldn't. Most posts are missing even the basic tags. I've been working on adding the penis tag to relevant posts; on estimate, that's missing from at least third of the posts that should have it. Here's an example: post #56669, which was rated questionable for six years. 
I've got about 2% done in a month. And that's just one basic project out of hundreds: for instance, while I've been doing that, the number of posts that are missing all species tags has grown by about 5000. The amount of posts that are lacking the form tags (anthro, feral, humanoid, etc) is at 120000 and growing rapidly. At least half of all posts are missing the background tags. Gender and orientation are missing from vast number of posts. And so on.
Nobody's got time to even keep up with the already existing tags. Starting to tag things per character will only take time away from tagging the basics, and therefore it will make the overall tagging worse.
---------------
  • Added #2:  forum #182665 - Tag suggestion 2 of 2 (maybe 3): The big suggestion - Implied Species+gender tags (Feb. 2016)

      

      
  
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titanmelon

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2. Conjunctive tagging: blacklisting issues
Here's a post by (a rather upset) someone else about one of the issues with non-conjunctive tagging I highlighted earlier:
- Blacklisting content relies on other site members to tag the content you're blaclisting (scat, gore, rape, cub, diaper, m/f, young, whatever).
This concerns the blacklisting pitfalls of not using conjunctive tags for specific things
(perceived or otherwise; again, if you know of a better working solution to this, here's the place to say)
forum #185933 (emphasis mine)
whatthefuckerver said:
So ive seen multiple times on this site admins telling people "If you don't like something then black list it" Which is fine, if you don't want to see something nasty like scat there is no reason to complain because you can block it but not when shit isn't tagged right on this site.
I don't want to see all this disgusting pedophile shit but half of it isn't tagged "young" so it shows up on the page. Its absolutely fucking disgusting and borderline illegal and I don't want it on my computer.
https://e621.net/post/show/842982/2013-black_and_white-black_eyes-claws-digital_medi
So if you don't want people writing comments tag your content right or don't complain about black listing.
INB4 "Just tag it your self" DERR I never thought of that! Then that would mean 1. Its not being tagged right in the first place and im seeing it anyway 2. I would have to go in and click on it further exposing myself to this sick shit
Edit: I figured out a rather interesting thing about this topic:
If this is correct, then all 3/4 of the issues presented in the OP are more related than it may first seem.
I'll make a separate topic about that later, since it's rather complicated

      

      
  
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titanmelon

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  • Added #2,3: forum #141490 - Tag Alias: adult -> invalid_tag (Oct. 2014) 
  • Coming soon™ - Mutually exclusive tagging: Assuming that one, and only one tag in a group is applicable to a given scene 
    • You can read about an example of this here: forum #187716 - Mammary tags discussion:[..] (Mar. 2016)

      

      
  
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savageorange

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titanmelon said:
  • Added #2,3: forum #141490 - Tag Alias: adult -> invalid_tag (Oct. 2014) 
  • Coming soon™ - Mutually exclusive tagging: Assuming that one, and only one tag in a group is applicable to a given scene 
    • You can read about an example of this here: forum #187716 - Mammary tags discussion:[..] (Mar. 2016)
What happened to the blank block in your post about content not being blacklistable because it's not correctly tagged? I'm also mystified as to what the 'rather interesting thing about this topic' you figured out can be.

      

      
  
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titanmelon

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4. Mutually-exclusive tagging
  • Added the semi-anthro tag as an interesting example/exception of mutually-exclusive policy

      

      
  
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titanmelon

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savageorange said:
What happened to the blank block in your post about content not being blacklistable because it's not correctly tagged? 
Which one was that? Can you link the forum \#?
-
I'm also mystified as to what the 'rather interesting thing about this topic' you figured out can be.
Still can't say much for now (haven't done much with it), but it involves 'blacklisting' + 'whitelisting', and a bit of set theory
(assuming you're really interested and that wasn't derisive sarcasm or anything, hard to tell sometimes on here;)
 I'll try to make that topic and add some notes to it as soon as more info comes up
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savageorange

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titanmelon said:
Which one was that? Can you link the forum \#?
No, but it's this thread, "2. Conjunctive .."
IIRC I checked the source and the block really has no content (it also has a different appearance from a spoiler block... maybe it was an accidental code block?). Same post that has the sentence about 'interesting thing you figured out'?.
Still can't say much for now (haven't done much with it), but it involves 'blacklisting' + 'whitelisting', and a bit of set theory
...At a guess, dividing posts into three categories, 'recommended' (w+++, b0) ,'do not want'(b+++,w<b), and 'might want' (b0, w0..w+)?
(assuming you're really interested and that wasn't derisive sarcasm or anything, hard to tell sometimes on here;)
[/quote]
I was genuinely interested. Since you ended that sentence with : but didn't include anything related, I figured that you had forgotten to put something after the :.

      

      
  
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titanmelon

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This should've happened a while ago:
  • added Genjar's post about conjunctive tagging, which I think sums up why it's become the go-to response against frivolously creating single tag combinations without there being a very significant need for it
(e.g. combining multiple tags (like the [gender]_[species], and clothed_female_nude_male tags)
  • Added 'EXISTING' and 'NEW' to the 2nd case for better context:
2. Conjunctive Tagging - Using 2>= EXISTING tags as a substitute for 1 NEW combined tag (eg. male/female)
-
[reply pending, sorry!]

      

      
  
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titanmelon

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That first point in bold is rather interesting: 
What exactly should count as 'being a very significant need for it'?
'it' here, being a new, single tag combination?
We obviously have existing combined tags, like male/female, anthro_on_feral etc.,
So where's the line between cases like:
  • 'This new tag combination will be useful'
and
  • 'This new tag combination will create more problems than it solves, plus, the [situation that the new tag is created to identify] tag can already be (somewhat)* accurately found using a search for existing tags
-
\* See #2: forum #187919 (lower down in this thread) - An example of using both conjunctive and non conjunctive searches, with results for each case
for more info on why a conjunctive tag search isn't always accurate

      

      
  
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titanmelon

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2. Conjunctive tagging
Found an interesting post here:
p https://e621.net/forum/show/199542
Delian said:
This site currently has no way of tagging character interaction, other than a basic sexual, where such interaction is tagged with gender/gender
You're probably looking for micro ~living_insertion ~vaginal_vore ~anal_vore or macro ~living_insertion ~vaginal_vore ~anal_vore. However, due to site's limitations, you cannot satisfy the "assisted" part of your search.

      

      
  
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titanmelon

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If anybody knows/remembers/finds that post example I made regarding blacklists and conjunctive tagging (it was an example with the different results and percentage of false hits; not the clothed/nude one),
please mention it in here, thanks!

      

      
  
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Sorrowless

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It this the right place to discuss tags that should refrained?
For example, it's unnecessary to tag anthros, humans and humanoids with the human_pussy tag. I think that one belongs the cases where it is the exception, such as on ferals. Granted, anatomically correct genitals may still be the exception for most feral art.

      

      
  
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Chessax

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Sorrowless said:
It this the right place to discuss tags that should refrained?
For example, it's unnecessary to tag anthros, humans and humanoids with the human_pussy tag. I think that one belongs the cases where it is the exception, such as on ferals. Granted, anatomically correct genitals may still be the exception for most feral art.
Then the tag name should reflect it's use, i.e. feral_with_human_pussy (ugh... too long), otherwise it will be used for other things.

      

      
  
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Sorrowless

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Chessax said:
Then the tag name should reflect it's use, i.e. feral_with_human_pussy (ugh... too long), otherwise it will be used for other things.
I don't think that's necessary. I made a small edit for the tag and hopefully people will follow my advice.

      

      
  
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Furrin Gok

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Sorrowless said:
It this the right place to discuss tags that should refrained?
For example, it's unnecessary to tag anthros, humans and humanoids with the human_pussy tag. I think that one belongs the cases where it is the exception, such as on ferals. Granted, anatomically correct genitals may still be the exception for most feral art.
Anatomically correct applies to humans too. Anthros aren't anatomically correct with human pussies, and both cases should still have them tagged. Somebody looking for a humanoid pussy isn't going to care if it's on a humanoid, anthro, or feral body; if they do, they can extend their search parameters to humanoid_pussy ~anthro ~feral.

      

      
  
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Sorrowless

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Furrin_Gok said:
Anatomically correct applies to humans too. Anthros aren't anatomically correct with human pussies, and both cases should still have them tagged. Somebody looking for a humanoid pussy isn't going to care if it's on a humanoid, anthro, or feral body; if they do, they can extend their search parameters to humanoid_pussy ~anthro ~feral.
I don't know about that. Female anthros usually have regular human style pussies. If you're looking for them, you don't have to assert yourself. And why wouldn't someone looking for humanoid pussy care about the kind of body they belong to? Doing a -animal_pussy should suffice if they don't want other kinds of female naughty bits and don't care about the type of body.

      

      
  
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Genjar

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The way it has been used so far, it'd probably be best to rename humanoid_pussy to vertical_pussy. There's only 500 posts, and it has already required too much clean-up: many instances of the same character getting tagged with both humanoid_pussy and animal_genitalia. 
Most notably, it tends to get mixed up with equine_pussy.

      

      
  
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Sorrowless

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Genjar said:
The way it has been used so far, it'd probably be best to rename humanoid_pussy to vertical_pussy. There's only 500 posts, and it has already required too much clean-up: many instances of the same character getting tagged with both humanoid_pussy and animal_genitalia. 
Most notably, it tends to get mixed up with equine_pussy.
The problem with vertical_pussy is that it isn't explaining the type of pussy.

      

      
  
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Furrin Gok

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Sorrowless said:
I don't know about that. Female anthros usually have regular human style pussies. If you're looking for them, you don't have to assert yourself. And why wouldn't someone looking for humanoid pussy care about the kind of body they belong to? Doing a -animal_pussy should suffice if they don't want other kinds of female naughty bits and don't care about the type of body.
Incorrect. There are alien_pussy. 

      

      
  
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Demesejha

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Genjar said:
The way it has been used so far, it'd probably be best to rename humanoid_pussy to vertical_pussy. There's only 500 posts, and it has already required too much clean-up: many instances of the same character getting tagged with both humanoid_pussy and animal_genitalia. 
Most notably, it tends to get mixed up with equine_pussy.
Humanoid pussy is a perfectly valid tag and does have a distinctively different look from canid and equine pussy.
There just needs to be a clear explanation to people who don't seem to know the difference between a human snatch and a damn canine spade. 

      

      
  
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Genjar

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GDelscribe said:
There just needs to be a clear explanation to people who don't seem to know the difference between a human snatch and a damn canine spade. 
It's even tagged for canines? Ergh. I've mostly seen it mistagged for equine, cervine, and bovine ones.
In particular, some users seem to think that a presence of a clitoris automatically means it's a humanoid pussy. Never mind that most mammals and even some reptiles have it.

      

      
  
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titanmelon

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#3 Redundant tagging: humanoid_pussy
Here's a recent (Aug 2016) example of #3, mirrored from p.forum #205225 & p.forum #205227 to here:
Sorrowless said:
[..]
As things are now, anthros usually have humanoid pussies so there is no need to tag them with it, just like with humans.
[..]
How do you easily find/blacklist posts of human/anthro characters with humanoid vaginas?
I'm not sure why there's a tendency to ignore TWYS in cases like these
'X the default, so let's not tag it for X'
Tag What You See, not Tag What's Outside N Sigmas
--
Is it because the tags become 'useless' if the common and uncommon are grouped together?
Just make a new tag for one or both! They're free. (kinda )
Overzealous minimalization will end up being the death of utility here one day [citation needed]
If someone searches for humanoid_pussy, they expect to find humanoid_pussy, not 'humanoid_pussy, but only for X'
If they want a specific tag, then try a specific search
This rampant minimalization ends up actually making thing even more convoluted in the long run because you suddenly have to take different demographics into account (ie 'group x should get preferential treatment because they're more prominent')
And when you're brining politics into tag policies, it's never going to end well

      

      
  
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Sorrowless

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titanmelon said:
And when you're brining politics into tag policies, it's never going to end well
The cure for people not handling different opinions are for more people to express their opinion. That's my opinion. 
Isn't tag policies politic?

      

      
  
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titanmelon

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Sorrowless said:
The cure for people not handling different opinions are for more people to express their opinion. That's my opinion. 
Definitely agreed
Isn't tag policies politic?
Hmm, from one pov I suppose it really is, yeah, good point
All the more reason we should be more aware of the implications involved when making them

      

      
  
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titanmelon

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Update
 
Added #2: forum #210825 - Regarding "open_[garment]" tags (Oct. 2016) to OP
-
I'll try to organize the various OPs to be more readable, since they could be much more coherent/interlinked

      

      
  
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leomole

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+1 tag tiers. Users should have some indication of which tag categories are most important (artist, gender, species, body type, sex act) and which are incidental (miscellaneous objects, environment).

      

      
  
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