This tag seems to be pretty ripe for all sorts of misinterpretation, especially when it's so widely used for basically any solidly colored big cat, often without tagging said big cat.

It's kind of like we just have two tags for black panther, really. Looking up "panther -black_panther" basically gives me all black panthers, just not tagged with black panther, despite being clearly black panthers.

i hate both tags a lot

what i'd actually like is to just implicate the true big cat species to panther and then alias away black_panther to panther because "black panther" is hopelessly vague

i can feel the collective butthole clench of the general userbase at that idea though

Ratte said:
i hate both tags a lot

what i'd actually like is to just implicate the true big cat species to panther and then alias away black_panther to panther because "black panther" is hopelessly vague

i can feel the collective butthole clench of the general userbase at that idea though

I wouldn't mind that. It's the same deal as white lion anyway.

Ratte said:
i hate both tags a lot

what i'd actually like is to just implicate the true big cat species to panther and then alias away black_panther to panther because "black panther" is hopelessly vague

i can feel the collective butthole clench of the general userbase at that idea though

Oh I feel this. I also feel the same way about the black_jaguar tag lmao. Though in black_jaguar's case, it might be best to alias it to just plain old jaguar or possibly even to melanism or something idk.

I was actually thinking about suggesting the big cat implication, so I'm good with that too.

AW YEAH, lemme huff and puff about some of my most hated tags!

For sum up for those at home:

SnowWolf said:
I heartily and vigorously disagree.

I will type many words at you about why. <3

(but seriously: if I search black_fur leopard, i'm gonna get every leopard where someone tagged the spots as black_fur. or if they were drawn with black ears, or tear streaks or any kind of marking. finding a solid black cat is challenging. c_c I should know. I spend a few hours over here a year or two ago trying to find a good "black panther' picture for a D&D game with a friend. leopard black_fur has SO many false positives.)

I do not care. I'm sick and tired of giving pointless stupid leeway to color species tags because ~they're popular~. If a million blue foxes were uploaded, would we suddenly decide blue_fox is a valid tag? No, because that's a color_species tag and we've been getting rid of those. I'm sick of species tags being dictated by feelings instead of what's correct. We don't do this for anything else but these, and we should not. It's that simple. Make a set if you care about it so much.

SnowWolf said:

Panther biology!A PANTHER is an all black colormorph of either a LEOPARD or a JAGUAR. They can be born along side normally colored siblings. Being all black is just really beneficial for these critters in their natural habitats, so a lot of kitties carry the gene. (Remember! Most bad genes--like, for example, being all white--tends to result in lower survivability: if you're a white animal in a green forest, you're easy to see: not good for hunter or prey. So critters like white tigers don't tend to survive long in nature. However, being a black cat works well, so they tend to survive long enough to reproduce, and pass on their genes!) . . . so, tl;dr: panther is a black jaguar or leopard. Panthera is a genus. [/quote

This is not true. Panther is a name that Leapards, Jaguars, and Cougars (despite not being in the Panthera genus) are called. It has no relation to fur color whatsoever. Case in point: “White Panthers” :https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_panther

(side note: white_panther is also a tag albeit not a heavily used one, however if we alias away black_panther why not kill two birds with one stone)

As for what to do about the panther tag, I don’t know. Out of the 3 cats known as panthers only 2 of them are in the panther genus so I don’t think aliasing it to a genus would work. Maybe as a general tag that encompasses all 3 of them? IDK

I think implicating it to two species and another from an entirely different genus and subfamily is a bad idea. White panther should be aliased away.

I'd strongly prefer the genus implication. Or it could be aliased to feline like the big_cat tag already is, I guess.

SharkFetish said:
This is not true. Panther is a name that Leapards, Jaguars, and Cougars (despite not being in the Panthera genus) are called. It has no relation to fur color whatsoever. Case in point: “White Panthers” :https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_panther

(side note: white_panther is also a tag albeit not a heavily used one, however if we alias away black_panther why not kill two birds with one stone)

As for what to do about the panther tag, I don’t know. Out of the 3 cats known as panthers only 2 of them are in the panther genus so I don’t think aliasing it to a genus would work. Maybe as a general tag that encompasses all 3 of them? IDK

I would like to make panther a species tag which encompasses all Panthera big cats (lions, tigers, jaguars, etc) and alias black_panther (and white_panther too I suppose) to the new panther tag. People can use the fur color tags like they're goddamn supposed to for literally everything else. I'd love to do away with the other equally stupid color_species like white_tiger and whatever else as well-- again, the same way we handle everything else. Being popular doesn't make something exempt from how this system works.

My one issue with that idea is that ONLY leapards, jaguars, and cougars are panthers. So you are going to get people wondering why they are getting lions and tigers when they search panther and people will wonder why cougars are being lumped into Panthera when someone inevitably tags a cougar with panther. I feel like the best thing to do is to just get rid of the tag. I also think that Panthera would be a better tag for the Panthera genus because that won’t cause as much headaches.

SharkFetish said:
My one issue with that idea is that ONLY leapards, jaguars, and cougars are panthers. So you are going to get people wondering why they are getting lions and tigers when they search panther and people will wonder why cougars are being lumped into Panthera when someone inevitably tags a cougar with panther. I feel like the best thing to do is to just get rid of the tag. I also think that Panthera would be a better tag for the Panthera genus because that won’t cause as much headaches.

>"A black panther is the melanistic color variant of any big cat species."
>"Panthera, the cat genus that contains tigers, lions, jaguars, leopards, and snow leopards"

Panther refers to whatever animal from the Panthera genus, which cougars are not part of so they would not get the implication. People giving dumb names to things is irrelevant.

I would also be fine with just using the pantherinae (pantherine) subfamily definition and include the clouded leopard on top of it. Cougars and cheetahs are not big cats at all, both for the genus and the subfamily definition, thus they would not get the implication either way.

People can start reading wikis like they're supposed to.

Ratte said:
Panther refers to whatever animal from the Panthera genus, which cougars are not part of so they would not get the implication. People giving dumb names to things is irrelevant.

I’ll concede my point about not all members of Panthera are Panthers. However, I think disregarding Cougars is a mistake. Whether or not you think its dumb, Panther is another name for Cougars, just like Puma, Mountain Lion, and Catamount.

At the very least if you go through with your plan there should be a mention in the wiki to use the Cougar tag for Cougars and not Panther.

SharkFetish said:
I’ll concede my point about not all members of Panthera are Panthers. However, I think disregarding Cougars is a mistake. Whether or not you think its dumb, Panther is another name for Cougars, just like Puma, Mountain Lion, and Catamount.

At the very least if you go through with your plan there should be a mention in the wiki to use the Cougar tag for Cougars and not Panther.

It's still just a name. Cape buffalo are called cape buffalo when they're not buffalo. Muskoxen are called muskoxen despite being caprines. Of course I would put something in the wiki for it, I try to do that whenever I have to do stuff like this so don't worry too much about it.

Ratte said:
It's still just a name. Cape buffalo are called cape buffalo when they're not buffalo. Muskoxen are called muskoxen despite being caprines.

Thats a good point and something I didn’t even think about.

With my concerns being answered, I do like your plan for the panther tag.

edit: oh god there were more posts while I was typing, TT_TT

Ratte said:
I do not care. I'm sick and tired of giving pointless stupid leeway to color species tags because ~they're popular~. If a million blue foxes were uploaded, would we suddenly decide blue_fox is a valid tag? No, because that's a color_species tag and we've been getting rid of those. I'm sick of species tags being dictated by feelings instead of what's correct. We don't do this for anything else but these, and we should not. It's that simple. Make a set if you care about it so much.

But that's my point.

black_panther isn't a color_species tag. It's a full body marking that tends to occur on two specific animals. It's not just "popular," it's a dominant allele in jaguars. Black panther is a common name this thing.

I don't care if it's a species tag, or a general tag (like white_tiger), I just want it to be searchable. For all I care, we could alias it to melanistic and be done with it, but I think the benefits (implying several things like melanistic, feline and black_fur, for example) out weigh the negatives.

The thing I am most against is using 'panther' as a tag for big cats. It's incorrect. The genus is Panthera, and Panther commonly refers to the melanistic cat or a cougar. It'd be confusing and misleading. I think at one point we were batting around Pantherid or pantherine?

edit: Thinking about it, I see the opposition to black panther as being color_species... I mean I wouldn't object to "panther" being for the black bodied big cat. Just, panther can't be for lions and tigers too. A tiger isn't a panther. a panther's a specific thing in people's heads, y'know?

SharkFetish said:
This is not true. Panther is a name that Leapards, Jaguars, and Cougars (despite not being in the Panthera genus) are called. It has no relation to fur color whatsoever. Case in point: “White Panthers” :https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_panther

Well.... no.

wikipedia's disambiguous for panther reads as follows:

Large cats

• Pantherinae, the cat subfamily that contains the genera Panthera and Neofelis
• Panthera, the cat genus that contains tigers, lions, jaguars, leopards, and snow leopards
• Jaguar (Panthera onca), found in South and Central America
• Leopard (Panthera pardus), found in Africa and Asia
• Black panther, a black variant of jaguars or leopards
• White panther, a white or very pale variant of jaguars or leopards
• Cougar or mountain lion (Puma concolor), found in North and South America
• Florida panther, a subspecies of cat (Puma concolor coryi or Puma concolor couguar) found in southern Florida
• Panther (legendary creature), a creature usually depicted as resembling a large cat with a multi-coloured hide

(and also films, movies, music etc)

Panther is a word used for SOME leopards and SOME jaguars, and yes, SOMETIMES cougars (particularly ones from florida). But when it is being used for leopards and jaguars, it *generally* refers to the black colormorphs.

When someone says "I saw a panther!" you do not assume they mean a yellow and brown spotty cat. you assume they mean the black cat. If you google image for "panther" (not black panther, jsut panther...) 7 out of 8 pictures are black leopards/black jaguars. The remaining 3 are florida panthers. :P

As for white panthers... they are incredibly rare! the white panther page has a LIST of white panthers that have been seen, and there are very, very few. Like, less than 2 dozen. This is because (as I said...) being a white cat is extremely difficult. It is incredibly challenging to hunt. It is highly unlikely that a white cat would survive to adulthood. Those that do successfully reproduce probably do not have white cubs. Any white cubs probably die off. This is why the only picture on the wikipedia page is of a stuffed specimen. If you goggle image search for white panther, every single picture is either photoshopped or NOT of a leopard, jaguar or cougar.

White panthers is the name for albino, leucistic, or chincilla leopards, Jaguars or Cougars. Again, extremely rarely.

okay, I ment to be in bed 3 hours ago :P

So... yeah.

Panther can be used in a lot of different ways but it most typically refers to the black cat, as evidenced by the fact that panther and black_panther are nearly identical in content, if not exact posts.

I feel like I"m missing some conclusionary statements here but I am SO tired :C

SnowWolf said:
black_panther isn't a color_species tag.

Yes it is. Nothing else in your wall of text is worth a response.

I will be aliasing it away tomorrow, along with the other color_species tags we for some reason humored.

SnowWolf said:
A lot of stuff

The issue with panthers is that every source I check has something different for the what constitutes as one. Some sources say its all members of panthera; some say its leopards, jaguars, and cougars; some say its only leopards and jaguars; others say its a black colormorph of all big cats; yet others say its a black colormorph of only leopards and jaguars; some say it includes all members of pantheridae; and I even found some that say its all members of Panthera and Cougars. Why is there no agreement anywhere!! Ahhhh!!!!

The links are very interesting, thanks for sharing.

How do you search for black panthers then? I've tried searching panther black_fur but that just gives me everything under pantherine with black fur. Even leopard printed shark appeared.

Disturbed10k said:
How do you search for black panthers then? I've tried searching panther black_fur but that just gives me everything under pantherine with black fur. Even leopard printed shark appeared.

pantherine ~black_fur ~black_body, pantherine spots ~rosettes ~black_fur ~black_body, feline melanistic, pantherine melanistic, etc etc. Panther was such a vague tag anyways imho, and it needed to be cleaned up

DiceLovesBeingBlown said:
pantherine ~black_fur ~black_body, pantherine spots ~rosettes ~black_fur ~black_body, feline melanistic, pantherine melanistic, etc etc. Panther was such a vague tag anyways imho, and it needed to be cleaned up

Looks like it just created a big mess.

Disturbed10k said:
How do you search for black panthers then? I've tried searching panther black_fur but that just gives me everything under pantherine with black fur. Even leopard printed shark appeared.

Find out what panther you're thinking about and use black_fur <species>. Depending on where you live a black panther can either be a melanistic leopard, jaguar, or cougar.

There's also the set Blackestpanthers which is a collection of all black panthers that were actually tagged before we cleaned up the species tags. You can use it in any search with set:blackestpanthers.

NotMeNotYou said:
Find out what panther you're thinking about and use black_fur <species>. Depending on where you live a black panther can either be a melanistic leopard, jaguar, or cougar.

There's also the set Blackestpanthers which is a collection of all black panthers that were actually tagged before we cleaned up the species tags. You can use it in any search with set:blackestpanthers.

The ones with no stripes or spots. Because if I wanted a black tiger or leapord I would just search for them. But when searching for solid black panthers like Bagheera from Jungle Book there's nothing defining from the others.

Disturbed10k said:
The ones with no stripes or spots. Because if I wanted a black tiger or leapord I would just search for them. But when searching for solid black panthers like Bagheera from Jungle Book there's nothing defining from the others.

Bagheera is a leopard. He's only a solid black color due to the drawing style. In real life he'd still have his regular leopard spots.

NotMeNotYou said:
Bagheera is a leopard. He's only a solid black color due to the drawing style. In real life he'd still have his regular leopard spots.

Google doesn't agree. Their description of Bagheera shows that he is a black panther.

Disturbed10k said:
Google doesn't agree. Their description of Bagheera shows that he is a black panther.

Foot in mouth. Another drop down asking of Bagheera indeed says he is a leopard.

Disturbed10k said:
Foot in mouth. Another drop down asking of Bagheera indeed says he is a leopard.

Yeah, panther is an incredibly broad term referring to the big cats, and they all can be melanistic, which is the cause for their (nearly) solid black coat of fur.

NotMeNotYou said:
Yeah, panther is an incredibly broad term referring to the big cats, and they all can be melanistic, which is the cause for their (nearly) solid black coat of fur.

Does that mean we have to go through all of the "black panther" pictures and tag them jaguar or leopard? There's got to be an easier way to search for black furred big cats.

If I might chime in as an artist who draws panthers, I find the decision to nuke the black_panther tag to be very disappointing and frustrating. I think it goes pretty hard against E621's "tag what you see" mantra, too. I would liken this to removing the anubian_jackal tag. (And I hope this does not mean anubian jackals are next on the chopping block, either.) It's a very popular niche even if it's not an actual species, especially due to various myths and legends about black panthers.

A small sect of people were splitting hairs over this issue and now things are objectively worse for everyone else. I understand "panther" being too ambiguous (the Pink Panther is a thing after all) but "black panther" was specifically referring to large cats with black fur, which is a legitimate genre that certainly warrants its own species tag. As of now, black panthers are completely unsearchable which I think is doing a major disservice to both the artists and fans who use this site.

HeresyArt said:
If I might chime in as an artist who draws panthers, I find the decision to nuke the black_panther tag to be very disappointing and frustrating. I think it goes pretty hard against E621's "tag what you see" mantra, too. I would liken this to removing the anubian_jackal tag. (And I hope this does not mean anubian jackals are next on the chopping block, either.) It's a very popular niche even if it's not an actual species, especially due to various myths and legends about black panthers.

A small sect of people were splitting hairs over this issue and now things are objectively worse for everyone else. I understand "panther" being too ambiguous (the Pink Panther is a thing after all) but "black panther" was specifically referring to large cats with black fur, which is a legitimate genre that certainly warrants its own species tag. As of now, black panthers are completely unsearchable which I think is doing a major disservice to both the artists and fans who use this site.

panther melanistic
panther black_fur
panther ~grey_fur ~black_fur
panther ~grey_fur ~black_fur spots
panther ~grey_fur ~black_fur rosettes

DiceLovesBeingBlown said:
panther melanistic
panther black_fur
panther ~grey_fur ~black_fur
panther ~grey_fur ~black_fur spots
panther ~grey_fur ~black_fur rosettes

If someone wants to find a picture of a black panther, as the animal is generally perceived in common culture (either referring to the mythical black panther or a melanistic member of the Panthera genus), why shouldn't typing in "black_panther" give them the search results they are looking for? There is no net benefit to making them harder to search for. This change does not benefit anyone, and it's needlessly inconvenient if you want to look up a very common and popular subject in furry artwork. When I type in "black_panther" the last thing I am going to expect is to be re-directed to a general search of the entire panthera genus, especially not if I were a casual E621 user, who might just give up and search for something else out of frustration. This common name convention is not controversial anywhere else but here.

set:blackestpanthers has all of the posts tagged black_panther before.

This is not currently ideal, as someone needs to go through and not only tag them all as melanistic, but also go through several other animals and try to find other melanistic examples of various animals.

Unfortunately, this takes time and work, and there are not very many people who are willing to go out there are Tag Some Shit.

The problem with black panthers is that they're both leopards and jaguars, and that's assuming someone doesn't decide to tag their tiger as a black panther (this is a thing that happened.)

Once melanistic is properly applied (I will... see if I can get some time to work on it tonight...) it shoudl be easy to find your black panthers.

and yeah, some peopel might be turned away because it's too difficult, but that's 100% true for everything on this website. Any sex position, for example. or a particular pose. We're trying hard to make one-to-three word descriptiosn for literally everything we can see with our eyes. shit's hard. D:

An even bigger issue of practicality is that searching "melanistic panthera" will bring up any image that has both a character that is part of the panthera genus, and a character that is melanistic, which do not have to be the same character. Having to use multiple tags for this means most of the search results will include one character with black fur and one character that is a type of panthera, and only some results will include a character who actually fits the common description of a panther. The same problem would happen if the anubian jackal tag was eliminated, and people were instead told to search "jackal + melanism + egyptian." You could have a regular jackal and a black panther standing in front of a pyramid and there's no other way to refine it down to specify a jackal that has black fur and/or Egyptian-inspired markings.

HeresyArt said:
An even bigger issue of practicality is that searching "melanistic panthera" will bring up any image that has both a character that is part of the panthera genus, and a character that is melanistic, which do not have to be the same character. Having to use multiple tags for this means most of the search results will include one character with black fur and one character that is a type of panthera, and only some results will include a character who actually fits the common description of a panther. The same problem would happen if the anubian jackal tag was eliminated, and people were instead told to search "jackal + melanism + egyptian." You could have a regular jackal and a black panther standing in front of a pyramid and there's no other way to refine it down to specify a jackal that has black fur and/or Egyptian-inspired markings.

well by THAT logic, we should bring back the good old tags of Vixen, and wolf_bitch and male_wolf and stag and whatnot.

Maybe we should be more specific and say male_red_fox and gray_and_white_anthro_wolf_female?

I'm going to admit, I"m a little frustrated here. -felid melanistic has exactly 12 posts in it.

12.

One is a pokemon that is usually not black, 4 are black foxes, 4 are black furred hyenas, 1 is a black fuckin' flamingo, there's 1 black wolf and a black squirrel.

12.

Everything else? panther panther panther panther.

By and large? you are goign to like 99% of the pictures in this search. 99% of them are of black leopards, jaguars OR tigers.

there are 217 melanistic posts.

there are 1111 posts in set:blackestpanthers

even if every single animal over in the melanistic tag was a orange cheetah with a black squirrel, you've still got 80% of the "right" posts.

And! not a single thing in the world will save you, dear user, from searching for melanistic leopard if that's what you want. :|

Panther is a widely accepted term in culture, both in the furry community and outside of it, that brings a very specific image to mind. I mean, there was this little movie called "Black Panther" last year that made a billion dollars, so I don't think there's any confusion as to what a black panther basically looks like. I fully accept that "panther" is too vague since there are many characters described as "panthers" that are not black, but "black_panther" was a perfectly reasonable compromise. And yet, both "panther" and "black_panther" got nuked and now they both re-direct to the same unhelpful tag.

Maybe there is a logical argument behind why "panther" should be dropped as a term but I do not think a furry website is the place to make that argument. I am trying to look at this from a practical perspective, the way someone who doens't spend hours arguing about these sorts of things on the internet. This defies every commonly held convention used in the furry community and culture at large. In real life a black panther is either a jaguar or a leopard, but it does not have to be specified as one or the other in art. If I draw a large cat with black fur and show it to pretty much anyone, they are going to say "oh, a panther!" They are not going to demand I explain if it is a leopard with melanism, or a jaguar with melanism. That is a distinction I am not even conscious of when drawing panthers, since the biggest marker distinguishing the two (at least when it comes to anthro) is what kind of spots they have.

Black panthers aren't a species. It's that simple. It will not be brought back. Use the correct species tags and color tags like melanistic or black_fur like you're supposed to.

Why not have both? because this feels like you're removing the tag "rectangle" to put in "square"

Shyster5 said:
Why not have both? because this feels like you're removing the tag "rectangle" to put in "square"

pantherine

It's replacing red square with square

Shyster5 said:
Why not have both? because this feels like you're removing the tag "rectangle" to put in "square"

No, we removed "4-sided_polygon" to put in "rectangle", "trapezoid", "rhombus" "even_sided", and "equiangular".

Shyster5 said:
Why not have both? because this feels like you're removing the tag "rectangle" to put in "square"

maybe we could use a new color tag, something likecompletely_(color here) so searching for pantherine completely_black would only yield what was once black_panthers

NotMeNotYou said:
No, we removed "4-sided_polygon" to put in "rectangle", "trapezoid", "rhombus" "even_sided", and "equiangular".

but those are still 4-sided polygons, aren't they? so why not have that in still?

Y'know, sometimes I really feel like people do not read the thread.... or my replies to them...

HeresyArt said:
Panther is a widely accepted term in culture, both in the furry community and outside of it, that brings a very specific image to mind. I mean, there was this little movie called "Black Panther" last year that made a billion dollars, so I don't think there's any confusion as to what a black panther basically looks like.

While I agree with this, that doesn't really play into fact that while we know what a black panther looks like, it does not fit into the taxonomic structure that our site adheres to. We'll get back to this in a second.

I fully accept that "panther" is too vague since there are many characters described as "panthers" that are not black,

A panther is not an animal. there is no animal called a panther. just a few critters that have panther as a nickname, with the exception of "florida panthers' which as a subspecies of cougar. Panther is not an animal in the zoo.

but "black_panther" was a perfectly reasonable compromise. And yet, both "panther" and "black_panther" got nuked and now they both re-direct to the same unhelpful tag.

"panther" was a fucking useless tag. It was being used for big cats. all of them. tigers and snow leopards and leopards alike. It did nothing to help users find what they are looking for.

Black panther is currently being worked on. Like I said.

Maybe there is a logical argument behind why "panther" should be dropped as a term

It's a perfectly legitimate word to use for casual use.

but I do not think a furry website is the place to make that argument.

aren't we? I mean, I"m kind of a big fan of animals. we're a well known website and we have influence over the words the furry commmunity uses. How do I know that? because I've SEEN it.

But, again, I don't wanna strike 'black panther' from our lexicon.

But black panther is not useful as a tag.

I am trying to look at this from a practical perspective, the way someone who doens't spend hours arguing about these sorts of things on the internet.

Aw shucks sweetie. I appreciate your efforts to tell me that I, the humble janitor over here, who has devoted thousands of hours to making sure this website is as functional as possible for everyone who's using it, am not capable of viewing this website from a practical perspective. It really is kind of you. I am very certain that you're right and you have a WAY better understanding of how this website works than I do. What do *I* know. I've only been here 9 years, and have only spent about a third of that time as a moment of the staff, so. I'm sure you have a much better than I do about how shit works.

Raging sarcasm aside, I've spent a lot of brain power over the years trying to help improve this place. not every idea the hive comes up with are good ideas, but this is kind of a full time hobby for the staff, y'know?

This defies every commonly held convention used in the furry community and culture at large. In real life a black panther is either a jaguar or a leopard, but it does not have to be specified as one or the other in art. If I draw a large cat with black fur and show it to pretty much anyone, they are going to say "oh, a panther!" They are not going to demand I explain if it is a leopard with melanism, or a jaguar with melanism. That is a distinction I am not even conscious of when drawing panthers, since the biggest marker distinguishing the two (at least when it comes to anthro) is what kind of spots they have.

I hate to say this, but your'e kind of part of the problem. (and as an artist, that's okay! your style is your style and you don't NEED to differenciate if you don't want to.)

Our GOAL is allowing everyone to find the art they're looking for. That means that when someone searches "wolf" they get wolves and not "vague canines".... when someone searches for "tiger" they get tigers, not striped house cats.

Jaguars and leopards are VERY different creatures. Like... Dobermans and Rottweilers.

a jaguar is heavy set, and has a very thicc face, due to having jaws designed to chomp through skulls. They weigh around 125-212 lbs, but males have been recorded as being as much as 350lbs. These fuckers can and will eat bears. They are ambush predators.

... a leopard, on the other paw, is thinner, and lightly built, it's head is more angular and narrow and tend to be more upright than a Jaguar. A Leopard ranges from 62lbs to 198lbs. They are swift and agile where a jaguar is more of a beef cake. They can run over 36 miles an hour, as would be fitting for an animal that hunts animals built to try and escape from cheetahs.

Basically speaking, they're two really different animals.

And, artistically speaking, yeah, I know that they can look a lot alike, and that's fine! art is art, and things do get harder when anthros are involved, but some artists DO draw them differently. Personally, I don't like it when artists draw all felids to look exactly the same, except for coat patterns. That's my own preference, because I like exploring the variation between different animal species. Other people don't care. some artists do, some don't. it's all good, y'know?

So.

When you tag a picture with leopard, the tag pantherine is automatically applied. This tag covers all large cats. When Pantherine is added, felid is applied. Felid is every cat ever. WHen you tag jaguar, the same things happens.

but a black panther could be either a jaguar, or a leopard. There *is* an arguement that could be made for letting 'black panther" imply all of the above, but, right *now* the website doesn't do that. that doesn't mean it can't change, but if we did that, then black panther would be separate of leopards and jaguars. it would need to be tagged twice, instead of once. both Leopard and black_panther. or jaguar, leopard AND black_panther, which would be annoying on, for example, a solo image.

otherwise, if you just have black_panther, you don't have any way for someone interested in leopards to see leopards-with-black-fur. it's leopards OR black panthers OR jaguars.

So.. tag it twice! except that that's complicated. People don't want to tag two tags for one concept. That's what was goin' on, y'know?

That's why the tag is 'melanistic' and you combine it with the animal you want to see.

melanistic -- all melanistic critters
melatistic felid all black cats
melanistic pantherine all black big cats!
melanistic leopard just leopards with black fur!
melanistic ~leopard ~jaguar melanistic leopards or jaguars!

Maybe black_panther should be aliased to something different-- perhaps melanistic? I dunno.

*sighs* at the end of the day, though.. e621 users learn how our tags work. black_panther might be the obvious search, but it's not really beneficial for a lot of reasons. if they want black_panthers though, they'll figure it out. People aren't stupid.

Shyster5 said:
Why not have both? because this feels like you're removing the tag "rectangle" to put in "square"

Ratte said:
Black panthers aren't a species. It's that simple.

Ratte said:

Yeah, but it is a categorization of multiple species of animal

SnowWolf said:

So.. tag it twice! except that that's complicated. People don't want to tag two tags for one concept. That's what was goin' on, y'know?

Maybe we can have it imply both jaguar and leopard and remove a tag as needed?

*sighs* at the end of the day, though.. e621 users learn how our tags work. black_panther might be the obvious search, but it's not really beneficial for a lot of reasons. if they want black_panthers though, they'll figure it out. People aren't stupid.

The same could be said about having to tag it twice

Shyster5 said:
Yeah, but it is a categorization of multiple species of animal

It's not a species. I cannot possibly dumb this down any further.

Shyster5 said:
Maybe we can have it imply both jaguar and leopard and remove a tag as needed?

Not how things work.

Shyster5 said:
Maybe we can have it imply both jaguar and leopard and remove a tag as needed?

Doesn't work that way.

If A implies B and C, B and C will ALWAYS be present if A is. So. It would ALWAYS be black_panther jaguar leopard

and that would be wrong, as, while some are ambiguous and fuzzy, some are very clearly leopards or jaguars.

The same could be said about having to tag it twice

how are they tagging it twice? it's a leopard/jaguar. it is melanistic. it has LOTS of tags that apply to it. melanistic is a tag. it applies to several creatures besides leopards and jaguars. No one bats an eye at tagging albinos and Leucistic critters. it's the same thing. white_peacock is not and should not be a tag. it's an albino/Leucistic peacock. it's not a black panther, it's a melanistic Jaguar.

ah I didn't know that's how implying worked here

Ratte said:
It's not a species. I cannot possibly dumb this down any further.

that is what I said
It is not a species, it is a categorization of multiple species

SnowWolf said:
how are they tagging it twice? it's a leopard/jaguar. it is melanistic.

It can either be a melanistic Jaguar or it can be a melanistic Leopard.
i don't know but i what do know is it's a Black Panther. does it have spots? than it's a leopard. does it not have spots? than it's a jaguar .but it's still a black panther

Shyster5 said:
that is what I said
It is not a species, it is a categorization of multiple species

And that's why it won't be humored. We allow a handful of informal group tags based on animal common names but that's it. Even then those common names are the names used for the species, not just "this but black". If we allowed this then we would allow every other pointless color variation of everything. It's both or neither.

Shyster5 said:
It can either be a melanistic Jaguar or it can be a melanistic Leopard.
i don't know but i what do know is it's a Black Panther. does it have spots? than it's a leopard. does it not have spots? than it's a jaguar .but it's still a black panther

It can be any member of the Panthera genus or the pantherinae subfamily. Those two are just the most common. So, no.

Ratte said:
And that's why it won't be humored. We allow a handful of informal group tags based on animal common names but that's it. Even then those common names are the names used for the species, not just "this but black". If we allowed this then we would allow every other pointless color variation of everything. It's both or neither.

Maybe you should because it's better to over-tag than to under-tag something for ease of use

Shyster5 said:
It can either be a melanistic Jaguar or it can be a melanistic Leopard.
i don't know but i what do know is it's a Black Panther. does it have spots? than it's a leopard. does it not have spots? than it's a jaguar .but it's still a black panther

Jaguars also have spots.

post #205375

Shyster5 said:
Maybe you should

no

Ratte said:
no

And why not?

Shyster5 said:
And why not?

set:13409

I've been tagging a bunch in that set with melanistic if that makes anyone feel better. Should make the tag a bit more useful, even if it's still mostly big black cats.

Versperus said:
set:13409

what is this, the empty set?

Shyster5 said:
what is this, the empty set?

click it again, I used the wrong brackets.

Opilione said:
I've been tagging a bunch in that set with melanistic if that makes anyone feel better. Should make the tag a bit more useful, even if it's still mostly big black cats.

awesome thank you; the melanistic set was deliberately made so people could properly tag the posts needing the tag. keep up the good work

Shyster5 said:
And why not?

Because that is not how things work here. It will not be brought back.

Allowing "this but in black" for specifically big cats when we do this for nothing else (and we alias away those things when they occur) is not how this will be run. Either use the tags you're supposed to or go somewhere else.

Opilione said:
I've been tagging a bunch in that set with melanistic if that makes anyone feel better. Should make the tag a bit more useful, even if it's still mostly big black cats.

You're now my favorite user. At least for the next few minutes, until I get distracted with-- OH A BUTTERFLY! *prances off*

Ratte said:
Because that is not how things work here. It will not be brought back.

Allowing "this but in black" for specifically big cats when we do this for nothing else (and we alias away those things when they occur) is not how this will be run. Either use the tags you're supposed to or go somewhere else.

Ok
It was just my thinking about how no way of categorizing things was useless, that i wanted to know why get rid of it, but now i understand

This whole change was pointless and unnecessary, and this whole argument is retarded.

Dook_E_Howser said:
This whole change was pointless and unnecessary, and this whole argument is retarded.

if you have nothing of value to add then don't reply.

I got most of the set tagged with melanistic. Not all of it, as a lot of monochrome images in which you can't tell the color of a character were tagged with black panther when they shouldn't have been.

Ratte said:
if you have nothing of value to add then don't reply.

I would like to add that you sound like a very pleasant person.

Opilione said:
I got most of the set tagged with melanistic. Not all of it, as a lot of monochrome images in which you can't tell the color of a character were tagged with black panther when they shouldn't have been.

You're so awesome! THANK YOU! That one's been on my to do list for a month or so! AWESOME!! YOU GET COOKIES :D

sdasa said:
I would like to add that you sound like a very pleasant person.

terrible

SnowWolf said:

*sighs* at the end of the day, though.. e621 users learn how our tags work. black_panther might be the obvious search, but it's not really beneficial for a lot of reasons. if they want black_panthers though, they'll figure it out. People aren't stupid.

It's not particularly intuitive what you have to search for to get the desired results, though. I had to come find this thread to get answers after multiple attempts returned too broad results, or no results at all.

DeeJayDragon said:
It's not particularly intuitive what you have to search for to get the desired results, though. I had to come find this thread to get answers after multiple attempts returned too broad results, or no results at all.

So, with all the text that has been said in this thread, explaining the multiple problems with black_panther as a tag, please offer a solution instead of just saying "no sir, I don't like it."

Seriously, I've poured a couple of hours into this thread and helping to explain WHY we made this choice. No one has offered any feasible solutions. :|