Hello, I know this topic is already a minefield laid inside a landfill for sewage waste but I'd like to discuss, both with the site population at large and the moderators, the tagging standard set forth on post #965929 for a moment.

Before I am swiftly beaten, I'd like to make it clear that based on the TWYS rule I do not think that tags should be reverted to Female and Flat_Chested because of Mikhaila. I just had some consistency issues to bring up.

The rest of the comic, other than those several pages tagged with Cuntboy, are tagged with Female and Flat_Chested. I think the site should enforce consistent tagging across pages in the same pool for comics featuring the same characters, but at the same time I understand some comic characters, when their genitals are covered or otherwise obscured/hidden seem entirely male or female. A good example would be Fenfen in Tail of Tails. I had a few suggestions for a way to clear this up, and then a few holes to point out in my own suggestions that I can't quite reconcile, despite the flaws in TWYS.

My first suggestion is what you already know. Tag What You See, you would tag all shots in which the character is shown according to how they look specifically on that page. The problem is that it would occasionally be difficult to tell a girly male from a flat-chested female this way, especially once you throw dickgirls and cuntboys and what-have-you into the mix. Not every page of the comic does this, though, and post #859026 could be either a girly male (who is somehow conveniently censored by his thigh) or a flat-chested female, though it's clearly tagged as female. So here I see a lack of consistency, those recent two pages are tagged cuntboy, so this one should also be tagged cuntboy...but then post #859032 actually refers to the character as female. I think it's obvious that the taggers on those first few pages where Mikhaila is clothed or otherwise censored in some way are tagging what they know instead of what they see.

That leads me to my second suggestion, character tags implicating other tags. The problem of course with that is some characters change gender, appearance, species, etc. all the time. But since a page in the pool states she's female it would make sense to tag all other pages female. As much as tagging cuntboy even when we know she isn't will let people who don't know that see content they may like, it will also mislead people who are looking for what they know it should be tagged as.

Finally, I think that post #859026 and post #859027 should be tagged ambiguous_gender or girly_male according to TWYS. post #859028 should be tagged cuntboy, post #859029 and post #859030 ambiguous_gender again. post #859031 as cuntboy, post #859032 as female (due to dialogue), post #859033 as ambiguous_gender, and the following 4 posts as cuntboy, unless a better solution is found, since that is what those posts should be tagged under TWYS. That may seem really convoluted and confusing, because it is, and that's my point, and why I proposed the two previous solutions, not as a paradigm shift from TWYS, but as an alternative to TWYS when TWYS just plain doesn't work. This is especially true in this case because people searching for this comic with the aforementioned tagging, who may for whatever reason have sexualities resulting from those tags or the genders themselves blacklisted, will only see a random assortment of pages. I don't think that's how the site should work, but I'd like to see either consistency or contingency. I hope you agree.

trying to get things organized by keeping things in line? is what i got

What a time to be alive

Rainbow_Dash said:
What a time to be alive

Its an important topic that keeps getting ignored glazed over or otherwise because nobody seems willing to actually deal with the inherent sociopolitical issues involved.

This is an issue that is brought up time and time again and has really deep ramifications that need to be addressed.

The gender/sex tags we currently use are highly subjective at the best of times. Theres no consistency and a lot of flat chested female characters are unnecessarily tagged with a slur, "cboy" for no reason, and likewise the alternate waif ish boys with large pectorals are tagged with the slur "dgirl" when it's completely wrong and unwarranted.

Its frustrating as all hell to both artists and a lot of uploaders here. But everyone either acts like it's a topic to be joked about or they just ignore it or danced around like it's not there anyway.

Most of the time things get the appropriate tag based on what's displayed in the image, and that's what people are after when they search or blacklist it.

I agree we need to stop using cuntboy and dickgirl because they are rather vulgar terms.

Remember that it's naturally going to be a fluid process that isn't always consistent but it's the best solution we have and it's worked very well actually, despite a few mistags and hard cases here and there

GDelscribe said:
Its an important topic that keeps getting ignored glazed over or otherwise because nobody seems willing to actually deal with the inherent sociopolitical issues involved.

This is an issue that is brought up time and time again and has really deep ramifications that need to be addressed.

The gender/sex tags we currently use are highly subjective at the best of times. Theres no consistency and a lot of flat chested female characters are unnecessarily tagged with a slur, "cboy" for no reason, and likewise the alternate waif ish boys with large pectorals are tagged with the slur "dgirl" when it's completely wrong and unwarranted.

Its frustrating as all hell to both artists and a lot of uploaders here. But everyone either acts like it's a topic to be joked about or they just ignore it or danced around like it's not there anyway.

That's not the at all the point of the topic. You could replace the tags in question with "blue_skin" and "blue_fur" and it'd still stay the same problematic.

The point of this topic is the apparent lack of consistency in tagging pools/comics, not your favorite problem of slurs in tags.

NotMeNotYou said:
That's not the at all the point of the topic. You could replace the tags in question with "blue_skin" and "blue_fur" and it'd still stay the same problematic.

The point of this topic is the apparent lack of consistency in tagging pools/comics, not your favorite problem of slurs in tags.

Thats actually literally what I said in the middle of my post though.

Theres no consistency on what's considered flat_chested female etc and what's considered cboy.

So rather than just using the lore to solve the problem the way that we handle cases like consent or incest In comics we end up with this mishmash of "sometimes it's tagged right?" And sometimes people's characters are tagged with slurs for no good reason.

Its a frustration I've had for a while now. The system is inconsistent. Sometimes we make large affordances for one thing but on this its turned into "well it's a picture by picture basis" and its always arbitrary decision that ends up sometimes getting argued by the artist or uploader because it's either completely wrong ie: their character is literally a flat chested female like Mikhaila, or we get fringe cases where a comic jump between both tags randomly and leaves people searching for the content they want in a lurch.

Not to mention the topic is still relevant because it also comes down to overexhuberance to use those tags even when the uploader/copyright/character owner explicitly says it's wrong or they do not wish to have their characters referred to in such a way but. Hey. Maybe I'm crazy.

This is literally part of what I was talking about in terms of ignoring a problem or pretending it's not there or part of the issue.

Furthermore. Using tags like blue_skin and blue_fur inconsistently would never be an issue or a topic.

Its a simple yes or no. Does the character have any visible skin? Are they a mammal covered in fur? If they're covered in fur. Use blue fur. Theres absolutely no question of consistency issues there. Thats just lazy or incorrect tagging that can be fixed.

This topic involves something that is arbitrarily decided and then enforced by staff despite objections from uploaders artists and even the community at large who literally know the character to be something specific.

Its in no way similar to the discussion at hand.

Using lore to solve any problem consistently -creates- problems (notably tag wars between people-who-know-the-lore vs people-who-don't. Or even people-who-know-the-lore-and-interpret-it-as-X vs people-who-know-the-lore-and-interpret-it-as-Y ). It's why e621 has gradually evolved towards serious TWYS and scrupulous avoidance of lore.

Sentences like this

the community at large who literally know the character to be something specific.

demonstrate in themself why using lore == tag wars.

TWYS is far from perfect -- it's just a strategy to minimize inconsistency and need for moderator intervention -- , but lore isn't any kind of solution either.

IMO the reason that comments on this subject are generally ignored is that typically they propose a) no solutions, b) solutions that are worse than the present situation , or c) solutions that are completely infeasible. Using lore is (as generally proposed) an example of both b and c.

I think the TWYS rule should be flexible. Mikhaila have been proven as a flat chested female by popular opinion. I believe a reason for this is that there have been a short amount of content of female anthros with small breasts. Then Mik came along. She became a representative of how beautiful someone with a flat chest can be so people started defending her from people claiming her to be a cboy. Personally I think Mik would lose her charm if she was another cboy and it's good to have something show that there are guys who like the small busted ladies.

Another point is that I think tags should be consistent in pools. Especially comic. Knowledge comes strong due to the linearity. That way we eliminate unwanted surprises as well.
Then there is the opposite problem with Renamon. Pictures of her without any genitals or breasts are tagged female. In the beginning she was androgynous but was officially declared female because of popular opinion. Then there is the German Renamon who is male.

I have also noticed that safe pictures of Latias are being tagged ambiguous. Even though it officially can only be female Latias. I have read that the excuse is that Latias is not a character but part of a specie.

Sorrowless said:
I think the TWYS rule should be flexible. Mikhaila have been proven as a flat chested female by popular opinion. I believe a reason for this is that there have been a short amount of content of female anthros with small breasts. Then Mik came along. She became a representative of how beautiful someone with a flat chest can be so people started defending her from people claiming her to be a cboy. Personally I think Mik would lose her charm if she was another cboy and it's good to have something show that there are guys who like the small busted ladies.

Another point is that I think tags should be consistent in pools. Especially comic. Knowledge comes strong due to the linearity. That way we eliminate unwanted surprises as well.
Then there is the opposite problem with Renamon. Pictures of her without any genitals or breasts are tagged female. In the beginning she was androgynous but was officially declared female because of popular opinion. Then there is the German Renamon who is male.

I have also noticed that safe pictures of Latias are being tagged ambiguous. Even though it officially can only be female Latias. I have read that the excuse is that Latias is not a character but part of a specie.

This is my point exactly basically. Its enforced sometimes and other times its just. Ignored. Why is renamon defaulted to female? How do you know that? Etc.

GDelscribe said:
This is my point exactly basically. Its enforced sometimes and other times its just. Ignored. Why is renamon defaulted to female? How do you know that? Etc.

renamon is not defaulted female. if you see someone tagging renamon as female purely based on assumptions or external knowledge, you are supposed to fix the tags. if you see someone constantly tagging renamons as female based on assumptions or external knowledge, you are supposed to report them. commonly done and overlooked mistaggings do not make mistagging any more okay.

Mutisija said:
renamon is not defaulted female. if you see someone tagging renamon as female purely based on assumptions or external knowledge, you are supposed to fix the tags. if you see someone constantly tagging renamons as female based on assumptions or external knowledge, you are supposed to report them. commonly done and overlooked mistaggings do not make mistagging any more okay.

Isn't that a bit extreme? Even though I made that comment to make a point, I still think Renamon is female by default.

My thoughts on TWYS is this. I really like butts, but I don't like dgirls. Say there is a really amazing picture of a character that appears to be female, but actually isn't. If we go by the artist and tag it as dgirl, then I can't see it because I have that blacklisted.

The point of TWYS is so that people who have no clue who a character is can still find the art they enjoy. It's far from a perfect solution, but it does work. Yes, it makes some artists upset, but that cannot be helped without sacrificing usability.

Sorrowless said:
Isn't that a bit extreme? Even though I made that comment to make a point, I still think Renamon is female by default.

no? that is the standard way to act when you notice tagging that goes against site rules. also as far as i know, all digimons are technically genderless.

Sorrowless said:
Isn't that a bit extreme? Even though I made that comment to make a point, I still think Renamon is female by default.

Under TWYS *literally nothing* is anything 'by default', so that the searcher is not required to know any 'canon' at all, just the terms for what they want. Thirtyeight illustrated it fairly well.

Thirtyeight said:
My thoughts on TWYS is this. I really like butts, but I don't like dgirls. Say there is a really amazing picture of a character that appears to be female, but actually isn't. If we go by the artist and tag it as dgirl, then I can't see it because I have that blacklisted.

The point of TWYS is so that people who have no clue who a character is can still find the art they enjoy. It's far from a perfect solution, but it does work. Yes, it makes some artists upset, but that cannot be helped without sacrificing usability.

You can make an exception to the blacklist line. Such as their genitals. That way you will see the picture.

Mutisija said:
no? that is the standard way to act when you notice tagging that goes against site rules. also as far as i know, all digimons are technically genderless.

I see. I suppose that's fair then. Visually Renamon appears more feminine and she has a female voice so it's easy to assume she is female.
Is it possible for e621 to automatically tag Digimon characters as genderless unless the tagger tags genitals or breasts?

savageorange said:
Under TWYS *literally nothing* is anything 'by default', so that the searcher is not required to know any 'canon' at all, just the terms for what they want. Thirtyeight illustrated it fairly well.

I am still not comfortable with using this rule 100%. There are cases where exceptions must be added. That is the case with safe posts and genders as we cannot see their genitals. Or breasts.

Sorrowless said:
I see. I suppose that's fair then. Visually Renamon appears more feminine and she has a female voice so it's easy to assume she is female.
Is it possible for e621 to automatically tag Digimon characters as genderless unless the tagger tags genitals or breasts?

if character looks more feminine in a specific image and they do not have any conflicting traits, it gets tagged as female. and no.

I am still not comfortable with using this rule 100%. There are cases where exceptions must be added. That is the case with safe posts and genders as we cannot see their genitals. Or breasts.

evidence that can be used in gender tagging is not limited to genitals and breasts. body shape and facial features count too.

post #214642
you cannot see breasts or vagina in this image but it can still be tagged as female without breaking the tag what you see rule and without making any special exceptions because the character looks like female and there is no conflicting evidence about it.

Mutisija said:
if character looks more feminine in a specific image and they do not have any conflicting traits, it gets tagged as female. and no.

This is a bit conflicting with the genderless Digimon rule.

Sorrowless said:
This is a bit conflicting with the genderless Digimon rule.

what. there is no "genderless digimon rule"? i said that they are technically all genderless based on canon information but that has absolutely no weight in tagging here.

savageorange said:
Under TWYS *literally nothing* is anything 'by default', so that the searcher is not required to know any 'canon' at all, just the terms for what they want. Thirtyeight illustrated it fairly well.

funny that you say that sence we do default all feminine bodies where genitals or impressions there of arnt visible to female when the body actually fits perfectly under herm or "dgirl". And vice versa for masculine bodies where the actual sex is not identifiable. we dont tag things herm when a vulva isnt visible so why do we tag something female where no genitalia is visible. stupid exceptions. alternative to solve this by tagging strictly by body type and visible genitalia have been provided before on a number of occasions non the less they remain being ignored largly on tradition and lazyness. I know we had this before but it obviously keeps coming up as a problem that leads to disputes like these among others.

Sence half say that its female while another half says its c-boy by lore and visual, stands to reason the body is actualy androgynous rather then masculine or feminine with a vulva, that would avoid the issue of gender that does seem to be the problem for many with identifying that character. because the difference deciding between c-boy or female is inherently gender based in most of these cases.

It's not an exception that female is tagged when we can't see genitalia. Female and male are the standard sexes, cuntboy, dickgirl, herm, maleherm, and neuter are the exceptions. As is ambiguous_gender to be precise, but that is the fallback if all else fails.

NotMeNotYou said:
That's not the at all the point of the topic. You could replace the tags in question with "blue_skin" and "blue_fur" and it'd still stay the same problematic.

The point of this topic is the apparent lack of consistency in tagging pools/comics, not your favorite problem of slurs in tags.

Yes, this was the point I was trying to make. I saw a lot of Admin/Moderator enforcement of the cuntboy tags on those last two pages of the comic, but the page just before that is still tagged female, and prior pages are tagged female as well even without showing the actual gender.

One of the problems with tagging a character but not tagging according to the popular gender of that character, a problem which is magnified again by the potentially shifting features of individual characters, so that implicated tags could be incorrect. Not all characters are always depicted as the same gender/with the same parts/as the same species, so implicated tags on a character tag wouldn't work.

I was pointing out that in the first few pages of the comic, people tagged female without any actual indication that the character was female other than their knowledge of the character, which is not what they're supposed to do. Right now that comic demonstrates neither consistency with TWYS nor with the established gender of the character in the comic, and I'm saying that if tags on one page of the comic are going to be enforced according to one tagging scheme, they should also be enforced on the rest of the pages of the comic.

At the time I'm writing this, according to TWYS, post #859034 has been correctly changed to Cuntboy, but post #859036 is still tagged female and flat_chested. Another example is that on post #859036 we can't see the male's gender any more, since only his face is depicted, so why is male tagged? Because it was established on a previous page of the comic. Very clearly, both TWYS and TWYK are being used, sometimes on the same page! So I'm advocating either defined exceptions to TWYS, or universal enforcement of it. Personally, I think situational exceptions will create the least confusion and problems, since many characters have established genders that are always tagged even when genitals aren't shown and gender isn't established in the image. Renamon is a good example, she's sometimes depicted without breasts, but still tagged female.

Thanks for coming to look at this topic. I am fully aware how incredibly silly it is to go on so long about tagging, but I think everyone wants the site to be the best it can be, and I see this as an example of a grey area that nobody can agree on how to approach, so there should be some consensus.

Thirtyeight said:
My thoughts on TWYS is this. I really like butts, but I don't like dgirls. Say there is a really amazing picture of a character that appears to be female, but actually isn't. If we go by the artist and tag it as dgirl, then I can't see it because I have that blacklisted.

The point of TWYS is so that people who have no clue who a character is can still find the art they enjoy. It's far from a perfect solution, but it does work. Yes, it makes some artists upset, but that cannot be helped without sacrificing usability.

But there's the alternate viewpoint that people looking for a certain character or who know the traits of the character may not be able to see it. It's all very confusing, which was why I thought it warranted discussion.

NotMeNotYou said:
It's not an exception that female is tagged when we can't see genitalia. Female and male are the standard sexes, cuntboy, dickgirl, herm, maleherm, and neuter are the exceptions. As is ambiguous_gender to be precise, but that is the fallback if all else fails.

defaulting or as you call it standardizing to female and male gender over Intersex is in fact a exception NMNY. and exceptions are what lead to issues like these.

In a community where intersex characters are a completely normal and common thing as male or female its rather stupid that we are still talking about so called standard genders.
You are tagging something that cant be seen, cant be assumed to exist or have existed, cant be verified, cant be known without outside information. Whats there not to get that you are making exceptions that do not fit under TWYS.

Ruku said:
defaulting or as you call it standardizing to female and male gender over Intersex is in fact a exception NMNY. and exceptions are what lead to issues like these.

In a community where intersex characters are a completely normal and common thing as male or female its rather stupid that we are still talking about so called standard genders.
You are tagging something that cant be seen, cant be assumed to exist or have existed, cant be verified, cant be known without outside information. Whats there not to get that you are making exceptions that do not fit under TWYS.

Occam's Razor : Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.

As of writing:

The standard, with a huge lead are male and female. In fact, if you see a character wearing clothing that character is an order of magnitude more likely to be male or female.
This is, by definition, not an exception. Especially if we follow Occams Razor and go with the most likely case that requires the least assumptions, as is required.

NotMeNotYou said:
Occam's Razor : Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.

As of writing:

Tag	Tag count	% of total posts (934502)
Female	522404	55.90%
Male	442562	47.36%
Dickgirl	30248	3.24%
herm	7522	0.80%
cuntboy	2519	0.27%
maleherm	454	0.05%

The standard, with a huge lead are male and female. In fact, if you see a character wearing clothing that character is an order of magnitude more likely to be male or female.
This is, by definition, not an exception. Especially if we follow Occams Razor and go with the most likely case that requires the least assumptions, as is required.

in the case of gender/sex on this site that does cater to more then just male and female characters, male, female and intersex are all equally assumed, while ambiguous gender(or rather ambiguous sex(need to fix that)) would have the least/fewest assumptions.

Of cource male and female are leading by a wide stretch because you enforce a exception, and warn and report anyone who tag properly by twys rather then abiding by exceptions.

Ruku said:
in the case of gender/sex on this site that does cater to more then just male and female characters, male, female and intersex are all equally assumed, while ambiguous gender(or rather ambiguous sex(need to fix that)) would have the least/fewest assumptions.

Of cource male and female are leading by a wide stretch because you enforce a exception, and warn and report anyone who tag properly by twys rather then abiding by exceptions.

Do honestly believe male and female have a 400.000 image count lead because we enforce the rules?

NotMeNotYou said:
Do honestly believe male and female have a 400.000 image count lead because we enforce the rules?

yes as well as stating pretty much everywhere for years how to tag everything where genitals arnt clearly visible as male or female instead of ambiguous_gender(sex) together with feminine, androgyne or masculine that would state what is actually there properly under twys.

again we dont assume what is dgirl or herm so why should we for taging something female or male, such exceptions are unneeded.

Mutisija said:
what. there is no "genderless digimon rule"? i said that they are technically all genderless based on canon information but that has absolutely no weight in tagging here.

Feels like we're going back and forth. Renamon looks female by default. Doesn't that nullify genderless because it's related to knowledge?

Knowledge should have some space with the tagging rules. Otherwise some cartoon characters would have to have their tags edited. Is this what the admins and moderators of e621 want? A highly technical, but unpractical tagging system.

All in all, it is because of knowledge that we are able to tag in the first place. Character names, copyright etc and gender features are based on it. I'm exaggerating, but the line for knowledge is set somewhere.

NotMeNotYou said:
Occam's Razor : Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.

As of writing:

Tag	Tag count	% of total posts (934502)
Female	522404	55.90%
Male	442562	47.36%
Dickgirl	30248	3.24%
herm	7522	0.80%
cuntboy	2519	0.27%
maleherm	454	0.05%

The standard, with a huge lead are male and female. In fact, if you see a character wearing clothing that character is an order of magnitude more likely to be male or female.
This is, by definition, not an exception. Especially if we follow Occams Razor and go with the most likely case that requires the least assumptions, as is required.

Then why so is it the case that when a character is very clearly still a flat chested female, or a male with larger pectorals (but skinny) is auto tagged cboy or dgirl and then enforced that way? Because what you're saying here is they should be still tagged female or male because its the most obvious answer. And despite argument from users on the issue the staff continues to maintain that it should be tagged with an incorrect tag.

Theres double standards all over and the issue isn't with twys but the fact that its wishywashy on what's "right" and "wrong" just like Sorrowless said.

If we don't tag as twyk then why tag character names? Franchises? You can't discern what someone's from just by looking at them unless you have prior knowledge.

Charr have a special rule. MLP has special gender rules afaik due to the teats thing. We make exceptions to the rules all the time, that are pointless arbitrary and serve only to grow the issue because we act like its utterly impossible to cater to smaller things.

The fact that we have pure knowledge based tags like Incest, nonconsensual/rape.

There is an entire tag dedicatedly wrong, technical_incest.

This tag shouldnt exist any more than say, a trans artist wanting to tag their character as such.

I mean, you don't let us do that so why in the blue hell do we allow for a tag like technical_incest at all? Its completely lore based. Its impossible to tell this unless you know otherwise.

If I didn't know about tmnt how would I know that the turtles x splinter was incest? I wouldn't. Regular incest is wrong to tag half the time as it is because its virtually impossible to maintain an argument that characters are biologically related or not without lore. Its not going to happen.

Nasus and Renekton are still tagged incest. One's a giant croc and the other is a dog. How is that incest to someone unfamiliar with the lore?

Two cats are fucking in an image, one looks like a calico and one's a maine coone, its tagged incest, because by lore they're brothers. But how am I supposed to know that?

Two characters are the exact same species, different faces, slightly different markings. Its not tagged incest. Theyre two very similar looking unrelated characters. Should I tag that as Incest because it LOOKS like incest to me?

No.

There are clear issues with not only the system but the double standards in place in how it is specifically /enforced./

Sorrowless said:
Feels like we're going back and forth. Renamon looks female by default. Doesn't that nullify genderless because it's related to knowledge?

Knowledge should have some space with the tagging rules. Otherwise some cartoon characters would have to have their tags edited. Is this what the admins and moderators of e621 want? A highly technical, but unpractical tagging system.

All in all, it is because of knowledge that we are able to tag in the first place. Character names, copyright etc and gender features are based on it. I'm exaggerating, but the line for knowledge is set somewhere.

While Renamon typically looks female, in the original japanese dub of digimon tamers, it was treated as male.. Renamon as female occured because of english dubbing. Saying it is typically treated as female is not really true. It doesn't really matter as artists are going to draw Renamon as whatever gender they prefer.

Its like the deal with Salandit. We know only female Salandit's are supposed to have mind control pheromones. However, in the creative world, artistic liberty is the law of the land. If someone wants a male Salandit with pheromones, they are going to get a male Salandit with pheromones. To use game lore to make judgement calls is pointless as creative media has no rules.

Thirtyeight said:
While Renamon typically looks female, in the original japanese dub of digimon tamers, it was treated as male.

I just watched Digimon Tamers again recently, and I can tell you that's not true.

There were some dubs that Renamon was treated as a male, but the Japanese version, she was very clearly treated as female, to the point where towards the end of the anime, Renamon states that Digimon are genderless, and she is corrected by Ruki's grandmother, who says that she is clearly female all the same.

However, all of this is, of course, irrelevant. Digimon are genderless according to show lore, but we don't care about show lore, so it doesn't matter.

Which, I understand, is the point you're trying to make. I'm not disagreeing with you, just affirming your point on that.

Clawdragons said:
I just watched Digimon Tamers again recently, and I can tell you that's not true.

There were some dubs that Renamon was treated as a male, but the Japanese version, she was very clearly treated as female, to the point where towards the end of the anime, Renamon states that Digimon are genderless, and she is corrected by Ruki's grandmother, who says that she is clearly female all the same.

However, all of this is, of course, irrelevant. Digimon are genderless according to show lore, but we don't care about show lore, so it doesn't matter.

Which, I understand, is the point you're trying to make. I'm not disagreeing with you, just affirming your point on that.

Quite alright.

Thirtyeight said:
Its like the deal with Salandit. We know only female Salandit's are supposed to have mind control pheromones. However, in the creative world, artistic liberty is the law of the land. If someone wants a male Salandit with pheromones, they are going to get a male Salandit with pheromones. To use game lore to make judgement calls is pointless as creative media has no rules.

So if we see Salandit with pheromones without genitals we can tag them as female. It would be gender specific, similar to the mane of a lion.

What is the rule with Latias? I learned that safe pics should be tagged ambiguous gender.

Sorrowless said:
So if we see Salandit with pheromones without genitals we can tag them as female. It would be gender specific, similar to the mane of a lion.

What is the rule with Latias? I learned that safe pics should be tagged ambiguous gender.

You do not tag salandit with pheromones as female, this has been discussed before and the canon does not matter. Ferals that don't show genitals are often ambiguous_gender because the usual differences aren't as noticable as human(oid)s. Things like size difference and colors/patterns are left for artistic choice, and thus is usually ignored.

Sorrowless said:
So if we see Salandit with pheromones without genitals we can tag them as female. It would be gender specific, similar to the mane of a lion.

What is the rule with Latias? I learned that safe pics should be tagged ambiguous gender.

No, the pheromones part is not interesting to our tagging, the same as the Pikachu tail difference isn't.

What about dimorphism in real animals?

Sorrowless said:
What about dimorphism in real animals?

As in completely non-anthro ferals? Just making sure this is what you're referring to before giving an answer.

Ratte said:
As in completely non-anthro ferals? Just making sure this is what you're referring to before giving an answer.

Yes. Why does these features, feral or not get a free pass?

Sorrowless said:
Yes. Why does these features, feral or not get a free pass?

Because real-world sexual dimorphism is considered common knowledge. Lore-based dimorphism is not. It's really that simple. If it's about anthros it tends to get more complicated than it does with ferals, at least from my experience.

Ratte said:
Because real-world sexual dimorphism is considered common knowledge. Lore-based dimorphism is not. It's really that simple. If it's about anthros it tends to get more complicated than it does with ferals, at least from my experience.

These days fictional lore might be more common knowledge than animal features among the newer generations.

Is there any way to change this? A vote perhaps?

Sorrowless said:
These days fictional lore might be more common knowledge than animal features among the newer generations.

Is there any way to change this? A vote perhaps?

That is unlikely.

GDelscribe said:
Then why so is it the case that when a character is very clearly still a flat chested female, or a male with larger pectorals (but skinny) is auto tagged cboy or dgirl and then enforced that way? Because what you're saying here is they should be still tagged female or male because its the most obvious answer. And despite argument from users on the issue the staff continues to maintain that it should be tagged with an incorrect tag.

Because the administration disagrees with your assessment of whether or not the body type is masculine or feminine, and in conjunction with the presented genitalia requires the tag we enforce.

GDelscribe said:
Theres double standards all over and the issue isn't with twys but the fact that its wishywashy on what's "right" and "wrong" just like Sorrowless said.

If we don't tag as twyk then why tag character names? Franchises? You can't discern what someone's from just by looking at them unless you have prior knowledge.

This is a completely inane and pointless hyperbole. Why not directly ask how TWYS can work without external knowledge if we have to use english tags instead of abstract concepts understandable through a spinal input?
Because anything else would be impractical.

We have to require a basic amount of knowledge (as well as internet access) from our users. This basic amount of knowledge is somewhere aimed at a finished high school level, regular exposure to the media/news, and a good grasp of the english language.
Names of characters are trivial information incredibly easily learned and associated to a specific character because millions of years of evolution made it possible, in the same vein associating a character to a franchise is trivial.
Further, both franchises and character names serve have 100% positive impact on the searchability of things because they only ever add tags, they never prevent tags.

For the example of post #965929, a lot of people see that particular comic page as being a representation of a cuntboy and not as a representation of a female, with your proposal we'd have to replace a tag with something different, and that hurts the search.
This is also why character tags exist. You want to see shenanigans of Mikhaila? Search Mikhaila instead of 'female otter'.

GDelscribe said:
Charr have a special rule. MLP has special gender rules afaik due to the teats thing. We make exceptions to the rules all the time, that are pointless arbitrary and serve only to grow the issue because we act like its utterly impossible to cater to smaller things.

These aren't special rules. Female charr are still more feminine in body build and face than their male counterparts, it's just made slightly more difficult thanks to the lack of breasts. For MLP the issue is the same, masculine face shapes are treated as masculine because their bodies don't have other deciding features. The presence of the teats is just a normal thing like it is for all other species, meaning if they are enlarged (or the mere existence depending on the drawing style) is a feminine feature because that is how it is in real life.

GDelscribe said:

The fact that we have pure knowledge based tags like Incest, nonconsensual/rape.

There is an entire tag dedicatedly wrong, technical_incest.

This tag shouldnt exist any more than say, a trans artist wanting to tag their character as such.

I mean, you don't let us do that so why in the blue hell do we allow for a tag like technical_incest at all? Its completely lore based. Its impossible to tell this unless you know otherwise.

If I didn't know about tmnt how would I know that the turtles x splinter was incest? I wouldn't. Regular incest is wrong to tag half the time as it is because its virtually impossible to maintain an argument that characters are biologically related or not without lore. Its not going to happen.

Nasus and Renekton are still tagged incest. One's a giant croc and the other is a dog. How is that incest to someone unfamiliar with the lore?

Two cats are fucking in an image, one looks like a calico and one's a maine coone, its tagged incest, because by lore they're brothers. But how am I supposed to know that?

Two characters are the exact same species, different faces, slightly different markings. Its not tagged incest. Theyre two very similar looking unrelated characters. Should I tag that as Incest because it LOOKS like incest to me?

I don't know why technical_incest exists (thanks to the fact that users can create tags) but there is a high chance that tag will cease existing soonish.
Otherwise the incest tag is only used when incest is mentioned in the image itself, and not in other cases.

GDelscribe said:
There are clear issues with not only the system but the double standards in place in how it is specifically /enforced./

There are no double standards, only incomplete knowledge about how it's supposed to work, and those holes make it seem more flawed than it is.
If you want a different system, create your own page. We will not harm the search and alienate thousands of users because a handful of people would prefer a different solution.

Also, I'm not saying a different solution wouldn't work, on the contrary, there are some very interesting benefits to have more TWYK instead TWYS, but they also come with a lot drawbacks which makes it unusable for us.
Again, people come here because of TWYS instead TWYK, if you want a place that allows more external knowledge then you will have to make your own, it's not worth it for us to change the system to humor the search preferences of a minority.

^ excellent post. I really try to communicate "We use TWYS because this is what we've learnt is the best usage of language for tagging. We don't do TWYK because we know from experience it doesn't work.", but I think you communicated it better. TWYK makes the user base exclusionary/elitist (you would tag AND search better if and only if you hoard knowledge, wherever TWYK would apply.)

NotMeNotYou said: I don't know why technical_incest exists (thanks to the fact that users can create tags) but there is a high chance that tag will cease existing soonish.
Otherwise the incest tag is only used when incest is mentioned in the image itself, and not in other cases.

Well, there aren't any different type of incest, such as with genders. I can't see that tag hurt anyone besides the ones reading it and dislikes that it is there without any indications or mentioning of it.

Sorrowless said:
Well, there aren't any different type of incest, such as with genders. I can't see that tag hurt anyone besides the ones reading it and dislikes that it is there without any indications or mentioning of it.

It's not a tag applicable under TWYS, and as this thread has shown the mere existence of a tag like that is already enough that it will be abused by people trying to argue that we allow exceptions to TWYS and that we should loosen it even further.

NotMeNotYou said:
It's not a tag applicable under TWYS, and as this thread has shown the mere existence of a tag like that is already enough that it will be abused by people trying to argue that we allow exceptions to TWYS and that we should loosen it even further.

Its kinda why I brought it up.

There has to be some consensus on what's the right format because its not the only tag like this and with a lot of the existing other "subjective" tags it really comes down to, what is applicable to a TWYS system.

For example. Another tag I brought up is Rape how do we define that instead of just rough_sex? Considering blacklist wise its an incredibly important tag to have...

For example, post #973806 is considered rough_sex but outside of wincing how is post #976054 different, its tagged with rape and we can't claim that its because its what the artist said it is, because if thats the case then yes indeed we do allow TWYK.

There are a lot of fringe cases like this and its not cut and dry.

I apologize if I seem contrarian but the way the system is currently set up it leaves a lot of room for confusion on what is acceptable and what is not.

GDelscribe said:
For example. Another tag I brought up is Rape how do we define that instead of just rough_sex? Considering blacklist wise its an incredibly important tag to have...

Rape needs to look forced. Whether if it's that one person is in obvious pain, trying to flee, or restrained against their will, there need to be some sort of clue visible that it's non-consensual.

Though I agree that the pokemon one doesn't really look forced, except that it appears that the raichu is trying to somewhat push away the feraligatr.

All tags need to be able to be verified in the image itself. Tags are only supposed to be added if something in the image necessitates them. If a tag isn't possible to be verified by something that can be shown in an image then that tag is almost always a bad one.

GDelscribe said:
Its kinda why I brought it up.

There has to be some consensus on what's the right format because its not the only tag like this and with a lot of the existing other "subjective" tags it really comes down to, what is applicable to a TWYS system.

For example. Another tag I brought up is Rape how do we define that instead of just rough_sex? Considering blacklist wise its an incredibly important tag to have...

For example, post #973806 is considered rough_sex but outside of wincing how is post #976054 different, its tagged with rape and we can't claim that its because its what the artist said it is, because if thats the case then yes indeed we do allow TWYK.

There are a lot of fringe cases like this and its not cut and dry.

I apologize if I seem contrarian but the way the system is currently set up it leaves a lot of room for confusion on what is acceptable and what is not.

I suppose the rough_sex tag can be used when the receiver is having an "umph" face. Spanking is also an indicator.

Posting to this thread as it is the latest one is can find related to all three of "comics", "TWYS" and "gender".
(AND I want to make sure if I did the correct thing, tag-wise)

Today i wandered across post #1443 where the skunk was tagged as gynomorph AND herm.
(which is understandable as
1) from what we can see in the image, the skunk looks gynomorph
2) but earlier page of the comic the skunk is shown to be herm.

(understandable in that someone tagged with TWYSee, but someone else tagged with TWYKnow)

I checked howto:tag_genders and it says "Tags are just reflection of what's visible in an image,"

so went with the tags reflecting what in the image (ie. changed tags for this image from herm to gynomorph)

ListerTheSquirrel said:
Posting to this thread as it is the latest one is can find related to all three of "comics", "TWYS" and "gender".
(AND I want to make sure if I did the correct thing, tag-wise)

Today i wandered across post #1443 where the skunk was tagged as gynomorph AND herm.
(which is understandable as
1) from what we can see in the image, the skunk looks gynomorph
2) but earlier page of the comic the skunk is shown to be herm.

(understandable in that someone tagged with TWYSee, but someone else tagged with TWYKnow)

I checked howto:tag_genders and it says "Tags are just reflection of what's visible in an image,"

so went with the tags reflecting what in the image (ie. changed tags for this image from herm to gynomorph)

Earlier pages dont mean anything. And. Dude. If you see incorrectly tagged post, you fix the tags and report it for tagging abuse if necessary and move on instead of necroing three years old thread to rant about this one singular mistagged post. If you genuinely need help with it, make a new thread, PM an admin or make a blip. No need to necro barely relevant ancient drama threads.