You might have noticed that I have been writing a lot of lengthy Bulk Update Requests lately. My university had its final exams last week and I got bored out of my mind. I didn't have anything better to do, so I tried to contribute to the site as well as I can.

However, some of them received vocal opposition that was not completely unjustified, and it made me realize that I still do not comprehend exactly how e621 actually works - that is, I am not 100% sure how to help in a way that doesn't mess something up.

I had four ideas that I wrote down a while ago and was going to write BURs tomorrow, but now I would like to receive confirmation from you (yes, YOU! post #82731) that it should actually be done and that it would benefit the site. I ask experienced users and staff to consider the following (and share your thoughts):

• alias exotic_* -> unusual_*

Reason: The aliases exotic_genital -> unusual_genitalia/exotic_dick -> unusual_penis/exotic_vulva -> unusual_pussy are currently active, but the tags exotic_pupils and unusual_pupils coexist (et cetera).
If you believe that I should write this BUR, please explain how to avoid making it overdetailed or underdetailed. If you believe that I should not, please explain why as well.

• unalias heart_* -> <3_*

Reason: Currently heart_* tags and <3_* tags coexist, but some of the former are aliased to their latter counterpart and vice versa. Eventually, e621 will have to pick a side, and I believe that moving away from emoticons is better for parsing purposes.
If you believe that I should write this BUR, please explain how to avoid making it overdetailed or underdetailed. If you believe that I should not, please explain why as well.

• I have also noticed that <3_pupils is aliased to <3_eyes. However, in my opinion, this should not be the case. post #1938451 features what I would call "heart eyes" while post #2520012 features what I would call "heart pupils". They are different enough to deserve separation. I plan to make a BUR around "symbol" eyes and pupils in general.

If you believe that I should write this BUR, please explain how to avoid making it overdetailed or underdetailed. If you believe that I should not, please explain why as well.

• Last but not least, @TheGreatWolfgang made a suggestion in the "Meta Tags Yearsourcing" thread about aliasing years to centuries (for example, aliasing everything from 1301 to 1400 to 14th_century) that I found interesting. @Clawstripe disagreed and offered the argument that century tags are used for lore purposes instead of meta purposes. However, the wikis seem to suggest that they should be used for meta purposes. While the current usage does seem to skew towards lore, I believe that it should follow the wiki definition and suggest a tagging project to clean up. Then, I will write BURs to alias away time periods as agreed by everyone here.

If you believe that I should write this BUR, please explain how to avoid making it overdetailed or underdetailed. If you believe that I should not, please explain why as well.

Thank you for reading this wall of text (if you just skipped to the end, I'm going to be very sad) and for your guidance/constructive criticism/not calling me bad names (hopefully).

So, should I just chill out and take a rest or keep on writing?

Update: New idea

• alias bloody_* -> blood_on_*

I'll do my best to give some helpful feedback on these:

• I agree with aliasing the exotic_* tags to the unusual_* tags, since they are synonymous in the way they are used.
• I've made a BUR for <3_* vs. heart_* on forum topic #27282, but support for that BUR and fresh input on that forum topic seem to have fizzled out (currently that BUR aliases the <3_* tags to the heart_* tags). I've been meaning to revisit that BUR. I may end up cancelling it and start a new BUR with the aliases flipped around to see if that will garner more support.
• A BUR for [symbol-shaped]_eyes and [symbol-shaped]_pupils implications would be a good idea, though that might be better to postpone until after the debate over <3_* vs. heart_* is resolved. That could get confusing trying to juggle all of those related alias/implication subjects at once.
• I'm not familiar with the discussion on the "Yearsourcing" thread, however the *_century tags (like 14th_century) don't seem to function as Lore category tags. The *_century tags seem to function much more like the year tags, thus I think these tags should instead be Meta category tags. Perhaps it would be better to imply each of these years to their equivalent century to act as a base tag (for example, an implication for all the tags from 1301 through 1400 to 14th_century instead)?

Since my own BURs are quite lengthy, I may not be the best individual to ask for advice on limiting the size of BURs. Most of the time it's best to avoid aliasing away tag variants with hyphens or missing a space (since these variations are rarely used), though I have trouble following this myself. Hopefully this has been helpful.

gattonero2001 said:
However, some of them received vocal opposition that was not completely unjustified, and it made me realize that I still do not comprehend exactly how e621 actually works - that is, I am not 100% sure how to help in a way that doesn't mess something up.

Join the club.

• alias exotic_* -> unusual_*

Reason: The aliases exotic_genital -> unusual_genitalia/exotic_dick -> unusual_penis/exotic_vulva -> unusual_pussy are currently active, but the tags exotic_pupils and unusual_pupils coexist (et cetera).

So, basically, this is just fully standardizing exotic_* tags to unusual_* tags? I imagine all you'd need do is collect all the unaliased exotic_* tags and create a BUR that aliases them all to the appropriate unusual_* tags.

• unalias heart_* -> <3_*

unalias broken_heart_* -> </3_*alias <3_* -> heart_*alias </3_* -> broken_heart_*

Reason: Currently heart_* tags and <3_* tags coexist, but some of the former are aliased to their latter counterpart and vice versa. Eventually, e621 will have to pick a side, and I believe that moving away from emoticons is better for parsing purposes.

My thoughts are that <3 is used for when the shape itself is visible, such as when it's used for the card suit, the others of which are standardized to ♦, ♣, and ♠ (ALT 4, ALT 5, and ALT 6, respectively), and I've tended to prefer the icon over spelling it out as it's more directly obvious what it's referring to (as the card suit symbols are not always used on playing cards, just as <3 is used for ♥ shapes that aren't on playing cards). However, the drawback is that it's not as easy to add it in as a tag as <3 is. The majority of users don't know the ALT 4/5/6 thing and copy-pasting the icon is likely cumbersome, so putting in an alias would be necessary. I'd go for spades -> ♠, diamond_(symbol) -> ♦, and clubs -> ♣ or something similar for aliases, but considering the understandable tendency to veer away from non-ASCII as much as possible, it's not likely to happen.

Perhaps we need symbol_(heart), symbol_(clubs), symbol_(diamonds), and symbol_(spades) tags. Not only would this remove them as non-ASCII characters, but would also group them together to make it easier to find them in the tag list as most do now (another advantage the current setup has). We could then expand them with other non-ASCII symbol tags such as symbol_(male), symbol_(female), and symbol_(herm).

• I have also noticed that <3_pupils is aliased to <3_eyes. However, in my opinion, this should not be the case. post #1938451 features what I would call "heart eyes" while post #2520012 features what I would call "heart pupils". They are different enough to deserve separation. I plan to make a BUR around "symbol" eyes and pupils in general.

I can see your point. However, considering the pupils are integral part of the eyes, perhaps heart_pupils/<3_pupils should implicate heart_eyes/<3_eyes. Searching heart_pupils/<3_pupils would then give you only pupils with or are hearts, searching heart_eyes/<3_eyes and -heart_pupils/<3_pupils would give you images of the whole eye or just the iris in a heart shape, and just searching heart_eyes/<3_eyes would give you any image with eyes that have a heart as is now done.

(As an aside, are there any eyes and/or pupils using the other card suits in place of hearts?)

• Last but not least, @TheGreatWolfgang made a suggestion in the "Meta Tags Yearsourcing" thread about aliasing years to centuries (for example, aliasing everything from 1301 to 1400 to 14th_century) that I found interesting. @Clawstripe disagreed and offered the argument that century tags are used for lore purposes instead of meta purposes. However, the wikis seem to suggest that they should be used for meta purposes. While the current usage does seem to skew towards lore, I believe that it should follow the wiki definition and suggest a tagging project to clean up. Then, I will write BURs to alias away time periods as agreed by everyone here.

Century tags are often used when a picture is set in that particular century or has some inspiration from something in that era. They're also often used when the picture was made in that particular timeframe. So, they're basically a mix between lore tags and meta tags, and thus really ought to be sorted eventually. I also don't want to get rid of the specific year the picture was offered, as an extension of the current 1980-2020 year tags.

If a tag's usage differs from the wiki, then it only makes sense to rewrite the wiki to reflect that. However, I admit TheGreatWolfgang does make a valid point in that the various year tags ought to be grouped together into the century tags. I went back to the 13th_century in the current batch, so the tags 13th_century through 21st_century could be converted to meta tags and the various year tags implicated to the appropriate century (perhaps with the current set from 1980 to 2021 implying something like modern_era since, as TheGreatWolfgang also pointed out, that's when the contemporary fandom evolved?).

As for the lore aspects of the century tags, there's already a possible solution: the ####s tags, which basically cover the various decades in the 20th century (1900s to 1980s) as well as 1800s. We can convert these era tags into lore tags (thus making, for example, 1920s distinct from 1920) and use them when a picture inspired by, but not made in, a certain era. Other era tags, such as ancient_furry_art, can then also be turned into lore tags.

So, should I just chill out and take a rest or keep on writing?

Might as well keep on writing. If the BUR suggestion doesn't work, at least it's brought out into the open where it can be dealt with, cold comfort that might be for you at times.

Thank you @D.D.M. and @Clawstripe for your time and answers. What I gather from your feedback is that the first suggestion (alias exotic_* -> unusual_*) is a good idea, but the other three need more discussion at the moment. Is that right?

Before proceeding with the alias exotic_* -> unusual_* BUR (which will also contain several missing implications), I would like to gather more viewpoints, including those from people who downvoted the "Entwined BUR" series. Even if you have no reservations about the general concept, please give me tips on how to avoid unnecessary verbosity.

I am asking specifically if I should include aliases from plural to singular (or vice versa when appropriate), hyphens, synonyms et cetera.

gattonero2001 said:
Before proceeding with the alias exotic_* -> unusual_* BUR (which will also contain several missing implications), I would like to gather more viewpoints, including those from people who downvoted the "Entwined BUR" series. Even if you have no reservations about the general concept, please give me tips on how to avoid unnecessary verbosity.

Not every tag needs all possible variants of its spelling aliased to it.
I don't see any reason to alias tags that aren't either:
- Likely to be used instead of the proper tag
- Already added to a number of posts

I don't disagree with the concept of the aliases proposed in most of the Entwined BURs. I just disagree with the number of pointless aliases in them.

gattonero2001 said:
I am asking specifically if I should include aliases from plural to singular (or vice versa when appropriate), hyphens, synonyms et cetera.

I would say only if it's likely to be a problem that those other forms may be used. We don't need every tag that has underscores to have aliases for hyphens (or worse, mixes of hyphens and underscores), unless it's a common-enough problem that people tag it incorrectly. Same for plurals and synonyms. I don't know if there would be any issue with the server holding on to an excessive number of aliases that never get used, but it would end up flooding the tag autocomplete suggestions (as it is, the first three results when typing human_ are aliases for more general things, bodily_fluids and humanoid_penis/genitalia, only then giving real tags that start with human_; typing dragon results in the first two being aliases for penis and pokémon, followed by dragon itself, then an alias for hybrid, before getting to other tags that actually start with dragon). Autocomplete suggesting aliases isn't inherently a problem, and is sometimes useful for getting the right tag I meant to use, though if there's a bunch of aliases that no one ever uses causing it to suggest unrelated tags to what a user may mean with what they're typing, its usability would go down a lot.

watsit said:
Autocomplete suggesting aliases isn't inherently a problem, and is sometimes useful for getting the right tag I meant to use, though if there's a bunch of aliases that no one ever uses causing it to suggest unrelated tags to what a user may mean with what they're typing, its usability would go down a lot.

I can honestly completely agree with this. It has been useful to me on occasion, but I've still noticed some oddities when I type certain things in. Like how typing feral in gives feral_female/_male/_canid/_canine before feral itself, followed immediately by feral_felid/_canis/_pokemon. Sometimes wish some of those wouldn't show up in autocomplete.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread. If I may trouble you further, please evaluate the first draft of my unusually unusual BUR.

imply snake_penis -> unusual_penis
alias exotic_pupils -> unusual_pupils
imply unusual_pupils -> pupils
alias exotic_navel -> unusual_navel
imply unusual_navel -> navel
alias exotic_dildo -> unusual_dildo
imply unusual_dildo -> dildo
imply unusual_dildo -> unusual_sex_toy
imply unusual_sex_toy -> sex_toy
imply unusual_penetrable_sex_toy -> unusual_sex_toy
imply unusual_penetrable_sex_toy -> penetrable_sex_toy
alias exotic_tail -> unusual_tail
imply unusual_tail -> unusual anatomy
imply unusual_wings -> unusual anatomy
imply unusual_wings -> wings
imply unusual_genitalia -> unusual anatomy
imply unusual_genitalia -> genitalia
imply unusual_genitalia_placement -> unusual anatomy
imply unusual_genitalia_placement -> genitalia
imply unusual_penis_placement -> unusual_genitalia_placement
imply unusual_penis_placement -> penis
imply unusual_pussy_placement -> unusual_genitalia_placement
imply unusual_pussy_placement -> pussy
alias exotic_clothing -> unusual_clothing
imply unusual_clothing -> clothing
alias exotic_wear -> unusual_clothing
alias exotic_dress -> unusual_dress
imply unusual_dress -> unusual_topwear
imply unusual_dress -> dress
imply unusual_pants -> unusual_bottomwear
imply unusual_pants -> pants
alias exotic_weapon -> unusual_weapon
imply unusual_weapon -> weapon
imply unusual_cloaca -> cloaca
imply unusual_balls -> balls
imply unusual_sheath -> sheath
imply unusual_gun -> unusual_weapon
imply unusual_gun -> gun
imply unusual_cum -> unusual_bodily_fluids
imply unusual_cum -> cum
imply unusual_pussy_juice -> unusual_bodily_fluids
imply unusual_pussy_juice -> pussy_juice
imply unusual_precum -> unusual_bodily_fluids
imply unusual_precum -> precum
imply unusual_bodily_fluids -> bodily_fluids
imply unusual_blood -> unusual_bodily_fluids
imply unusual_blood -> blood
imply unusual_urine -> unusual_bodily_fluids
imply unusual_urine -> urine
imply unusual_tears -> unusual_bodily_fluids
imply unusual_tears -> tears
alias exotic_horns -> unusual_horn
alias exotic_horn -> unusual_horn
imply unusual_horn -> unusual anatomy
imply unusual_hat -> unusual_headwear
imply unusual_hat -> hat
imply unusual_headwear -> headwear
imply unusual_bottomwear -> bottomwear
imply unusual_topwear -> topwear
imply unusual_headwear -> unusual_clothing
imply unusual_bottomwear -> unusual_clothing
imply unusual_topwear -> unusual_clothing
imply unusual_tongue -> tongue
imply unusual_tongue -> unusual anatomy
imply unusual_nipples -> unusual anatomy
imply unusual_nipples -> nipples
imply chest_penis -> unusual_penis_placement
imply dicknipples -> unusual_penis_placement
imply facial_penis -> unusual_penis_placement
imply finger_penis -> unusual_penis_placement
imply penis_tongue -> unusual_penis_placement
imply toe_penis -> unusual_penis_placement
imply tail_penis -> unusual_penis_placement
imply unusual_anus -> unusual anatomy
imply tail_vore -> unusual vore
imply breast_vore -> unusual vore
imply nipple_vore -> unusual vore
imply pouch_vore -> unusual vore
imply navel_vore -> unusual vore
imply nasal_vore -> unusual vore

Feel free to suggest the addition and/or subtraction of anything, but please explain your reasoning.

If there are no further answers in approximately 18 hours, I will assume that everyone who read this agrees with the BUR suggestion in its totality and upload it as it is.