Dialogue

Can I tag dialogue:

• ...on posts without text in which it's implicit that there's characters having a dialogue?

• ...on posts where the character is not talking with someone else?

• ...on posts where the character is simply exclaiming sounds such as crying, laughing, shouting, growling, etc...

IMO when it's implicit that there's a dialogue it should be tagged;
A dialogue needs to be between two or more characters for it to be tagged dialogue;
Sounds or onomatopoeias shouldn't be tagged as dialogue.

But I want to hear your thoughts about this.

I think the problem is that speech bubble implicates dialogue, but a post can have speech bubbles in which the character is talking alone; The other problem is that text_bubble is aliased to speech_bubble, but not all text bubbles are speech bubbles as I've, hopefully, demonstrated.

Language

Now another thing I want to understand is what language should be tagged on posts with an insufficient amount of words to infer without a doubt that this text is from x language.

• post #2955552

Latin text? English text? Romaji Text?

• post #2871353

Romaji Text?

• post #2784786

English text? Portuguese text?

What about misspelled text on posts?

• post #3107295

English text (Burger?)

How would we know if it's misspelled?

• post #3095926

English text, but how could we tell if it's not a misspelling of "Coque" a portuguese word for a hairstyle?

• post #3060920

Is she meowing or is it a misspelling of "Meu" (My/Mine) which in that case it could be tagged as Portuguese text.

What if the only text there's in a post are names?

• post #2483529

Romaji text?

sieghelm_lockayer said:
Can I tag dialogue:

• ...on posts without text in which it's implicit that there's characters having a dialogue?

I am certain those posts should have some kind of tag, and I think dialogue implied by talking_to_another seems like a good idea. Ideally, posts like those would fill out the search dialogue -text, although atm that's mostly garbage. I would say avoid tagging dialogue on solo -text posts unless they're animated, since it's hard to distinguish "open mouth for talking" vs. "open mouth for shouting/moaning" without the context of two people facing each other.

• ...on posts where the character is not talking with someone else?

Yes, absolutely. Technically they should be tagged monologue, but in modern, colloquial english usage, there's no difference between the terms.

• ...on posts where the character is simply exclaiming sounds such as crying, laughing, shouting, growling, etc...

I want to say no, but I am very, very ambivalent.

Now another thing I want to understand is what language should be tagged on posts with an insufficient amount of words to infer without a doubt that this text is from x language.

Generally, I think you should tag a post as english_text if it can be understood as English text or some reasonable misspelling of English words. English gets privileged on this site because it's the official unofficial language; e.g. the interface is in English; we accept translation edits to English, but not to other languages. I think most of our userbase speaks at least a little English. Other languages shouldn't get tagged unless there are words that only exist in that language, and we can reasonable assume they are not misspellings. I would expect the opposite trend on other sites, like Pixiv, which is Japanese.

I think posts with only names should not get a language tag. Ideally there would be a tag for ASCII charset images, and then different tags for images containing characters from the utf-8 cyrillic set, or japanese set, or whatnot as defined by the character encoding standards. But that's not going to happen, practically.

sieghelm_lockayer said:

Dialogue

Can I tag dialogue:

• ...on posts without text in which it's implicit that there's characters having a dialogue?

Nope, as per the dialogue wiki, "[it] should be used to denote text that is being spoken aloud."

• ...on posts where the character is not talking with someone else?

Yes, alongside speech_bubble when necessary.

• ...on posts where the character is simply exclaiming sounds such as crying, laughing, shouting, growling, etc...

Yes, alongside the appropriate action tag such as roaring, screaming, yelling, etc. when necessary.
Additionally, you can also use sound_effects or onomatopoeia in certain scenarios.

IMO when it's implicit that there's a dialogue it should be tagged;
A dialogue needs to be between two or more characters for it to be tagged dialogue;

We tag by what we see, not by what we know.

Implied dialogue can be interpreted in many ways and it would break the actual purpose of the dialogue tag (i.e., actually seeing a conversation going on).
The examples you have given for your first question on implicit dialogue does not look like they were having a dialogue at all. The first post can be seen as someone gasping while the second post can be seen as just two characters smiling/laughing with an open_smile, and as for the third post, I will just let you compare it with post #2537981 and see if both can be considered as "dialogue".

Sounds or onomatopoeias shouldn't be tagged as dialogue.

While it is true that not all sound_effects or onomatopoeias are dialogue (e.g., explosion appearing as a visual "BOOM!"), characters making certain noises can be seen as dialogue (e.g., saying the word "bark" or "meow" in a speech_bubble).

But I want to hear your thoughts about this.

I think the problem is that speech bubble implicates dialogue, but a post can have speech bubbles in which the character is talking alone; The other problem is that text_bubble is aliased to speech_bubble, but not all text bubbles are speech bubbles as I've, hopefully, demonstrated.

Nope, speech_bubble has never implied dialogue, since pictographics can exist. Pictographics are also tagged with speech_bubble or thought_bubble when necessary.

There's always going to be some edge cases for what language something is in:

• post #711556 "WC" stands for "water closet", which is British English term for "bathroom". However, the term is also sometimes (granted, perhaps rarely?) used in Japanese, and the artist happens to be Japanese...

• post #1253075 The phrase "Viva Piñata" is technically Spanish, but it's actually the English title for a video game.

Since this is an English site, I think it defaulting to always tagging English_text whenever possible (such as on the two posts I just mentioned) is reasonable. I wouldn't be opposed to multiple languages being tagged, though.

When the conflict is between tagging two or more non-English languages, I'd say using external knowledge to get the answer isn't unreasonable. Tagging multiple languages should be fine if it's too confusing to decide on one particular language.

If the text is just a letter of the alphabet, I'm not sure what to tag. Maybe we need to create a tag for that. If the text is pure gibberish, tagging gibberish would work. If the text is in a fictional language, tag constructed_language fictional_language, which implies constructed_language.

When the text is just a single kanji character and there's no way to know if it is meant to be Japanese or Chinese, kanji can be tagged post #165557

sieghelm_lockayer said:

Language

Now another thing I want to understand is what language should be tagged on posts with an insufficient amount of words to infer without a doubt that this text is from x language.

• post #2955552

Latin text? English text? Romaji Text?

I would say to err on the side of caution and not include a specific language tag until something definitive can be agreed upon.

There was a discussion going on when cyrillic_text was getting aliased to russian_text.
Consensus was that cyrillic_text should only be used when the Cyrillic script is being used nondescriptly (i.e., not of a particular language), and when appropriate should be replaced with russian_text, ukrainian_text or any other languages using the Cyrillic script.

Likewise, in this scenario, the Latin script is being used nondescriptly. However, the associated latin_text is only used for posts with the Latin language, so it would be inappropriate to use it the same way we use cyrillic_text.
The tag letter_(alphabet) was mentioned in topic #11186, so that could be a potential tag.

• post #2871353

Romaji Text?

I would say yes. Although it uses the Latin script, it is used in a way to denote romaji_text (i.e., japanese_text rendered in Latin script).

• post #2784786

English text? Portuguese text?

English_text & mooing.

What about misspelled text on posts?

• post #3107295

English text (Burger?)

Original language was English, so I would say english_text.
Posts using baby_talk (e.g., post #199121) or "OwO speech" (e.g., post #1810245) would still be in a recognisable language, even if they were scrambled.

How would we know if it's misspelled?

• post #3095926

English text, but how could we tell if it's not a misspelling of "Coque" a portuguese word for a hairstyle?

• post #3060920

Is she meowing or is it a misspelling of "Meu" (My/Mine) which in that case it could be tagged as Portuguese text.

You don't assume it's misspelled in another language. You tag what you see; i.e., english_text for the first post and meowing or onomatopoeia for the second post.
But I see where you are getting at, I will further explain below.

What if the only text there's in a post are names?

• post #2483529

Romaji text?

The character's name is written as レゴシ in japanese_text, Regoshi in romaji_text, and Legoshi/Legosi in english_text.

I understand that there can exist loanwords or words borrowed from another language, such as the word "emoji" being in both English and Japanese/Romaji dictionaries.
Should a post appear where multiple languages can be interpreted as being spoken in a post (e.g., a post with just the word "emoji"), then you can add in multiple language tags (i.e., english_text & romaji_text).

However, if the speech is done so that there is a dominant language (e.g., "I used an emoji to describe my feelings."), then you should tag the more dominant language's tag.
This also applies to words officially adopted into a language (e.g., "Gesundheit! You should take better care of yourself.").

matrixmash said:
I am certain those posts should have some kind of tag, and I think dialogue implied by talking_to_another seems like a good idea. Ideally, posts like those would fill out the search dialogue -text, although atm that's mostly garbage. I would say avoid tagging dialogue on solo -text posts unless they're animated, since it's hard to distinguish "open mouth for talking" vs. "open mouth for shouting/moaning" without the context of two people facing each other.

I see what you mean and also think it should have some kind of tag for these types of posts.

I think posts with only names should not get a language tag. Ideally there would be a tag for ASCII charset images, and then different tags for images containing characters from the utf-8 cyrillic set, or japanese set, or whatnot as defined by the character encoding standards. But that's not going to happen, practically.

What if the name of the character happens to be a common noun from a language, such as Fox_Mccloud and the only text in the post is someone calling "Fox" to call his attention?

⠀

thegreatwolfgang said:
We tag by what we see, not by what we know.

Implied dialogue can be interpreted in many ways and it would break the actual purpose of the dialogue tag (i.e., actually seeing a conversation going on).

Well... I do see a conversation going on? I understand where you're coming from when it's a still image. Now what about a animated post where two characters are seemly talking with each other, however there isn't text or they are doing lip reading?

The examples you have given for your first question on implicit dialogue does not look like they were having a dialogue at all. The first post can be seen as someone gasping

If they seem gasping wouldn't they make a sound in which would warrant the dialogue tag nonetheless + gasping?

while the second post can be seen as just two characters smiling/laughing with an open_smile,

If they are seem as laughing wouldn't it also warrant dialogue + laugh?

and as for the third post, I will just let you compare it with post #2537981 and see if both can be considered as "dialogue".

It is? I'm not sure if you wanted me to come to the conclusion that isn't, but they both seem dialogue.

Nope, speech_bubble has never implied dialogue, since pictographics can exist. Pictographics are also tagged with speech_bubble or thought_bubble when necessary.

I don't know where I got that from, sorry about that.

⠀
I think my confusion comes from the fact that dialogue should come in a variety of forms. But for some reason on e621 it's only used when there's text? Why is it called simply dialogue then? Wouldn't textual_dialogue convey it better? Because you can still feature a dialogue between two people without text or exclaming words such as with tactile sign language or sign language.

sieghelm_lockayer said:
Well... I do see a conversation going on? I understand where you're coming from when it's a still image. Now what about a animated post where two characters are seemly talking with each other, however there isn't text or they are doing lip reading?

On the low chance that that might happen, I would say that they are just making weird faces to each other.
Characters can communicate with each other through sign_language, body language, or any other means, but it would not be a dialogue (or talking) as per how we are currently defining it.
Unless of course, it were subtitled or paired with audio (i.e., animated -no_sound) in the post.

If they seem gasping wouldn't they make a sound in which would warrant the dialogue tag nonetheless + gasping?

The current wiki definition for gasping seems to be vague, in that it did not specify the need for a visible "GASP!" text to exist.
Only if text was used on the post, then would it fall under dialogue & onomatopoeia.

If they are seem as laughing wouldn't it also warrant dialogue + laugh?

The current wiki definition for laugh mentions "either by dialogue (Hahaha, etc) or through use of expressions and gestures."
I would say it falls under expressions and gestures, and not dialogue.

It is? I'm not sure if you wanted me to come to the conclusion that isn't, but they both seem dialogue.

I don't think rapidly opening and closing one's mouth in front of another character constitutes as dialogue.

I think my confusion comes from the fact that dialogue should come in a variety of forms. But for some reason on e621 it's only used when there's text? Why is it called simply dialogue then? Wouldn't textual_dialogue convey it better? Because you can still feature a dialogue between two people without text or exclaming words such as with tactile sign language or sign language.

Not quite, I believe dialogue can also be used on animated posts that feature sound and no text, where you can hear the character speaking.
I don't really see the need to divide different forms of dialogue to textual, auditory, visual, etc. Next you know, you're going to include chemical, tactile, to literal telepathy into the mix.

thegreatwolfgang said:
I don't think rapidly opening and closing one's mouth in front of another character constitutes as dialogue.

But suddenly if there was a speech bubble that had only "pop" it would be considered dialogue by e621's standards? That seems odd. Would it be considered voice_acted too?

Not quite, I believe dialogue can also be used on animated posts that feature sound and no text, where you can hear the character speaking.

This case would be voice_acted which is basically auditory_dialogue.

I don't really see the need to divide different forms of dialogue to textual, auditory, visual, etc. Next you know, you're going to include chemical, tactile, to literal telepathy into the mix.

I just don't understand why call it just dialogue, when it's only textual dialogue, it seems a bit misleading and it's even more by the fact that you can tag dialogue with characters talking alone which for me is odd, because I've always thought that for a dialogue to occur it needed two parties. Anyway... I believe I'm elucidated enough on what's the definition and usage of dialogue is in e621.

Thank you and everyone else who dropped by and aided me. :)

sieghelm_lockayer said:
This case would be voice_acted which is basically auditory_dialogue.

I believe this is where the english_audio (and other languages) would be used.

sieghelm_lockayer said:
But suddenly if there was a speech bubble that had only "pop" it would be considered dialogue by e621's standards? That seems odd. Would it be considered voice_acted too?

This case would be voice_acted which is basically auditory_dialogue.

I made an error on my last statement when I said dialogue can happen without text, now we should see it as purely a "visual" type tag while voice_acted be seen as a purely "auditory" tag.

Let me put it into a different scenario, imagine a full page comic with speech_bubbles and characters talking to each other.
Now imagine if somebody did a voiceover and released it as an animated video with the static comic page as the background.
In this case, the static image part would be dialogue while the voiceover is voice_acted.

So to put it back into the pop_cat video I used, it would be voice_acted first. Once text of the word "pop" appears, it would become a dialogue as well.
This logic should apply with subtitled as well.

I just don't understand why call it just dialogue, when it's only textual dialogue, it seems a bit misleading and it's even more by the fact that you can tag dialogue with characters talking alone which for me is odd, because I've always thought that for a dialogue to occur it needed two parties. Anyway... I believe I'm elucidated enough on what's the definition and usage of dialogue is in e621.

Thank you and everyone else who dropped by and aided me. :)

E621 does not always follow the contemporary definition of words, mostly because we would want to make things more easily tag-gable.
I'd imagine having separate tags for monologues and dialogues would complicate things when the main idea is to have a character talking to someone, be it themselves or another character.
How would it be tagged when the character is taking to the viewer or someone offscreen? What would be the tag used when a character is praying to a deity or saying grace?

According to Wikipedia, dialogue as a noun has four definitions, the first two of which can be considered relevant to this thread:

1. A conversation or other form of discourse between two or more individuals.
2. (authorship) In a dramatic or literary presentation, the verbal parts of the script or text; the verbalizations of the actors or characters.

On e621, dialogue is used in its second sense, of visually showing characters talking. Usually, this is done with text, but could be used with pictographics if it's obvious enough they're speaking whatever it is. Them flapping their gums isn't enough.

sieghelm_lockayer said:
Can I tag dialogue:

• ...on posts without text in which it's implicit that there's characters having a dialogue?

Examples

post #2259368

post #2838139

post #1061147

No. If a character looks like they might be speaking, but there is no indication of anything coming out, dialogue is not tagged. They could be going through the motions silently or you're not "hearing" them say anything for whatever reason. Whether or not they're actually holding a conversation with someone doesn't apply here as we don't use definition 1.

• ...on posts where the character is not talking with someone else?

Examples

post #3110845

post #3112956

Yes. They don't have to be talking with someone else; they could just as easily be blabbering away to themselves or be shown clearly talking to someone but there's no TWYS evidence of another character (a silent offscreen character). Either way, you can see (via text or pictographics) that they're talking.

• ...on posts where the character is simply exclaiming sounds such as crying, laughing, shouting, growling, etc...

Examples

post #3111982

post #3102353

post #2899718

post #1799453

I'd say no. Sure, they're verbalizing, but as you note, they're making sounds or onomatopoeia, not actually making intelligible speech (in universe). That one with Stitch is borderline, though, and could probably get away with being tagged as dialogue without too much of a problem. However, screaming and onomatopoetically making an animal sound wouldn't be dialogue.

It's implicit that there's a dialogue it should be tagged;
When someone is obviously talking, be it by text, pictographics, or even squiggles.
They don't need to be conversing with someone.
Sounds or onomatopoeia shouldn't be tagged as dialogue.

Now another thing I want to understand is what language should be tagged on posts with an insufficient amount of words to infer without a doubt that this text is from x language.

• post #2955552

Latin text? English text? Romaji Text?

• post #2871353

Romaji Text?

• post #2784786

English text? Portuguese text?

If you can't tell the language or it's clearly a sound effect, just tag text.

What about misspelled text on posts?

• post #3107295

English text (Burger?)

Just tagging text would be sufficient here, although english_text wouldn't be out of place as deliberate misspellings would qualify as they're typically used to represent a dialect, which still qualifies as speaking a particular language, only in a particular manner.

How would we know if it's misspelled?

• post #3095926

English text, but how could we tell if it's not a misspelling of "Coque" a portuguese word for a hairstyle?

• post #3060920

Is she meowing or is it a misspelling of "Meu" (My/Mine) which in that case it could be tagged as Portuguese text.

How can you tell that it is? As presented, the context for both indicate the words aren't misspelled. It's probably best to assume that words aren't misspelled unless they obviously are (for example, blatant typos or multilingual puns).

What if the only text there's in a post are names?

• post #2483529

What if the name of the character happens to be a common noun from a language, such as Fox_Mccloud and the only text in the post is someone calling "Fox" to call his attention?

Text is sufficient if there's a doubt. I usually just stick with that when it comes to just names, even if they can also be normal words in a language.

Romaji text?

If it's clearly Romaji, go ahead and tag it as such. If there's too much of a doubt, again, text is sufficient.

Well... I do see a conversation going on? I understand where you're coming from when it's a still image. Now what about a animated post where two characters are seemly talking with each other, however there isn't text or they are doing lip reading?

If there's no text/pictographics/whatever nor is there sound, there's no dialogue, even if they are obviously conversing with each other in-universe. Lip reading isn't dialogue as nobody is actually verbalizing anything. Remember, e621 uses definition 2, not definition 1.

If they seem gasping wouldn't they make a sound in which would warrant the dialogue tag nonetheless + gasping?

If they are seem as laughing wouldn't it also warrant dialogue + laugh?

Those are more like sound effects rather than actual speech, nor do they have to be present for a character to be gasping or laughing as an artist can omit the sounds for effect. As mentioned above and as you yourself concluded, "Sounds or onomatopoeia shouldn't be tagged as dialogue."

I think my confusion comes from the fact that dialogue should come in a variety of forms. But for some reason on e621 it's only used when there's text? Why is it called simply dialogue then? Wouldn't textual_dialogue convey it better? Because you can still feature a dialogue between two people without text or exclaming words such as with tactile sign language or sign language.

Traditionally, in pictures and comics, dialogue refers to when a character is verbalizing. Generally speaking, this happens when they are talking rather than when making random noises. Usually, this is shown via text in a speech bubble, but when not, it should be obvious that they're making sounds that are intelligible in-universe. Non-verbal communication doesn't qualify as dialogue.