Topic: Do I tag micro or macro an image involving an extreme_size_difference where it is impossible to tell whether a character is bigger or smaller than the environment? Do I tag both?

Those 2 images are giving me problems:
post #4045705 post #4044884

I think they're missing either macro or micro, (so I added 'micro' to both) but there is nothing to tell apart the actual size of the characters. Is the small character 'normal-sized' and the big character a macro or is the big character 'normal-sized' and the small character a micro?

wolfmanfur said:
Those 2 images are giving me problems:
post #4045705 post #4044884

I think they're missing either macro or micro, (so I added 'micro' to both) but there is nothing to tell apart the actual size of the characters. Is the small character 'normal-sized' and the big character a macro or is the big character 'normal-sized' and the small character a micro?

I've thought a lot about this, so in my mind there are potentially two valid approaches:

The strict TWYS approach would mean there needs to be some sort of obvious visual evidence that implies which character is "abnormally sized" for macro or micro to be tagged. The size of inanimate objects or the background are the most clear objective measures of scale, if a character appears giant, but is inside of a house, it can be assumed that they're normal sized, and the smaller character is micro.

The "second tier" of TWYS friendly (but slightly subjective) evidence would be whether one character is naked, and the other character is clothed, or if the larger or smaller character is holding an inanimate object.

In the latter case, it's pretty straight forward: a giant holding a cellphone can be construed as being normal sized, and a much smaller character in that scene must be micro.

In the case of the clothed/unclothed comparison, unless there's evidence to the contrary, it can be taken that clothing doesn't grow or shrink with the character, so whoever is clothed is normal sized, and whether macro or micro is tagged depends on which character is naked.

Purely going by this approach, if its entirely ambiguous, then extreme_size_difference should be used alone, because tagging macro or micro would not follow TWYS.

The alternative approach is to work off of more subjective interpretation and just use your best judgment. The primary thing to consider with this approach is what character is the focus of the scene and how the characters are interacting. The first image in your post would definitely be micro since the character being penetrated is unquestionably the focus of the image. The second image is tricky, I'm not sure if I'd even consider it extreme size difference, it's right on the border between size difference and extreme size difference. However, I think macro is more appropriate, subjectively, because the scene is focused on her as the larger character, while the smaller character is an anon, and - this is a stretch but - she's a dragon, and feral dragons are almost always larger than the average human/anthro, so if there's size difference with an anthro dragon, it could be interpreted as playing off of that cliche, meaning the larger dragon character is intended to be the "macro", not that they're interacting with a "micro" character.

the general tagging standard is that if there are no props in a post that would point to which character is the normal-sized one than both micro and macro should be used.

See also topic #33834

darryus said:
the general tagging standard is that if there are no props in a post that would point to which character is the normal-sized one than both micro and macro should be used.

I'd argue against doing that for a few reasons:

• There are a LOT of posts that are entirely ambiguous about who's macro and who's micro
• Tagging both macro and micro muddies the search results for anyone specifically looking for characters who are actually macro or micro, using micro -macro or macro -micro usually means you're losing results that are inaccurately tagged
• tagging both is not TWYS friendly, unless there is reasonable evidence for a character being giant sized or tiny sized, neither tag should be used
• Macro and micro describes the scale of the character relative to their setting, this standard is the most useful and accurate; ideally, searching micro should only bring up tiny, shrunken characters, searching macro should give you giant characters, searching both should give you sequences/comics/animations where either a character grows, shrinks, or multiple levels of extreme scale are shown.
• extreme size difference is a clear, objective, descriptive tag for any circumstance where there are characters of large size difference being depicted together, there's no need to tag macro or micro just because of there being large size differences anymore

Of course, I think there are some subjective judgments based on visuals you can make, like the posts in the OP, the first one really should fall under micro because a much smaller character is the primary focus, it'll probably be something someone searching for micro is looking for, so there's some wiggle room. If a post is focused on that tiny character rather than the larger character, and there's no background or props to suggest they're actually a normal sized character, it seems reasonable to tag the post as micro, not macro.

Both macro and micro really need to be cleaned up to fit the more accurate standard, and micro on macro needs to get aliased away, but that BUR has been open for a year now.

Only tag extreme size difference, both micro and macro refer to the character's size according to the environment around them as stated in their wikis. Without any sort of reference for their size in comparison to say a tree, it's impossible to judge which of these tags should be used. It could be that one character is micro and the other is normal sized, one is macro and the other is normal size, or that one is micro and the other is macro. Their is too much ambiguity to say which of these tags should be used so only extreme size difference would apply here.