Hey everyone! I'm currently trying to improve the tagging for (a subset of) transformation / growth related posts.

After trying it out for a few posts, a few pretty specific questions have come up so far and wanted to pause a bit to clear them up. Maybe this has all been discussed / written down somewhere and my search abilities are just failing me right now:

1. The tag transformation_sequence as currently used is confusing to me. It is used for both posts containing a sequence in one image (e.g. post #4157846) and also single-step posts in a pool that then forms a multi-post sequence (e.g. post #4157276). If I apply TWYS, should the latter variant with the single-step posts still get the tag? I have not added it in those cases so far (but also not removed the tag if it already existed because I was unsure).

2. Is the tag mid_transformation meant exclusively for posts containing in-between steps or whenever an in-between step appears in an image? Applying TWYS, I would (and have so far) also add this for e.g. posts with a full sequence that also contains in-between steps (but not if it's just a before and after without visible in-between steps).

3. There are various "*_growth" tags, e.g. tail_growth. So far, I am adding these whenever the character is very likely to have experienced them during the process. For example, a human transforming into a dragon (already difficult to determine but I'm mostly going off the existing tagging there if it seems to make sense) with a tail will always get tail_growth for every post where a tail is visible and the transformation is still ongoing. To me, that fits with the very general "tagged when a character grows a new tail" on its wiki page. Same goes for similar tags like wing_growth. However, I'm not sure how strict this should actually be or what the alternative is. A very strict TWYS view of this might be to only tag the specific posts where the specific growths are clearly visible on their own? I don't think that can really be done for a lot of posts for these particular tags from what I've seen so far. But I can revert my current tagging for them if this seems too much.

4. The tag body_part_growth is listed on the growth wiki page as a sort of parent tag to various "_growth" tags, e.g. tail_growth, so I've treated it to basically be implied by any of them. Is that correct? If yes, maybe automatic implications should be added.

I hope these questions are not too confusing to understand.

Thank you so much!

arandompersonishere said:
1. The tag transformation_sequence as currently used is confusing to me. It is used for both posts containing a sequence in one image (e.g. post #4157846) and also single-step posts in a pool that then forms a multi-post sequence (e.g. post #4157276). If I apply TWYS, should the latter variant with the single-step posts still get the tag? I have not added it in those cases so far (but also not removed the tag if it already existed because I was unsure).

transformation_sequence should only be used when there's a sequence in one image (the entire sequence doesn't have to be on one image, but the image should have multiple parts of the sequence and not just a single mid image). We don't typically tag posts based on other posts, so the fact that other posts contain a continued sequence doesn't factor in to whether the given post has a sequence.

arandompersonishere said:
2. Is the tag mid_transformation meant exclusively for posts containing in-between steps or whenever an in-between step appears in an image? Applying TWYS, I would (and have so far) also add this for e.g. posts with a full sequence that also contains in-between steps (but not if it's just a before and after without visible in-between steps).

I guess that's open to debate. A similar question can be posed for after_transformation. I can see the argument for both sides and don't know what would be better.

arandompersonishere said:
3. There are various "*_growth" tags, e.g. tail_growth. So far, I am adding these whenever the character is very likely to have experienced them during the process. For example, a human transforming into a dragon (already difficult to determine but I'm mostly going off the existing tagging there if it seems to make sense) with a tail will always get tail_growth for every post where a tail is visible and the transformation is still ongoing. To me, that fits with the very general "tagged when a character grows a new tail" on its wiki page. Same goes for similar tags like wing_growth. However, I'm not sure how strict this should actually be or what the alternative is. A very strict TWYS view of this might be to only tag the specific posts where the specific growths are clearly visible on their own? I don't think that can really be done for a lot of posts for these particular tags from what I've seen so far. But I can revert my current tagging for them if this seems too much.

IMO, they should only be tagged where the growth is apparent, such as the tail being stubby with skin while their body is still growing scales or lines indicating outward movement, not just the thing being visible and the inference that it grew.

watsit said:
transformation_sequence should only be used when there's a sequence in one image (the entire sequence doesn't have to be on one image, but the image should have multiple parts of the sequence and not just a single mid image). We don't typically tag posts based on other posts, so the fact that other posts contain a continued sequence doesn't factor in to whether the given post has a sequence.

That would align with my interpretation of it, yes. Guess I'll start looking out for wrong usages of transformation_sequence whenever I come across them.

EDIT: I have tried to clarify the intended usage on the wiki page.

watsit said:
I guess that's open to debate. A similar question can be posed for after_transformation. I can see the argument for both sides and don't know what would be better.

IMO it should be totally fine to tag a single post as transformation_sequence, mid_transformation, after_transformation, ... as long as the elements are contained within the image. Would make the tags more composable. But open to debate for sure.

EDIT: I will follow this logic for now. If it is decided later to make the tags more exclusive, posts with both will be easy to find and fix.

watsit said:
IMO, they should only be tagged where the growth is apparent, such as the tail being stubby with skin while their body is still growing scales or lines indicating outward movement, not just the thing being visible and the inference that it grew.

Yeah... the more I think about it, the more I'm actually inclined to agree. I already noticed it got kinda hard to explain / justify doing things differently when typing out the question. Makes it more ambiguous for sure but I guess that can't be helped given the subject. I'll probably look through my edits later and revert instances where it's not clear.

Thanks so far, that already helps a lot. Would love some more opinions on this and question 4.

Regarding question 4: I was thinking about maybe creating a BUR if we want to use body_part_growth as listed on the growth page. Currently, body_part_growth is not part of any implication chain, its direct "child" tags actually imply growth instead.

It would basically look like this:

imply body_part_growth -> growth

unimply antennae_growth -> growth
imply antennae_growth -> body_part_growth

...

unimply wing_growth -> growth
imply wing_growth -> body_part_growth

(repeat this for all direct "child" tags of body_part_growth, with some edge cases like hoof_growth that do not yet imply anything)

Does that make sense? Guess it depends on whether or not the nesting of the list on the growth page seems "correct".

body_part_growth seems superfluous to me. It's 99% the same as growth, so something like object_growth would be easier to manage for non-body-parts if needed, rather than trying to fill in body_part_growth for posts missing it and end up the same as growth.

watsit said:
body_part_growth seems superfluous to me. It's 99% the same as growth, so something like object_growth would be easier to manage for non-body-parts if needed, rather than trying to fill in body_part_growth for posts missing it and end up the same as growth.

There are a few tags not covered by body_part_growth but only growth in that list:

• facial_hair_growth
• feather_growth
• fur_growth
• hair_growth
• muscle_growth
• scale_growth
• whisker_growth

Mostly things related to "body covering" (for a lack of a better word right now) as well as muscle growth I guess. This seems to cover a bit more than just a remaining small percentage to me. Especially because something like fur_growth or muscle_growth could very well happen on its own, without anything else.

So it might make sense to have a distinct "parent" tag for body part growth-related tags (it has been listed that way on the wiki page for about a year now) to enable easier searching / filtering. Though the current nesting of something like whisker_growth in that list is debatable. And obviously whether or not "body covering" should be considered a body part itself, which would indeed make the current body_part_growth useless and require finding a better tag name.

EDIT: To be clear, I don't currently have a strong opinion on this (though perhaps slightly leaning towards keeping the tag), I just started looking through existing tags and wiki pages. If it seems better to phase out body_part_growth, that's certainly also an option. I'd just like to make everything a bit more consistent and remove it from existing posts and the wiki page in that case.

Small bump (just in case anyone else wants to add anything to the open questions, will not bump again)