Just wondering about the wisdom of the tag lepidopteran_wings. Why not just butterfly_wings? It seems like it would make sense to use the more common term than the specific scientific one.

foozle said:
Just wondering about the wisdom of the tag lepidopteran_wings. Why not just butterfly_wings? It seems like it would make sense to use the more common term than the specific scientific one.

https://e621.net/forum_topics/36246 See also, this topic. Highly related.

We did recently throw out these horrible overly-scientific names, like how chiropteran is now finally bat. But the problem is... Lepidoptera includes both butterflies and moths, and it would be wrong to call a moth's wings butterfly_wings.

I'm not sure if the two are visually distinct enough to have both butterfly_wings and moth_wings as tags.

The same logic goes for equine_penis rather than horse_penis, because zebras, donkeys and other animals also have identical penises. Equine just happens to be a term that more people know than lepidopteran.

foozle said:
Just wondering about the wisdom of the tag lepidopteran_wings. Why not just butterfly_wings? It seems like it would make sense to use the more common term than the specific scientific one.

I won't opine on the wisdom of the decision, but I will note that lepidopteran_wings includes both butterfly wings and moth wings, because butterflies and moths alike are lepidopterans.

It would be a headache to try and differentiate whether an image depicts butterfly wings or moth wings -- or, more crudely, we could just refer to all moth wings as butterfly wings. Whatever one's preferred solution, the most apt question here is whether these dilemmas are worth the benefit of having common names appear on the tag list.

I'm not sure if the two are visually distinct enough to have both butterfly_wings and moth_wings as tags.

I'd be happy with having both. Not just because it would allow for more specificity, but also because moth and butterfly are both easier to type, and to remember.

I'm still not sure if I even spelled it correctly when I posted the question.

foozle said:
I'd be happy with having both. Not just because it would allow for more specificity, but also because moth and butterfly are both easier to type, and to remember.

They're aliased, so you can type moth_wings or butterfly_wings for searching or tagging, and it will be replaced automatically by the system. Having separate tags would be more confusing since searching one will fail to find the other, even though they look the same.