A few months ago I made topic #38965 to ask questions about the tagging of Amy Rose/Rouge the Bat clothing swaps with the fan-character name "Amouge". Since then, I've been maintaining set #48545 for clothing swaps between those two characters.

I recently noticed that at some point, a new copyright tag was created: rouge_the_bat_outfit, to be applied to Amy or anyone else wearing Rouge's costume.

That tag's wiki page (wiki #52818) was edited a few days ago, and now says this about the related tag clothing_swap:

clothing_swap - if Rouge the Bat is in the image, and is wearing the other character's outfit while they wear her's

But that's wrong, isn't it? That's saying that clothing_swap can only be tagged if both the character who originated the outfit, and the character wearing it, are both in the image. But that contradicts the wiki page for clothing_swap itself, which just says "This often involves both characters wearing one another's clothing within the same scene" - it says "often involves", not "must require".

In fact, one of the example images on the clothing_swap wiki page is this one, in which clothing_swap, judy_hopps and nick_wilde are all tagged, even though Judy is alone in the picture:

post #2048658

I noticed that recently, many of those Rouge outfit images have had the rouge_the_bat and/or clothing_swap tags removed, and I wanted to know if those changes were right.

So to try and clarify the rules about these tags, I have these questions:

1. clothing_swap can be tagged even if only one character is visible - correct?

2. In any clothing swap, the character from whom the costume originated should be tagged, even if that character is not present in the image - correct? (i.e. all images with the rouge_the_bat_outfit tag should also be tagged with rouge_the_bat.)

3. Since we have a rouge_the_bat_outfit copyright tag, does that mean that any time we see a character wearing someone else's costume, a new "character_name_outfit" copyright tag should be created? Or should they only be created when they're needed on a decent number of images?

4. If so, should those new "_outfit" tags be copyright tags, or general ones? I ask because the existing slave_leia_costume and spider-man_suit tags are both general tags.

My personal preference would be that clothing swap should be applied as specifically as possible, so it should only describe when two or more characters are directly shown swapping outfits. By being specific, it's entirely within the TWYS rule, and uses the most literal definition of "swap", exchanging 1 to 1.

Otherwise it's impossible to search for those particular posts where characters are wearing each other's clothing within the same post. The clothing swap wiki page's definition as-is, is a few years old, and just didn't take into account how there are other potential tags that could describe a solo image of a character wearing another character's outfit.

rouge the bat outfit and slave leia costume are special cases, because they're both popular costumes for cosplay, and both only apply to a specific outfit the characters have worn, I don't know if they should be copyrights or not, the slave_leia_costume tag is locked so it couldn't be made a copyright.

My personal take for how these tags should work is...

• clothing swap should be used for characters wearing each other's outfits within the same post, two or more characters have to be involved for this tag to apply
• alternate costume - for characters wearing an outfit other than one associated with them, this includes if a character is wearing the outfit of another character within the same piece of media, whether that other character is present or not
• clothing_swap already implicates alternate_costume, so the association is already there
• the character whose costume is being worn should be tagged, even if they're not present
• maybe it could be tagged as cosplay?
• crossover cosplay - for a character wearing the outfit of another character from a different piece of media, can be a clothing swap if both characters are shown