The bulk update request #9112 is pending approval.

create alias musculus_buccinator (0) -> buccinator (442)
create alias buccal_flaps (0) -> buccinator (442)
create alias maxillary_rictus (0) -> buccinator (442)
create alias mandibular_rictus (0) -> buccinator (442)
create alias rictus (0) -> buccinator (442)

Reason: Anatomical study is a fuck. There are so many words for this bodily structure. Yet there's no alias' made for buccinator yet.

See topic #44311
This anatomical feature that you [and some others] are attempting to tag on reptiles is not called the buccinator, or any of those terms. It is generally referred to as the mandibular adductor or jaw adductor. The buccinator muscle is a cheek muscle that is only found in mammals.

After checking multiple scientific sources, it appears that this group of muscles is generally collectively referred to as the jaw adductor or mandibular adductor, and not any of the descriptions of buccinator as mentioned in the wiki page.

Buccinator as a tag is used exclusively to refer to the mandibular adductor, and it seems like buccinator itself is a one person tag, with the wiki page being made by the same person. As an anatomical feature, the buccinator is used for chewing, and is essentially one and the same with our cheeks. It is not the same muscle as the jaw adductor muscles, which is why I am not requesting an alias but instead an invalidation of buccinator - there would be very few cases where it would be a valid tag in place of normal mammal cheeks.

Rictus seems to be the correct term (with maxillary and mandibular referring to the top and bottom respectively) for this. They should be aliased to that instead. It's a potentially neat tag for something that I'm sure people are both familiar with and would want to search, but don't necessarily know what it's called.

regsmutt said:
Rictus seems to be the correct term (with maxillary and mandibular referring to the top and bottom respectively) for this. They should be aliased to that instead. It's a potentially neat tag for something that I'm sure people are both familiar with and would want to search, but don't necessarily know what it's called.

Rictus is also a term used to refer to cheeks, and is commonly used in reference to the edge of bird cheeks. This tag is not used in reference to a cheek at all.
The adductor muscles, aka "that weird jaw flap you see on dinosaurs", are commonly misrepresented as a fleshy flap due to their depiction in the Jurassic Park series. This tag has been used both on correct depictions of the adductor muscle:
post #4359479
As well as incorrect Jurassic Park-like jaw flaps:
post #4198522

It could be argued that the flap depiction of the adductor muscles could be seen as a rictus/chewing cheek muscle, but that would still mean that this tag is being greatly misused on depictions of jaw muscles. You can see how mandibular adductors [what the tag is being used to refer to] actually work here in a beautifully done muscle simulation.

When I searched online for this there were so many terms being thrown out, its all so confusing. I hate how anatomy studies are so hard because of all the different terms used for the same thing, fuck academics man. How do you even create such a mess.

dinbyy said:
When I searched online for this there were so many terms being thrown out, its all so confusing. I hate how anatomy studies are so hard because of all the different terms used for the same thing, fuck academics man. How do you even create such a mess.

It's mostly due to the fact that this specific anatomical feature is pretty poorly understood by the general public. In scientific circles, jaw/mandibular adductor is almost universally the term used for this feature. I quoted it as such in my sources. But a lot of people straight up don't know what it's called, and will use incorrect terms to refer to it, which muddies knowledge. I'm really deep in paleontological circles and am super obsessed with anatomy, so I went on a pretty big deep dive to find out what it's actually called in my initial thread.

That being said, jaw muscle is probably the best to mass update this tag to, and then invalidate buccinator, because buccinator and jaw adductor muscles are not the same and should not be aliased together.

moonlit-comet said:
[...]That being said, jaw muscle is probably the best to mass update this tag to,[...].

I feel that might end up getting alot of stuff added to it that does not fit what the OP would be looking for. Probably best to just describe what it superficially looks like in the tag terms and reserve the actual anatomical details for the wiki.
I personally would just call stuff like this webbed_jaw or something along those lines.

PS: As a aside to that suggestion you made is this ''webbing'' actually conclusively formed by muscles?

ryu_deacon said:
I feel that might end up getting alot of stuff added to it that does not fit what the OP would be looking for. Probably best to just describe what it superficially looks like in the tag terms and reserve the actual anatomical details for the wiki.
I personally would just call stuff like this webbed_jaw or something along those lines.

"exposed jaw muscle" was my other suggestion which would likely be more descriptive [and is closer to what people call it in layman terms]. We could also do as it is and alias it to jaw_adductor, which is the most correct term for it. "webbed jaw" would feel inaccurate for all the posts it's applied to because only some of them have a web as opposed to a muscle.

Also we already have webbed_mouth aliased to jaw_masseter which is a closer but still incorrect tag for this specific anatomical feature. Jaw masseters are yet another mammal-only facial muscle that do not accurately describe the feature at hand. Masseter muscles are for chewing.

PS: As a aside to that suggestion you made is this ''webbing'' actually conclusively formed by muscles?

No real animal actually has "webbing" in their mouth in the way that's depicted by Jurassic Park and all the art inspired by it. It's either a cheek [buccinator/rictus], which is covered by skin and assists in chewing/nursing or whatever the heck it's for on birds; or a jaw muscle [adductor], which is exposed mouth meat and gives the animal more bite force. Both of these are muscles. So yes, it is a muscle, it's just dependent on the depiction whether it's properly implemented as an adductor or as a wet, fleshy pseudo-rictus. Most people drawing it don't realize it's a muscle though, especially with the webbing depiction, and just add it because it looks right based on other depictions of dinosaurs/dragons/etc they've seen.

I'm still voting for jaw_muscle or exposed_jaw_muscle.

moonlit-comet said:
"exposed jaw muscle" was my other suggestion which would likely be more descriptive [and is closer to what people call it in layman terms]. We could also do as it is and alias it to jaw_adductor, which is the most correct term for it. "webbed jaw" would feel inaccurate for all the posts it's applied to because only some of them have a web as opposed to a muscle.

I'm still voting for jaw_muscle or exposed_jaw_muscle.

A problem with jaw_muscle is that it can easily be misinterpreted as a saying for angular or muscular looking jawlines, chin, or exterior cheeks. Maybe other things I dont know about.

dinbyy said:
A problem with jaw_muscle is that it can easily be misinterpreted as a saying for angular or muscular looking jawlines, chin, or exterior cheeks. Maybe other things I dont know about.

I don't know if I've ever heard of anyone who'd read "exposed jaw muscle" and think of a strong chin, if you're that opposed to jaw_muscle. Or, as I've suggested, jaw_adductor, which is the closest to an already existing [albeit incorrect] alias of the same anatomical feature, aka jaw_masseter.

moonlit-comet said:
"exposed jaw muscle" was my other suggestion which would likely be more descriptive [and is closer to what people call it in layman terms]. We could also do as it is and alias it to jaw_adductor, which is the most correct term for it. "webbed jaw" would feel inaccurate for all the posts it's applied to because only some of them have a web as opposed to a muscle.

Also we already have webbed_mouth aliased to jaw_masseter which is a closer but still incorrect tag for this specific anatomical feature. Jaw masseters are yet another mammal-only facial muscle that do not accurately describe the feature at hand. Masseter muscles are for chewing.

No real animal actually has "webbing" in their mouth in the way that's depicted by Jurassic Park and all the art inspired by it. It's either a cheek [buccinator/rictus], which is covered by skin and assists in chewing/nursing or whatever the heck it's for on birds; or a jaw muscle [adductor], which is exposed mouth meat and gives the animal more bite force. Both of these are muscles. So yes, it is a muscle, it's just dependent on the depiction whether it's properly implemented as an adductor or as a wet, fleshy pseudo-rictus. Most people drawing it don't realize it's a muscle though, especially with the webbing depiction, and just add it because it looks right based on other depictions of dinosaurs/dragons/etc they've seen.

I'm still voting for jaw_muscle or exposed_jaw_muscle.

Considering we have exposed_muscle which gets used for gore/literal exposed muscle tissue, exposed_jaw_muscle is probably not the best idea, it could also get used for gore. and as previously mentioned just jaw_muscle is also not good as it will get tagged on alot of posts depicting characters who simply have regular cheeks(for the same aformentioned reasons why you were against rictus or masseter) and other things..

That alias of webbed_mouth should probably be reversed, aliases are not always correct. And the tag was created by a user for the same thing that is being tagged here now.

Proper terminology of the underlying anatomy is one thing but the tag should also be able to to meaningfully capture the desired feature. muscle names may not be the way here similar to how we dont name eyelids by their underlying muculature..

ryu_deacon said:
Proper terminology of the underlying anatomy is one thing but the tag should also be able to to meaningfully capture the desired feature. muscle names may not be the way here similar to how we dont name eyelids by their underlying muculature..

If we cant find words in english to describe it, I think its okay to get more technical. The general population doesnt really know what to call it, so learning has to be done regardless. Regardless if we can find a suitable term that is accurate or use a more technical one, people will either still use other incorrect tags or not try to tag it at all simply because its not common knowledge yet. Hell, the buccinator tag on this site is hardly known at all.

Alright. Well, let's break down our options here.

The problem:

The exposed jaw muscle of reptiles like snakes, lizards, and dinosaurs is being mass-tagged as buccinator. This is an incorrect tag because the buccinator muscle is a chewing muscle found in mammal cheeks. We are looking to improve this tag name.

Potential solutions:

Technical:

jaw_masseter - A tag that already exists for several posts, is closer to the right name for the feature but is also incorrect as it is a mammal feature. Has an alias for webbed_mouth that was created five years ago in 2019.
jaw_adductor - The scientifically correct/technical term for the feature [exposed jaw muscle] being described by the already existing buccinator tag. There's nothing objectively wrong with this tag, as it is the right term and describes it accurately. An existing alias supports this as an option as well. The only potential downside is people not knowing what it means and tagging other things, but aliases can amend that.

Casual:

rictus - Not at all the feature that is being tagged. Usually a term used to refer to bird "cheeks".
webbed_mouth - Already aliased away, so likely not viewed as a prioritized option. Same goes for webbed_jaw, which is not aliased but was proposed as an option. Would be inapplicable on posts depicting detailed oral jaw tissue instead of just a fleshy cheek-like webbing... because it's not webbed.
jaw_muscle - Potentially problematic due to misuse by people thinking "jaw muscle" means a strong jawline or big cheeks.
exposed_jaw_muscle - Potentially problematic due to "exposed muscle" tags being associated with gore.

Potential other options?

Nuke and invalidate buccinator entirely - not really ideal, because it is a cool anatomical feature that some niche communities like.
I can't really think of any other potential names or options here. The ones that have been suggested really seem like our best options but nobody can agree on one.

moonlit-comet said:

Potential solutions:

Technical:

jaw_masseter - A tag that already exists for several posts, is closer to the right name for the feature but is also incorrect as it is a mammal feature. Has an alias for webbed_mouth that was created five years ago in 2019.
jaw_adductor - The scientifically correct/technical term for the feature [exposed jaw muscle] being described by the already existing buccinator tag. There's nothing objectively wrong with this tag, as it is the right term and describes it accurately. An existing alias supports this as an option as well. The only potential downside is people not knowing what it means and tagging other things, but aliases can amend that.

I do like jaw_adducter, and I wouldnt mind a technical term when other terms arent sufficient.

This site already does use less casual wording for tags. I like that, either because its more effective as a tag or it feels more modest which I personally like for a tagging system.

moonlit-comet said:
[...]

Technical:

jaw_masseter - A tag that already exists for several posts, is closer to the right name for the feature but is also incorrect as it is a mammal feature. Has an alias for webbed_mouth that was created five years ago in 2019.
jaw_adductor - The scientifically correct/technical term for the feature [exposed jaw muscle] being described by the already existing buccinator tag. There's nothing objectively wrong with this tag, as it is the right term and describes it accurately. An existing alias supports this as an option as well. The only potential downside is people not knowing what it means and tagging other things, but aliases can amend that.
[...]

If we must tag by the muscles than jaw_abductor is probably best but could still suffer the same kind of common mistagging that applies to jaw_muscles as jaw abductor as a actual so named muscle or function does exist in other animals that do not have the visual feature being tagged here.(i.e the masetter muscle is technically a jaw abductor in humans for example).

I prefer not to use muscles in naming the tag for this feature because the muscles or muscle function that forms this feature can be found in other species were they do not form this feature.

Out of all of the options, jaw_adductor is looking like one of the best options. Tag names are always an intersection between accuracy and practical usability, among other factors. So far, jaw_adductor is looking like it comes the closest to hitting that sweet spot. +1