Why was this done? This was a valid tag alias.

corgi_bread said:
Why was this done? This was a valid tag alias.

I guess because it was redundant.

Butterscotch said:
I guess because it was redundant.

No it wasn't. earth_pony is a stupid tag, which is why it was aliased to pony.

corgi_bread said:
No it wasn't. earth_pony is a stupid tag, which is why it was aliased to pony.

No more stupid than eeveelution.

Gilda_The_Gryphon said:
No more stupid than eeveelution.

That's another tag that should be nuked from orbit.

Hmm, looks like our new team leader is the culprit. Maybe he will show up and explain his actions.

ippiki_ookami said:
Hmm, looks like our new team leader is the culprit. Maybe he will show up and explain his actions.

One can hope, but I know I'm not going to hold my breath.

i made that alias, and the reason i got sent for its deletion was "not a sufficient reason to alias".

i don't necessarily agree with the reasoning for deletion, but whatever

Riversyde said:
i made that alias, and the reason i got sent for its deletion was "not a sufficient reason to alias".

i don't necessarily agree with the reasoning for deletion, but whatever

These things really need to be discussed before they're done (deleting of the alias, that is). He's not going to have a very fun time here if he continues to do stuff without discussing it with users and other admins. :I

corgi_bread said:
These things really need to be discussed before they're done (deleting of the alias, that is). He's not going to have a very fun time here if he continues to do stuff without discussing it with users and other admins. :I

He discussed it with RD and myself before deleting the alias. RD spoke to me about it a couple of weeks ago and the problem seemed to be that, while "earth_pony" and "pony" are technically the same thing, it's impossible to search for a standard pony without also returning results for pegasus, unicorn, and alicorn, because they all imply "pony". This means that you have to negate 3 different tags if you want to return things that ARE 'just' ponies. Having the earth_pony tag means searching for just "earth_pony" rather than "pony -unicorn -pegasus -winged_unicorn".

It's not something that's normally done, no, but there seemed to be a legitimate need for it. Plus "earth_pony" is a legitimate classification in the world of MLP, to distinguish it from the other types of ponies that exist in the MLP world.

As far as it being done without being discussed with anyone else, all I can say is that I was offering my opinion on the tag to both RD when he asked, and EDFDarkAngel when he asked. I guess I was under the impression (or assuming) that it was something that's already been discussed with others, and that my own opinion was merely my 2 cents.

Addendum: And I'll also say that no, the tag name "earth_pony" itself isn't ideal since it implies that it's a small horse rather than a standard horse, so the tag itself should probably be renamed to something else, but I do think it's a useful tag when the alternative is much more complex.

Char said:
Addendum: And I'll also say that no, the tag name "earth_pony" itself isn't ideal since it implies that it's a small horse rather than a standard horse, so the tag itself should probably be renamed to something else, but I do think it's a useful tag when the alternative is much more complex.

earth_pony is the official name of mlp species. It has nothing to do with size, and I believe that at this point pony tag is used mostly do describe species from mlp. If not, then hundreds of pictures with single equine with plain background should have pony tag removed, because without reference you can't really tell how big is the creature.

Gilda_The_Gryphon said:
earth_pony is the official name of mlp species. It has nothing to do with size, and I believe that at this point pony tag is used mostly do describe species from mlp. If not, then hundreds of pictures with single equine with plain background should have pony tag removed, because without reference you can't really tell how big is the creature.

Agreed. And since mlp equines look different enough from a regular normal type of horse, it could almost be treated as a fantasy species tag for a specific kind of horse. Which could be useful. In any case, I think anything to do with the size of the equine is already better handled through tags that pertain to size, like "micro" "macro" "size_difference" (if next to a normal sized horse) or age like "young/cub" "adult" etc So an equine specific tag for size would be redundant. And I think the my_little_pony influence is big enough that when they see the "pony" tag most people think of mlp, not real life miniature horses. /two cents

Char is correct, I had asked his opinion in conjunction with a ticket I had received, asking my review.

I did consult a number of people, even if that didn't include ippiki, but the decision was made based on the reasonings already mentioned. Earth_pony is a valid, if not ideal, tag and should be kept separate from the pony tag.

I apologize if I ruffled some feathers in this, I didn't mean to cause more friction in the community.

EDFDarkAngel1 said:
Char is correct, I had asked his opinion in conjunction with a ticket I had received, asking my review.

I did consult a number of people, even if that didn't include ippiki, but the decision was made based on the reasonings already mentioned. Earth_pony is a valid, if not ideal, tag and should be kept separate from the pony tag.

I apologize if I ruffled some feathers in this, I didn't mean to cause more friction in the community.

If the alias was approved, it was probably for a good reason. We just like changes like this to be discussed amongst the community of users rather than be decided behind closed doors by a few admins, that's all.

corgi_bread said:
If the alias was approved, it was probably for a good reason. We just like changes like this to be discussed amongst the community of users rather than be decided behind closed doors by a few admins, that's all.

I understand :) I'm sure the alias was approved for a good reason, and it was taken down for a good reason. It may not seem that way because you didn't see us talking about this last week. Regardless, I understand your objection to how it was handled.

EDFDarkAngel1 said:
it was taken down for a good reason

So then what was the good reason?

EDFDarkAngel1 said:
Earth_pony is a valid, if not ideal, tag and should be kept separate from the pony tag.

There are a lot of people who would disagree with that, which is why these things are always discussed publicly beforehand.

Personally I don't see enough of a distinction between earth_pony and just regular pony/horse to warrant a separate tag. It just seems like a bloat tag that will only serve to cause problems. what if people start adding it to non-mlp characters (which they will) just because they kind of look like they are in the style of mlp?

There's already contention regarding whether or not style should constitute mlp tags, and this is only going to add more fuel to the fire.

The reason was listed on the site (and in this thread).

It appears that you are the only one who continues to take issue with this. I apologize if you do not agree with my decision, but I still stand by it. If you wish to continue this over a very minor alias issue, that's up to you. I do wish you the best, either way.

EDFDarkAngel1 said:
The reason was listed on the site (and in this thread).

It appears that you are the only one who continues to take issue with this. I apologize if you do not agree with my decision, but I still stand by it. If you wish to continue this over a very minor alias issue, that's up to you. I do wish you the best, either way.

You never gave us a reason beyond 'because it's a valid tag'. What makes it a valid tag? That's the reason we have these sorts of discussions around here.

And it's less about the tag and more about some new guy coming in and making these changes when nobody knows about him or why he's here or anything else of that nature. You're not exactly doing anything to ingratiate yourself to us or make us like you or your presence. Not saying you have to kiss our asses, but the whole 'it's this way because I say so so sorry' approach isn't cutting it.

The deletion of this alias will literally affect thousands upon thousands of tags and images. I wouldn't really consider it a minor alias. We would be introducing a new species tag that we will have to manually add to every single image with an earth pony in it. This would take weeks to accomplish. And for what purpose? Horse and pony already have practically identical applications. You really want pinkie pie to have three species tags every time she appears in a post?

I'm not upset about this, I just want this issue squared away before I start asking our users and staff to initiate new sweeping tag changes due to this.

Hey folks,

thanks for giving your feedback on this change. I agree, we should definitely make an effort to explain the action of alias removals etc publically via the existing channels we have (like these auto-generated tag threads), and I'll make sure in the future we do more of this.

Relating to the question at hand, I'd like to thank Ippiki and Corgi Bread for their input. I hope that in the future we can continue to balance the administrative needs of the site (ie, getting things done) with that of transparency =)

I think that based on what I've heard and seen, having a seperate tag is going to make the most sense for those who want to find just 'earth ponies' in images on e621.

Thanks all,

Varka

A bit late responding to this, but a user came to me asking why we couldn't have it. I explained that we didn't need it. He gave me a well written and lengthy response on how it is needed as there is no way to search for wingless, hornless ponies without having to add three more tags to his search, which left him with about two normal tags to use after that.

I passed this on to char and asked his opinion. At the time we were both kinda 50-50 about it, but overall I think we agreed that it simply performs a job that otherwise takes three tags.

Just out of curiosity, can anyone point me to the forum thread where the earth_pony -> pony alias was proposed and created to begin with? I can't seem to find it, so I'm not sure if it happened under some other thread or what.

I have this dmail and this dmail and then our discussion on IRC, but I never made a forum about it so I'm not sure if one exists.

Note: dmails will result in an access denied page for users clicking on them

Char said:
Just out of curiosity, can anyone point me to the forum thread where the earth_pony -> pony alias was proposed and created to begin with? I can't seem to find it, so I'm not sure if it happened under some other thread or what.

I'll repeat what I told you in the IRC just so we have a record of it here as well.

I did a forum search for the alias thread, and didn't find anything. I also manuall searched Riversyde's forum posts, and didn't find anything. I don't believe admin aliases create forum threads, though I could be wrong.

What I'm getting from this is that earth_pony exists because unicorn, pegasus and alicorn implicate pony. Now, surely none of those tags should implicate pony at all, and instead implicate equine which would leave the pony tag to show ponies and not mythical equines.

Seven_Twenty said:
What I'm getting from this is that earth_pony exists because unicorn, pegasus and alicorn implicate pony. Now, surely none of those tags should implicate pony at all, and instead implicate equine which would leave the pony tag to show ponies and not mythical equines.

There's no implications.

TBH I think the correct solution to this is to not tag unicorns, pegasi and alicorns/winged_unicorns as horses or ponies.
They aren't horses, they are mythical equines.
We don't tag gryphons with eagle and lion, we don't tag satyr as human and goat, or mermaid as fish and human.

If pony was a MLP specific umbrella term for their character species then it would make sense the way it is now, but it's not, pony means something in real life too.
A unicorn isn't a pony any more than a dragon is a lizard.

Making pony mean only actual ponies, not mythical creatures that are part pony and something else will also solve this problem, and allow the alias to exist.

Rainbow_Dash said:
A bit late responding to this, but a user came to me asking why we couldn't have it. I explained that we didn't need it. He gave me a well written and lengthy response on how it is needed as there is no way to search for wingless, hornless ponies without having to add three more tags to his search, which left him with about two normal tags to use after that.

I passed this on to char and asked his opinion. At the time we were both kinda 50-50 about it, but overall I think we agreed that it simply performs a job that otherwise takes three tags.

No way to fin a pony without wings? Its called tags pony and my_little_pony....that sloves it, the tag earth pony is retarded

Halite said:
There's no implications.

TBH I think the correct solution to this is to not tag unicorns, pegasi and alicorns/winged_unicorns as horses or ponies.
They aren't horses, they are mythical equines.
We don't tag gryphons with eagle and lion, we don't tag satyr as human and goat, or mermaid as fish and human.

If pony was a MLP specific umbrella term for their character species then it would make sense the way it is now, but it's not, pony means something in real life too.
A unicorn isn't a pony any more than a dragon is a lizard.

Making pony mean only actual ponies, not mythical creatures that are part pony and something else will also solve this problem, and allow the alias to exist.

A unicorn is a horse/pony/deer/zebra with a horn. It's not a 50/50 hybrid of two specific animals, and it's not a mythological creature vaguely based on a snakes, lizards, and/or dinosaurs. It's 97% the animal it gets tagged as. Someone searching for horses is probably going to want to see a horse whether or not it has a horn sticking out of its forehead.

Maybe pony should be aliased to earth_pony. Someone already pointed out why pony is a pointless tag.

DrHorse said:
A unicorn is a horse/pony/deer/zebra with a horn. It's not a 50/50 hybrid of two specific animals, and it's not a mythological creature vaguely based on a snakes, lizards, and/or dinosaurs. It's 97% the animal it gets tagged as. Someone searching for horses is probably going to want to see a horse whether or not it has a horn sticking out of its forehead.

Maybe pony should be aliased to earth_pony. Someone already pointed out why pony is a pointless tag.

Ok, you want more examples?
Cerberus, not tagged dog, it's not a mix, it's just a dog, it's 97% dog as much as a unicorn is 97% horse.
Phoenix, not tagged bird, it's just a bird made of fire, maybe slightly less than the made up 97%, but close enough and only one animal.

We tag things for what they are, not what they're close to.
I don't tag chimpanzees as "human" and they actually are 98.8% similar to human on a DNA level.
And that's a hell of a lot closer in reality than a made up mythological creature is to a real horse.

Halite said:
Ok, you want more examples?
Cerberus, not tagged dog, it's not a mix, it's just a dog, it's 97% dog as much as a unicorn is 97% horse.
Phoenix, not tagged bird, it's just a bird made of fire, maybe slightly less than the made up 97%, but close enough and only one animal.

Looks like lazy tagging to me. Half the cerberus posts are tagged as dog, and a third of the phoenix posts are tagged bird.

I'm not saying that unicorn should imply horse. I'm just saying that if it looks like a horse, then it should be tagged as a horse.

DrHorse said:
Looks like lazy tagging to me. Half the cerberus posts are tagged as dog, and a third of the pheonix posts are tagged bird.

I'm not saying that unicorn should imply horse. I'm just saying that if it looks like a horse, then it should be tagged as a horse.

But it doesn't look like a horse, it has a horn on it's head.
Horses don't have horns on their heads.
By that standard we should tag zebras as horses because they look like a horse with stripes.

It's not lazy tagging, it's people adding bad species tags.

Edit: Thought I should add something.
"Looks like a horse" is very well, and thoroughly covered by the "equine" tag.
I'm saying that unicorns, pegasi, and other mythological horse-like creatures should simply be tagged with their name, and equine since that's all they are.
They aren't actually horses, they're just close to horses, which means they fit into the same umbrella tag, but shouldn't get that same specific "horse" tag because they aren't actually horses.

But they don't look like horses with stripes. If anything they resemble mules. But that's beside the point.

A unicorn doesn't look like a horse with a horn, it is a horse with a horn.

Edit:

Halite said:
They aren't actually horses, they're just close to horses, which means they fit into the same umbrella tag, but shouldn't get that same specific "horse" tag because they aren't actually horses.

Then how are you supposed to distinguish between the horse-unicorns and the zebra-unicorns?

DrHorse said:
But they don't look like horses with stripes. If anything they resemble mules. But that's beside the point.

A unicorn doesn't look like a horse with a horn, it is a horse with a horn.

So that means that narwhals are just really fat unicorns, making them basically horses...huh?

DrHorse said:
But they don't look like horses with stripes. If anything they resemble mules. But that's beside the point.

A unicorn doesn't look like a horse with a horn, it is a horse with a horn.

Odd, I didn't realize that horses had the magical ability to cure poisons, purify water and food, and had a strange affinity for virgins.

Edit:
Then how are you supposed to distinguish between the horse-unicorns and the zebra-unicorns?

There's a striped_fur tag.

Halite said:
Odd, I didn't realize that horses had the magical ability to cure poisons, purify water and food, and had a strange affinity for virgins

You can't possibly see any of those. For tagging purposes, unicorns are equines with horns.

Halite said:
There's a striped_fur tag.

And the other non-horse unicorns like this thing?

post #278150

DrHorse said:
...unicorns are equines with horns.

My point exactly.
They are equines with horns, so you tag "equine" and "unicorn", or just unicorn since it implies equine.

And the other non-horse unicorns like this thing?

post #278150

You remove the bad tag, because that's not an equine, so it's not a unicorn.

EDFDarkAngel1 said:
I understand :) I'm sure the alias was approved for a good reason, and it was taken down for a good reason. It may not seem that way because you didn't see us talking about this last week. Regardless, I understand your objection to how it was handled.

EDFDarkAngel1 said:
The reason was listed on the site (and in this thread).

It appears that you are the only one who continues to take issue with this. I apologize if you do not agree with my decision, but I still stand by it. If you wish to continue this over a very minor alias issue, that's up to you. I do wish you the best, either way.

I have no particular interest in the alias its self, but wow this makes you come off like a total douche. You should probably consider your phrasing and public image a little more if you're going to be the head admin, even if it's only for a little bit.

Telling people that whatever happened in secret admin forums is for their own good and you've considered all aspects of it very very rarely goes over well. See also: The past few months of world politics with people completely losing their shit over Snowden, Manning, and any other sort of secret revelation. We want to know about it and unless there is a -really- good reason to keep it secret, it should not be discussed in secret. It will appear to be discussed in secret if you only chat with admins about it. The users here have an expectation that things will be discussed in public. Either that or keep it secret from start to finish and pay it doesn't blow up in your face.

Finishing off an official communique with (paraphrasing) "You're free to disagree, but this decision is final. Oh and have a nice day." is going to be read as "I'm right, fuck you, get lost." no matter how many smiley faces you put on it.

Azazial said:
Finishing off an official communique with (paraphrasing) "You're free to disagree, but this decision is final. Oh and have a nice day." is going to be read as "I'm right, fuck you, get lost." no matter how many smiley faces you put on it.

Or especially because of the smiley faces.
A lot of people approach those as being facetious and/or slighting, especially when they upend something like that.

I'd say mostly it's just useful to see if someone can come up with another, better solution to the one you're thinking of.

I think that 4 months after it's good time to sum up what are results of this unalias.

Despite try to revive this tag almost nobody, besides people who copy tags from 20pc, is using it. It has only 35 instances including this:
post #392877
where is visible only horse cock.
Nobody even bothered to write its wiki page.

IMO Either alias this again, or at least make implication to pony and pray that somebody would like to tag it.

Gilda_The_Gryphon said:
I think that 4 months after it's good time to sum up what are results of this unalias.

Despite try to revive this tag almost nobody, besides people who copy tags from 20pc, is using it. It has only 35 instances including this:
post #392877
where is visible only horse cock.
Nobody even bothered to write its wiki page.

IMO Either alias this again, or at least make implication to pony and pray that somebody would like to tag it.

Earth_pony is a stupid tag, what if its not on earth than what? Why not just put earth_pony -> invalid_tag

Conker said:
Earth_pony is a stupid tag, what if its not on earth than what? Why not just put earth_pony -> invalid_tag

Wrong - earth ponies are named because they have powers about the earth. They are like earthbenders, only their powers are even more lame than Shyamalan's earthbenders.

I actually like the invalid tag. Think I'll bring that up.

EDFDarkAngel1 said:
I actually like the invalid tag. Think I'll bring that up.

Bring that up? I sorta already did :P

I'm still of the opinion of sod the bronies, alicorn is the name of a unicorn's horn, tag it for all one-horned beasties that have the traditional spiraled horn of the unicorn (Bonus fact! Narwhals should be tagged tusk or tooth NOT alicorn or horn) NOT the name for a flying unicorn. From middle ages to until MLP:FiM the meaning never changed and was well understood. :x

That aside (was addressing the year ago topic of unicorns of non-horse species), earth_pony back to pony or invalid tag seems best, I agree. Pegasi exist outside of MLP, same with unicorns, so they should stay. Earth pony is a fandom specific tag and should be nixed.

123easy said:
(Bonus fact! Narwhals should be tagged tusk or tooth NOT alicorn or horn)

Narwhals have horns...it looks like a horn therefor its tagged as one.

I think we should unimplicate Pegasus and unicorn to pony, and alias earth pony to pony. I know someone else said something to that effect but I don't feel like quoting.

Sollux said:
I think we should unimplicate Pegasus and unicorn to pony, and alias earth pony to pony. I know someone else said something to that effect but I don't feel like quoting.

Pegasus and unicorn don't implicate pony.
Why would they?

Conker said:
Narwhals have horns...it looks like a horn therefor its tagged as one.

Actually, if drawn properly, they shouldn't look like a horn.
Horn would be coming from the forehead, or sides of the head.
A narwhal tusk comes from the mouth area, much like an elephant.

Conker said:
Narwhals have horns...it looks like a horn therefor its tagged as one.

Horns are required to grow from the top of the head, and be living bone. Narwhal tusks are teeth that grow through the lip and are hollow. Rarely, both canines grow into the tusks. Further, you know that image of the "Hello, cloppit!" Nigel Thornberry pony with the veiny throbbing horn? Imagine that horn, but as the tooth. Narwhal teeth have the soft nervous material on the outside and an inner hollow core of enamel, dentin, and cementum- basically, the complete opposite of every other tooth in existance. Reason? They're basically giant sounding sticks that the narwhal uss to sense minute differences in temperature and currents and salinity and that sort of thing.

For the record, I wouldn't tag something with a giant tooth sticking through their lip as having a horn, RL, anthro or feral.

And this is why it was a bonus fact. :P

EDIT: Boo, late to the reply. Ah well.

Halite said:
Pegasus and unicorn don't implicate pony.
Why would they?

my bad, I'd read Char and Seven Twenty's posts and missed yours saying they don't implicate. Either way all that leaves is to alias, earth_pony is a useless tag that means pony from mlp.

Halite said:

Actually, if drawn properly, they shouldn't look like a horn.
Horn would be coming from the forehead, or sides of the head.
A narwhal tusk comes from the mouth area, much like an elephant.

Weebl's narwhals have horns. Tag what you see :v

Conker said:
Weebl's narwhals have horns. Tag what you see :v

Well sure, if they draw is wrong, as a horn, then tag it as a horn, because TWYS.

Halite said:
Well sure, if they draw is wrong, as a horn, then tag it as a horn, because TWYS.

+1 this. That's not a narwhal, that's a Weebl-narwhal. Completely different species. :P

Well, there's only 35 posts tagged with it, so even if we're not allowed to remove it, at least no one's using it.

ippiki_ookami said:
Well, there's only 35 posts tagged with it, so even if we're not allowed to remove it, at least no one's using it.

Its been removed before, someone keeps on readding it

ippiki_ookami said:
Well, there's only 35 posts tagged with it, so even if we're not allowed to remove it, at least no one's using it.

This is where I take my issue. If no one is using these tags that everyone seems so eager to alias away, then why is it so important that they be aliased away? We have thousands upon thousands of tags that are on barely any posts at all.

I take the position of using tag aliases and implications to solve problems or enhance tagging. If a tag isn't causing an actual problem, then I don't understand what point there is in removing it. Doing so feels more like regulation for the sake of regulating than actually making the site better in any way. =/

Conker said:
Its been removed before, someone keeps on readding it

right, because a few people decided to keep it, so as of right now it's valid

Char said:
This is where I take my issue. If no one is using these tags that everyone seems so eager to alias away, then why is it so important that they be aliased away?

It's not important. Originally I thought unaliasing it was going to have a hugely negative impact on the site, but it hasn't. So it doesn't bother me either way. Now if people start misusing it now that it's been brought up again, then it'll be an issue.

ippiki_ookami said:
right, because a few people decided to keep it, so as of right now it's valid

Its more like 1 person...or maybe 2. But not many at all

Char said:
This is where I take my issue. If no one is using these tags that everyone seems so eager to alias away, then why is it so important that they be aliased away? We have thousands upon thousands of tags that are on barely any posts at all.

I take the position of using tag aliases and implications to solve problems or enhance tagging. If a tag isn't causing an actual problem, then I don't understand what point there is in removing it. Doing so feels more like regulation for the sake of regulating than actually making the site better in any way. =/

Consistancy when it comes to tagging, primarily. Re-aliasing it now, not that important. It should be aliased, but it's not a big deal if it takes a few months to do. When it was first around and being tagged by bronies everywhere, it was more an immediate issue that needed to be solved.

Most of the thousands upon thousands of unused tags I could see through random clickthroughs were not in use for a reason, mostly tags that got their posts cleaned up to the appropriate posts and then the tag was left to rot unknowingly. Personally, if a tag is left with 0 posts for a period of time (2 months?), I think it should be automatically aliased to invalid_tag, myself.

123easy said:
Consistancy when it comes to tagging, primarily. Re-aliasing it now, not that important. It should be aliased, but it's not a big deal if it takes a few months to do. When it was first around and being tagged by bronies everywhere, it was more an immediate issue that needed to be solved.

Ok, in that case:

1) if it WAS being tagged a lot, then the argument now of "no one tags it so it should be aliased away again" doesn't really make sense if it's our fault that it stopped being tagged to begin with, right? (not necessarily directing this at you, it's just a reason people have been using)

2) I think I've asked this before, but I see no where on the forums or anywhere else where this alias was actually DISCUSSED before being made in the first place. Unaliasing it and forcing it to go through a proper discussion and approval first has revealed that there wasn't as much consensus among users and admins as people keep saying/assuming there was.

I think the problem now is that both sides have a pretty firm understanding of each other, yet simply hold different ideals for the site itself. Some of the users (and admins) want to handle some tags more like a utility, or a means-to-an-end, while other users and admins favor consistency at the expense of specificity.

I'm not sure of a resolution or compromise to this at the moment, but it does kind of remind me of when people get up-in-arms over TWYS. It's not that their idea to not follow TWYS is "wrong", they just want/expect e621's tags to work in a way that's different from the way others want it to work. They're still both workable approaches, but not at the same time.

Char said:
Ok, in that case:

1) if it WAS being tagged a lot, then the argument now of "no one tags it so it should be aliased away again" doesn't really make sense if it's our fault that it stopped being tagged to begin with, right? (not necessarily directing this at you, it's just a reason people have been using)

Most of the reason it was getting tagged was because of fandom over-specific tagging. Don't you remember the MASSIVE influx of pony stuff at the time? We were getting so much even YOU were getting sick with the sheer volume. This was before 20PC even was a gleam in someone's eye (oh who am I kidding? it was probably conceptualized the moment Ponies hit the ground running). I wouldn't be surprised if it got tucked along with the rest of the overly-specific tags, especially since...

2) I think I've asked this before, but I see no where on the forums or anywhere else where this alias was actually DISCUSSED before being made in the first place. Unaliasing it and forcing it to go through a proper discussion and approval first has revealed that there wasn't as much consensus among users and admins as people keep saying/assuming there was.

.... https://e621.net/forum/show/19068 One person was saying they just tagged pony to earth pony, perhaps it was a tagging trend and quietly occured because it made sense? Those were some dark times, back in the day, when some admins decided things arbitrarily *glances over at the breast size abominations, then at Riversyde*

It might have also been an Admin only conversation (possibly that occured off-site?) like the discussions you guys had in private about the Pinkamena tag, rather than having it out in public with us users. yes, I'm still irked about that. >_>

I think the problem now is that both sides have a pretty firm understanding of each other, yet simply hold different ideals for the site itself. Some of the users (and admins) want to handle some tags more like a utility, or a means-to-an-end, while other users and admins favor consistency at the expense of specificity.

The thing is we have over-specificity right now with six tags each, even when searching for three popular characters that show up often together. So long as we actually use them to search for tags first and foremost instead of trying to order what we search up. I've given a number of numbers on that point already, showing how few posts you can narrow it down to, sometimes even with a free tag left over. Even with your examples I showed how low the postcount can go if you ditch order:tagcount and add the other tags you were noting, at which point tagcount becomes rather useless since you have so few images to look at.

Atop this we have consistantly shot down over-specific tags in favour of consistant tagging so that things are easy to search for for the general audience, rather than catering to any specific fandom. It's only been recently with things like Eeveelutions and Legendary_Pokemon and the various MLP fandom tags that that has changed at all, and from what I can see the general opinion has been to nuke any overly specific tag that is already covered otherwise, even in the case of the large amount of Eevee evolutions, simply because it opens up how tags get used to all those overly specific forms that we used to quash that could ome back at any time, making actually using tags to search when not part of a fandom a nightmare.

I don't know about other people, but I don't mind utility going in, so long as it's standardized and not fandom-specific, or, if it is, it actually has a decent reason to exist that a previously existing or non-fandom-specific tag couldn't replace its function. One great example of this is pokephilia, since you could replace it with \love' but it loses functionality. pokephilia actually produces a useful function in being able to search for, specifically, lovers of pokemon. Hippophilia towards horses as a secondary example branching from pokephilia is a perfectly fine and understandable tag that follows the same conceptualization, so it can remain fairly applicable to anything, and in such a way that anyone can and should be able to easily understand it, either from schooling or from being able to look up any words they don't know in a dictionary (though I personally find it hard to believe that someone might need a dictionary most of the time, I can still understand that not everyone shares my proclivity for an expansive vocabulary).

I'm not sure of a resolution or compromise to this at the moment, but it does kind of remind me of when people get up-in-arms over TWYS. It's not that their idea to not follow TWYS is "wrong", they just want/expect e621's tags to work in a way that's different from the way others want it to work. They're still both workable approaches, but not at the same time.

I got nothin' here. Mostly because '...idea to not follow TWYS...' in context with the paragraph doesn't quite grok to me without an example.

Char said:
This is where I take my issue. If no one is using these tags that everyone seems so eager to alias away, then why is it so important that they be aliased away?

Currently it doesn't have even implication to pony and there are few pictures that are tagged with it, but not with pony even though they should be. As I said either alias it, or at least make implication.