Topic: How would i tag this character of mine

For reference, the character i am alluding to tagging logistics is in this post: https://e621.net/posts/5864354?q=user%3Abunnywaffle
I ask because I've got more art of her I want to upload soon

So I wanna ask about her tagging...I've been tagging her with male+femboy/girly and attaching the female_(lore) tag...I've been tagging her as male solely because she's flat chested but she also has a dick...! But i wonder if her body type is feminine enough to get the female/herm tag or whatever is appropiate enough for her.

I just hope I'm doing the tagging right, Arguably I'm still inexperienced but I make do with what I search for or notice in other posts!

Thank you for reading, and thank you if you're able to help me! <3

This kind of question is pretty common, e621 works a bit different from most people's intuition so don't feel bad for having to spend a while learning.

https://e621.net/wiki_pages/3294

gattonero2001 said:
This kind of question is pretty common, e621 works a bit different from most people's intuition so don't feel bad for having to spend a while learning.

https://e621.net/wiki_pages/3294

My only takeaway from reading that is that i mayyy? Be tagging correctly??? Because going by the simplified flowchart, penis -> feminine body = male + girly tags
So I think I might be tagging it correctly...But I'm still not entirely sure...Hmmmmm!

bunnywaffle said:
So I wanna ask about her tagging...I've been tagging her with male+femboy/girly and attaching the female_(lore) tag...I've been tagging her as male solely because she's flat chested but she also has a dick...! But i wonder if her body type is feminine enough to get the female/herm tag or whatever is appropiate enough for her.

We use TWYS, so it depends on an image-by-image basis. Two different images of the same character can be tagged differently if different things are visible, which largely depends on what genitalia is visible. If there's a visible penis (or bulge), no breasts, and no vulva, male is correct to tag, along with femboy if she has a feminine-looking body. herm would only be appropriate if there's a visible penis (or bulge), a visible vulva (or camel_toe), and either breasts or a feminine body. If there's no visible penis (or bulge), no visible vulva (or camel_toe), and no breasts, then she can either be tagged female if she has a feminine body, or ambiguous_gender otherwise.

female_(lore) is a little more complicated since it has a confusing definition, or more accurately, two different definitions; a character that is intended to have a female body and isn't tagged female can be tagged female_(lore) regardless of whether they identify as a female or not, but a character that identifies as female when not already tagged female can be tagged female_(lore) regardless of their intended body, while a character that identifies as female but has a non-female body would usually be tagged trans_woman_(lore). AFAIK, trans_woman_(lore) and female_(lore) would not be tagged together as it would be redundant, same as female and female_(lore) shouldn't be tagged together since it would be redundant. Unfortunately there's not as much guidelines on these lore tags from the admins that we'd like, given these two distinct and potentially-conflicting meanings alongside the guidelines we do have.

watsit said:
We use TWYS, so it depends on an image-by-image basis. Two different images of the same character can be tagged differently if different things are visible, which largely depends on what genitalia is visible. If there's a visible penis (or bulge), no breasts, and no vulva, male is correct to tag, along with femboy if she has a feminine-looking body. herm would only be appropriate if there's a visible penis (or bulge), a visible vulva (or camel_toe), and either breasts or a feminine body. If there's no visible penis (or bulge), no visible vulva (or camel_toe), and no breasts, then she can either be tagged female if she has a feminine body, or ambiguous_gender otherwise.

female_(lore) is a little more complicated since it has a confusing definition, or more accurately, two different definitions; a character that is intended to have a female body and isn't tagged female can be tagged female_(lore) regardless of whether they identify as a female or not, but a character that identifies as female when not already tagged female can be tagged female_(lore) regardless of their intended body, while a character that identifies as female but has a non-female body would usually be tagged trans_woman_(lore). AFAIK, trans_woman_(lore) and female_(lore) would not be tagged together as it would be redundant, same as female and female_(lore) shouldn't be tagged together since it would be redundant. Unfortunately there's not as much guidelines on these lore tags from the admins that we'd like, given these two distinct and potentially-conflicting meanings alongside the guidelines we do have.

So i think im tagging correctly, Good to know! Thank you! :D

Watsit did a great job answering your main questions, so I'll address your question from comment #9338349

bunnywaffle said:
I don't know why the geo_donut_balloon tag is invalid... Could any staff please help me out a little, this is my first upload and I thought if it had a wiki page it'd probably be valid...!

Tl;dr, it's not invalid, just untagged aside from your post, but you're ok to use it.

There's a few misunderstandings here, so I'll take it point by point, but I'll start off by thanking you for checking the wiki page before using the tag; as long as you keep that sort of caution up, I'm confident you'll get the hang of it quick.

Firstly, that tag isn't of the invalid category; like all other tag categories, invalid tags have a unique color & appear in their own section of the tag list. The red number one just indicates that this is the only post currently using that tag; this is typically because no one has ever used that tag before, but it can also happen because all posts that used it previously had it removed. That usually means something is off (e.g. a spelling error), but it can happen on valid tags; for example, if this is an artist's debut post on e621, their artist tag will obviously not be tagged on any other posts.

Personally, I'd say this kind of insanely specific tag shouldn't be used (at least if it doesn't currently have posts using it), but aside from changing the category, we can also resolve these by either manually removing the tag or by aliasing it to a more general variant (e.g. donut_balloon, although I'd also prefer that be aliased to balloon giving how it's only been tagged 3 times as of writing). That being said, we don't always do this because there's an infinite amount of these kind of tags, & we'd have to properly weigh whether or not they're worth preserving, then decide which of the 3 aforementioned methods of stopping users from using the tag should be applied, and finally have one of our admins approve the change. Add the fact that there's not that many admins & how busy they are, & it's really not worth the hassle for tags that only 1 person used 1 time. Plus, we'd have to stumble across these rarely-used tags in the first place to even start this evaluation.

Secondly, invalid tags can (& I'd say should always) have wiki pages that tell people how to replace them with the appropriate valid tag. Take the wiki page for lust_(disambiguation) as an example.

Finally, you can add a wiki page for tags that don't - & even can't - exist, although it's exceedingly rare (& arguably ill-advised) for this to happen. Although most wiki pages are for tags, there are some which are for other things (e.g. the previously-linked gender tagging guide) that don't have an associated tag, so to enable that, we don't force wiki pages to have a tag of the same name. That being said, it's so rare that I'd say you're in the clear to take the existence of a wiki page as a sign the tag can be used (excluding invalid tags of course), so long as you follow the guidance on usage outlined therein.

Don't feel too overwhelmed; you don't need to worry about most of this, & as long as you keep checking the wiki & asking questions on the forum when you don't understand something, you're already in the upper echelon of users. Keep up the good work!