The thread title is a bit of a mouthful, but basically what I'm hoping for here is for us to come to an agreement regarding how we should handle allowing alternative, non-canon names for characters.

In particular, this discussion will likely be centered around "fan" names for characters. Examples of fan-names for characters include Princess_Molestia, Pinkamena, and many others (though MLP is pretty much always the one at the center of these debates).

The way I feel about it is we should follow our current TWYS policy, which makes an exception for character names:

IN ADDITION TO FOLLOWING THE TWYS POLICY, we should ALSO tag the name of the character that this alternative character is a version/parody of. This means that characters that are parodies/alternates of other characters would receive BOTH character names.

The end result of this is that we allow the tagging of a character's alternative name as suggested by the artist/owner/commissioner as long as there's actually SOME evidence of that character in the image, PLUS the original character's name will also be tagged, since it's the "base" version of the alternative character.

Example: Princess_Molestia is usually depicted as a desaturated version of Princess_Celestia. Therefore, for images which contain a desaturated Princess_Celestia, and where the artist claims that it is Princess_Molestia, the post would receive both the Princess_Molestia and Princess_Celestia tags. Again, this would NOT be the case if there's no evidence of the character, such as if the image/character wasn't colored to begin with (thereby removing Princess_Molestia's only real noticeable difference from Princess_Celestia). Again, there must be evidence of the claimed character in order to tag that character.

Pros: Users who are searching for these specific versions of characters can easily find them using the name that has been commonly given to them on the internet. Additionally, the original character name is tagged as well, meaning that you're not going to miss "Princess_Molestia" posts if you search for Princess_Celestia instead; it'll still be tagged after the original character it was based off of.

Cons: A policy like this runs the risk of increasing the amount of tags on a post "needlessly" according to some. It can also introduce problems in the future where we need to determine if an alternative character name is valid to tag on certain posts, or if certain alternative names should even be allowed (example: versions of characters that have visible differences from their original characters, but where do we draw the line between "this is a legit alternative character" and "this is just character_x wearing a hat"?)

Please remember to keep your responses civil and constructive. Thanks!

So, if you are really considering treating "alternative" characters as legitimate characters then I have few questions.

Let's say that there is artist A who draws character that is described as Princess Molestia. And there's also artist B who also draws character that is described as Princess Molestia. However, while artist B has a firm set of moral rules - his Molestia never molest Fluttershy - A is disgusting libertine and he draws pictures of Princess Molestia raping Fluttershy.

Now B makes angry comments/flags several A pictures in rage, because she thinks that those pictures are offending to her true Molestia character. Should tags be split on princess_molestia_(A) and princess_molestia_(B), or should both of characters be tagged with the same tag?

What's more let's say, that neither option satisfies artist B, and she makes a takedown request to remove Princess Molestia from this filthy site. What pictures will be removed? Who can make takedown on that character?

You want to make them legitimate characters? Well, here they are. Have fun with that.

I'm against this "addition" to exception to TWYS, and now I'm not sure whether this exception was good in the first place.

Gilda_The_Gryphon said:
So, if you are really considering treating "alternative" characters as legitimate characters then I have few questions.

Let's say that there is artist A who draws character that is described as Princess Molestia. And there's also artist B who also draws character that is described as Princess Molestia. However, while artist B has a firm set of moral rules - his Molestia never molest Fluttershy - A is disgusting libertine and he draws pictures of Princess Molestia raping Fluttershy.

Now B makes angry comments/flags several A pictures in rage, because she thinks that those pictures are offending to her true Molestia character. Should tags be split on princess_molestia_(A) and princess_molestia_(B), or should both of characters be tagged with the same tag?

What's more let's say, that neither option satisfies artist B, and she makes a takedown request to remove Princess Molestia from this filthy site. What pictures will be removed? Who can make takedown on that character?

You want to make them legitimate characters? Well, here they are. Have fun with that.

I'm against this "addition" to exception to TWYS, and now I'm not sure whether this exception was good in the first place.

If the artist is claiming some kind of ownership of the character, and the character has the same name as another character, then we add an appropriate suffix as we've always done. So if "Bob" is a name shared among multiple characters on the site, the "less popular" characters are subject to having their character tag changed to "bob_(owner's_name)", or whatever is deemed appropriate.

Additionally, if the artist or character owner is claiming that their character is different from an already existing character, then there has to be evidence of that in the picture itself.

I think this addresses your scenario, in which you seem to be concerned that two artists would come up with two different ideas of what Princess_Molestia should be. I don't think that a scenario like this will be too common to begin with, as I don't recall anything like it happening in all my time I've spent administrating e621.

It's not that it's a completely unrealistic scenario, I just think that it's very unlikely to actually occur, and therefore shouldn't be something that deters us from allowing character names to be tagged the way many users expect them to be tagged, especially if there's no negative impact otherwise. Personally, I think we'd be more than capable of handling any problems that would arise from allowing fan-names like this.

I'm against. Simply because it'd make it harder to find what I'm looking for.

Using that recent meowser → bowser suggestion as an example: if I search for Bowser, I don't want to see his alt forms mixed in. So if that gets approved, I'll have to add -meowser and -bowletta (and other forms) to such searches.

It's the same for all the other similar tags that I can think of: if I search for a certain pokemon, I don't care to see their mega forms, etc. And if I were to search for Princess Celestia (which is admittedly unlikely), I most certainly wouldn't want to see Molestia.

Genjar said:
I'm against. Simply because it'd make it harder to find what I'm looking for.

Using that recent meowser → bowser suggestion as an example: if I search for Bowser, I don't want to see his alt forms mixed in. So if that gets approved, I'll have to add -meowser and -bowletta (and other forms) to such searches.

And it's the same for all the other similar tags that I can think of: if I search for a certain pokemon, I don't care to see their mega forms, etc. And if I were to search for Princess Celestia (which is admittedly unlikely), I most certainly wouldn't want to see Molestia.

Are you against tagging the names, or against the names implicating the character they "originate" from?

I definitely understand your concern about finding "Meowser" in your searches for Bowser, which can be avoided if there's no implication created between the two. Both character tags definitely still have to exist though, or else all of the "Meowser" images would end up with the "Bowser" tag anyways (although I'm pretty sure his actual name in the game is Meowser anyways).

If you didn't want to see pictures of Princess_Molestia when searching for Princess_Celestia, then we would have to not create an implication between Molestia and Celestia. But the main issue at hand that we're discussing here is whether or not tags like "Princess_Molestia" should exist to begin with, which I'm guessing you're saying they should? Otherwise they'd all end up under Princess_Celestia just like you're saying you DON'T want. :P

Char said:
If the artist is claiming some kind of ownership of the character, and the character has the same name as another character, then we add an appropriate suffix as we've always done. So if "Bob" is a name shared among multiple characters on the site, the "less popular" characters are subject to having their character tag changed to "bob_(owner's_name)", or whatever is deemed appropriate.

Additionally, if the artist or character owner is claiming that their character is different from an already existing character, then there has to be evidence of that in the picture itself.

I think this addresses your scenario, in which you seem to be concerned that two artists would come up with two different ideas of what Princess_Molestia should be. I don't think that a scenario like this will be too common to begin with, as I don't recall anything like it happening in all my time I've spent administrating e621.

It's not that it's a completely unrealistic scenario, I just think that it's very unlikely to actually occur, and therefore shouldn't be something that deters us from allowing character names to be tagged the way many users expect them to be tagged, especially if there's no negative impact otherwise. Personally, I think we'd be more than capable of handling any problems that would arise from allowing fan-names like this.

Okay, so no spliting until characters are visibly different. So, let's say that characters are almost the same, and both are tagged as molestia.

For example:
http://twentypercentcooler.net/post/show/1749
and
http://twentypercentcooler.net/post/show/537

So what would you do if artist from post 537 wants to take down post 1749 because (s)he claims that this is unauthorized usage of her/his character? (S)He also claims on his submission page that molestia is his/hers character, and this is why tag was added on post 1749. ("The end result of this is that we allow the tagging of a character's alternative name as suggested by the artist/owner/commissioner )

Also I see right now dozens of different version of certain "alternative" character. All of them are tagged as pinkamena. Some of them are crazy. Some of them just sad. Some of them have just straight hair, but perfectly happy... etc.

To be honest, IMO the idea of bending a concept of meme which is owned by no one and has no clear definition to make it match site's character definition which involves ownership, takedowns, and some actual proofs is alone what makes this suggestion bad.

Char said:
Are you against tagging the names, or against the names implicating the character they "originate" from?

Against the latter.
I think they should be tagged as one or the other, but not as both. Princess_Molestia seems like a valid tag to me: we don't tag Dolan as Donald_duck, so I don't see why Molestia or Trollestia should be tagged as Celestia.

If you didn't want to see pictures of Princess_Molestia when searching for Princess_Celestia, then we would have to not create an implication between Molestia and Celestia. But the main issue at hand that we're discussing here is whether or not tags like "Princess_Molestia" should exist to begin with, which I'm guessing you're saying they should? Otherwise they'd all end up under Princess_Celestia just like you're saying you DON'T want. :P

You guessed right.
I'll use Pokemon as an example: lately, I've searched a few times specifically for Charizard. But as you can see from the results, many of the recent ones are Mega Charizards. Not what I'm looking for. Both should exist as tags, but I'd prefer it if they weren't mixed up.

'course, I could blacklist mega_evolution...but the thing is, I don't actually mind them. Just don't want to see them when I'm not searching for them.

And some characters have several alternate forms. If all of them get implicated to the base, it'll be hard to search specifically for the vanilla form.

I would like to agree with genjar regarding the implication part, as if they are implicated, it's almost like an alias in that you can never really find only one or the other, except if you are just trying to find the variant alone. However, I feel it should be noted that perhaps an implication would be a good thing as then if you do want to find all this characters alternatives, you have an umbrella tag.

Still I think that it would be more useful to have them not be implicated and just added individually as then you can easily search for one or the other and not have the alts come up every time you search the regular character

In regards to the more important matter at heart here.
I think this is an excellent suggestion as it literally only increases our end goal: to make things have a higher probability of being found without complicated search strings, and without making tags contradict each other.

Pinkamena is in all essence a different character and is consistently different from her counterpart pinkie pie, and as such we can tag her easily and without bias. The new character tags for alternative renditions of characters are all physically different in some way and therefor we can tag them consistently. There would be a few case by case scenarios but no guideline could be made that wouldn't have those.

Now if two artists create the same or similar alternative characters and wish for them to be taken down, then it would be no different than if a single person made an alt of a character now and wanted it taken down. If the character is a widely known fan version that is not specifically tied to one person's creation, it will most likely be denied, same as if someone claims a canon character and wants them taken down. This is obviously to exclude artists wanting content removed as that will be processed regardless of content.

To summarize, if the alt character is canon or fan made and doesn't belong to anyone, then a single artist should not be claiming ownership of it as far as the character goes. Both characters should be tagged as that would help to further sort the different renditions of characters that are often very different and are usually made with a different theme. Both character names should not be implicated as then it would be impossible to casually browse for the main one without the alternatives also coming up.

Edit: I do see your point genjar and am very on the fence as to what would be more useful, but after really thinking what the more likely scenario is (that is, are more people going to want to find all the alts returned or are more people going to want to have them all divided up) I think that more people would want to see all the alts come back, and if there is an alt that is really bothersome, just subtract it from the search, which I also think would be easier to do than the alternative of adding every alt there is to try and see every form of the same character

The largest impact of this seems like it will be for MLP pics and maybe Sonic pics. The MLP fandom is the only one off the top of my head that has created a billion variations and ripoff versions of main characters which could potentially cause an annoyance to someone who does not know how to negative filter or someone who is lazy.

Proposed Solution:
If it's a character cosplaying or impersonating another character tag it with the names of both Character1 and Character2 and Cosplay.

If it's an alternate version of an established character then tag it with the names of Character1 and Character2 and Alternate_Version or something similar.

This way you can use implications as well as make it easy to filter out alternate versions if you want to do so.

Genjar said:
Against the latter.
I think they should be tagged as one or the other, but not as both. Princess_Molestia seems like a valid tag to me: we don't tag Dolan as Donald_duck, so I don't see why Molestia or Trollestia should be tagged as Celestia.

You guessed right.
I'll use Pokemon as an example: lately, I've searched a few times specifically for Charizard. But as you can see from the results, many of the recent ones are Mega Charizards. Not what I'm looking for. Both should exist as tags, but I'd prefer it if they weren't mixed up.

'course, I could blacklist mega_evolution...but the thing is, I don't actually mind them. Just don't want to see them when I'm not searching for them.

And some characters have several alternate forms. If all of them get implicated to the base, it'll be hard to search specifically for the vanilla form.

The mega evolutions are tagged as both because they're still the same pokemon, just temporarily powered up into a slightly different form.
They aren't a whole new thing.

So, wait there is now suggestion to don't tag character with his name tag when xe has different hairstyle, or something? There is suggestion that posts like http://twentypercentcooler.net/post/show/1749 should not be tagged as Princess Celestia here?

Okay, I'm out of here - this is just a bad joke. :/

Genjar said:
I'm against. Simply because it'd make it harder to find what I'm looking for.

Using that recent meowser → bowser suggestion as an example: if I search for Bowser, I don't want to see his alt forms mixed in. So if that gets approved, I'll have to add -meowser and -bowletta (and other forms) to such searches.

It's the same for all the other similar tags that I can think of: if I search for a certain pokemon, I don't care to see their mega forms, etc. And if I were to search for Princess Celestia (which is admittedly unlikely), I most certainly wouldn't want to see Molestia.

You already have to -meowser, since they're tagged wth both.
By this logic we shouldn't tag mlp as horses, so I don't have to -mlp any time I search horses.

Edit: if meowser is a valid tag, then that's a valid implication.

So much for keeping it civil and constructive.
I'm out of here.

Genjar said:
So much for keeping it civil and constructive.
I'm out of here.

Sorry, I can't came up with constructive response when there is serious consideration from an admin about not tagging character name on a picture because there is a meme in the fanbase. This is ruining search for everyone who wants to get this character. People who know nothing about fandom should be supposed to quickly get their results by searching for official name. Something that would be on wikipedia in list of characters.

It's even wrong from the point of reducing tags needed in search. It's much easier to blacklist alt chars and search for original char then utilizing blacklist to get results when alt chars don't imply original chars. (Blacklisting -celestia -molestia -trollestia gives you very, very much blank pages. Blacklisting molestia and trollestia when searching for celestia gives not that much.)

There is nothing good about this suggestion.

And I'm not worried that you suggest it, I'm worried that RD really considers it. If this is going to pass then rule34.paheal will become more reliable for searches of copyrighted characters than this site.

I'm ok with this. To an extent.

I think that for a character to get it's own tag, it must be DISTINCTLY different from the original. E.G. Molestia would have to be done in the original color scheme (not just a rape face), Futashy would have to have the trademark dog collar and dick (Not just the dick), and Little_Miss_rarity would have to have the distinctive heart brand and corrupted eye.
Tropes (Such as Pinkamena) shouldn't be considered at all, in my opinion.

Flutterbat and Power_Ponies are bad tags, because we would have to tag every new "variation" of a character every time one appears in the show. Like Flutterbitch and Twilicorn.
Bee_mario isn't a tag, so why is Meowser?

SirAntagonist said:
I'm ok with this. To an extent.

I think that for a character to get it's own tag, it must be DISTINCTLY different from the original. E.G. Molestia would have to be done in the original color scheme (not just a rape face), Futashy would have to have the trademark dog collar and dick (Not just the dick), and Little_Miss_rarity would have to have the distinctive heart brand and corrupted eye.
Tropes (Such as Pinkamena) shouldn't be considered at all, in my opinion.

Flutterbat and Power_Ponies are bad tags, because we would have to tag every new "variation" of a character every time one appears in the show. Like Flutterbitch and Twilicorn.
Bee_mario isn't a tag, so why is Meowser?

I'd like to add further that we don't tag crossgendered characters a different name, we simply tag them according to the character's name and then add "crossgender"; for those with one canon gender that gets commonly drawn in other genders (Artica comes to mind), we don't tag what their canon gender is, only what gender is in the actual image being tagged.

This is why I don't understand and am firmly against tagging names according to fan creations, rather than just searching for a fan variation-specific tag and the canon character name.

123easy said:
I'd like to add further that we don't tag crossgendered characters a different name, we simply tag them according to the character's name and then add "crossgender"; for those with one canon gender that gets commonly drawn in other genders (Artica comes to mind), we don't tag what their canon gender is, only what gender is in the actual image being tagged.

This is why I don't understand and am firmly against tagging names according to fan creations, rather than just searching for a fan variation-specific tag and the canon character name.

Uhhh. Can you clarify on this some? It seems like you just said that you don't like tagging names as fan creation names (such as Molestia), but that users are supposed to search for a variation-specific tag which... you just said you didn't like?

Gilda_The_Gryphon said:
Sorry, I can't came up with constructive response when there is serious consideration from an admin about not tagging character name on a picture because there is a meme in the fanbase. This is ruining search for everyone who wants to get this character. People who know nothing about fandom should be supposed to quickly get their results by searching for official name. Something that would be on wikipedia in list of characters.

The proposal is to add more tags to images, not reduce the number of tags. I think you may have not spent enough time reading the thread.

Azazial said:
The proposal is to add more tags to images, not reduce the number of tags. I think you may have not spent enough time reading the thread.

Genjar said:

Char said:
Are you against tagging the names, or against the names implicating the character they "originate" from?

Against the latter.
I think they should be tagged as one or the other, but not as both. Princess_Molestia seems like a valid tag to me: we don't tag Dolan as Donald_duck, so I don't see why Molestia or Trollestia should be tagged as Celestia.

Rainbow Dash said:
I would like to agree with genjar regarding the implication part, as if they are implicated, it's almost like an alias (sic!) in that you can never really find only one or the other, except if you are just trying to find the variant alone. However, I feel it should be noted that perhaps an implication would be a good thing as then if you do want to find all this characters alternatives, you have an umbrella tag.

Still I think that it would be more useful to have them not be implicated and just added individually as then you can easily search for one or the other and not have the alts come up every time you search the regular character

Pinkie Pie has been implied with Pinkamena for years (since before the dates were even recorded when aliases were added)
https://e621.net/tag_implication?query=&implied_to=pinkamena_%28mlp%29&user=&approved=all&order=tag

If it's explicitly acknowledged that the alternate version characters are not the original, should Princess_Molestia still get the My_Little_Pony tag? The answer is "yes" at the moment, but if that's the case and we're associating OCs with their respective content/copyright/fandom tags why should an OC character that is an alternate version/rip off of an existing character not also get tagged with its origin like we do with the show its self? The fact that we do this with the originating world is something you ought to be rallying against as well if you think it will be disastrous to the character tag because it's already causing the same 'problem' in the main fandom tags. That is to say, searching for My_Little_Pony should only return canon characters if searching Princess_Celestia should only return canon versions of her.

This argument crops up alot. I'm just going to use my old argument and say there should be one tag for all of them, character_variant to be used only on characters that have a fan name like trollestia or futashy. Not crossgenders, unless its got more defining characteristics besides a penor or lack thereof. My second argument as to why it would be a good tag is that it could be used outside of the brony fandom and it would get rid of a shitload of bad tags and repetitive arguments. (fluttershy + character_variant) would show us flutterbat, flutterhulk and futashy, and adding crossgender would narrow all results to futashy, while hybrid would show flutterbat etc. Still leaving three tags to specify any kinks, without ever touching the blacklist.

Azazial, Gilda, knock it off please.

This thread is being well-debated, please keep hate and drama off the site. If you can't post something constructive, don't post.

To everyone else who is being constructive, thank you for making headway on this discussion :)

Azazial said:
Pinkie Pie has been implied with Pinkamena for years (since before the dates were even recorded when aliases were added)
https://e621.net/tag_implication?query=&implied_to=pinkamena_%28mlp%29&user=&approved=all&order=tag

If it's explicitly acknowledged that the alternate version characters are not the original, should Princess_Molestia still get the My_Little_Pony tag? The answer is "yes" at the moment, but if that's the case and we're associating OCs with their respective content/copyright/fandom tags why should an OC character that is an alternate version/rip off of an existing character not also get tagged with its origin like we do with the show its self? The fact that we do this with the originating world is something you ought to be rallying against as well if you think it will be disastrous to the character tag because it's already causing the same 'problem' in the main fandom tags. That is to say, searching for My_Little_Pony should only return canon characters if searching Princess_Celestia should only return canon versions of her.

I'll actually try to address this constructively: The reason why OCs drawn in the style of a particular show or fandom do not get the tag is because they are just that, drawn in the style. Fandom-created personality variants on canon characters are just that, variants of the original character. The original character is still in the image, even if a fandom personality is displayed.

This is another reason why I am against tagging fandom variants by a specific character name, as it is a personality change that is the main factor, and only minor physical variations like the saturation level that was mentioned for trollestia, or Pinkamena's straight hair that can and have been featured with the canon character in some artwork.

Sollux said:
This argument crops up alot. I'm just going to use my old argument and say there should be one tag for all of them, character_variant to be used only on characters that have a fan name like trollestia or futashy. Not crossgenders, unless its got more defining characteristics besides a penor or lack thereof. My second argument as to why it would be a good tag is that it could be used outside of the brony fandom and it would get rid of a shitload of bad tags and repetitive arguments. (fluttershy + character_variant) would show us flutterbat, flutterhulk and futashy, and adding crossgender would narrow all results to futashy, while hybrid would show flutterbat etc. Still leaving three tags to specify any kinks, without ever touching the blacklist.

The more that we come to an impasse on this issue the more this seems to be more appropriate. If you're searching that specifically for a particular concept of a variant, you need to know at least that much about what the variant is defined by. If you just want to see variants, then you can just search for character_variant and view them all. It doesn't cause issues with fanon names or tag entirely by personality changes (It still does breach TWYS explicitly as written, but it does so in a way that is more objectively given and widely applicable over specific to a single topic; basically, it's like the Cute tag), while still providing the searchability, by the way you're describing it.