Donmai

cyclops / mono-eye

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It always bugged me how cyclops is used as a catch-all term for one-eyed characters (as in, single eye, not missing one) instead of referring to the Greek monsters as the wiki entry does. Since Pixiv already makes that distinction with the モノアイ tag, would it be possible to create a parallel one on Danbooru?

EDIT: Actually, I took a look and it might be faster to just bulk update the tag to mono-eye, because aside from cyclops_(monster_musume) and cyclops_(monster_girl_encyclopedia) I saw nothing based on actual cyclopi.

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In terms of tagging for the site, Cyclops has been used as a catchall for beings that possess a singular central eye on their face for as far as I remember. So it's wording of the wiki is indeed incorrect.

NWF_Renim said:

In terms of tagging for the site, Cyclops has been used as a catchall for beings that possess a singular central eye on their face for as far as I remember. So it's wording of the wiki is indeed incorrect.

Speaking of which, should we create/revive a dedicated topic for requesting wiki clarifications/write-ups? It's a pretty specific task, requiring a native speaker with good tag knowledge and grammar skills.

Type-kun said:

Speaking of which, should we create/revive a dedicated topic for requesting wiki clarifications/write-ups? It's a pretty specific task, requiring a native speaker with good tag knowledge and grammar skills.

That's not bad at all. I made one, topic #12858.

CinderBH said:

It always bugged me how cyclops is used as a catch-all term for one-eyed characters (as in, single eye, not missing one) instead of referring to the Greek monsters as the wiki entry does. Since Pixiv already makes that distinction with the モノアイ tag, would it be possible to create a parallel one on Danbooru?

I understand where you're coming from, but the current usage of the cyclops tag is so entrenched on this site that endeavoring to change terminology at this point would be pointless. You might as well argue that we shouldn't tag generic snake-haired girls as medusa or tentacled girls as scylla. You might be technically correct, but keeping the more familiar terms is convenient, and the path of least resistance generally wins around here.

If anything, a mass update would confuse a lot of users and leave people wondering what tag to add or search for. Cyclops is a word well-known to a lot of English speakers, but mono-eye is clunky and not something that will come easily to most users.

To be frank, I'd never guess that I have to search for mono-eye to find one-eyed creatures. What naturally comes to mind is either one-eyed (which is now reserved for both naturally one-eyed species and characters who have lost an eye), cyclops which can be confusing due to mythology, or single_eye which is currently used for, uh... I have no idea what exactly that tag is supposed to represent right now, since it's underpopulated, has no wiki, and seems like a mix of cyclops, one-eyed and situations where other eye(s) are out of frame.

So, we can either:

1) Leave cyclops as-is, clarify wiki and create a separate cyclops_(mythology) for actual race of mythical creatures... do we currently have any posts with them on Danbooru, though?

2) Sort out the terminology somehow to make a distinction of naturally and artificially one-eyed characters without involving cyclops tag. mono-eye fits, but like I said, it seems rather unusual.

Mono-eye doesn't even have a tagcount. So I'd strike out this possibility to begin with since one-eyed expresses exact the same thing. It's just the english term (one = mono).
But one-eyed can also mean that the character lost one of their eyes (or two, if they had three to begin with and so on). So there is a distinction between these two tags in my eyes.
Under cyclops, everything I see here would fall under this tag. Yes, there is mythology, but as far as I'm aware, cyclops also refer to real one-eyed characters like nearly everything on this site^^.
So, maybe an implication from cyclops to one-eyed is appropriate.

Well, I think I've made my point then^^.
Cyclops should be a term for all real one-eyed creatures. The mythology aspect is good, but in my eyes, it would only result in a fragment tag. I'd avoid that.
One-eyed is a broader term in my eyes for example if the character is missing one eye.
But missing eye shouldn't imply one-eyed (I guess there was discussion on this before).

iridescent_slime said:

I understand where you're coming from, but the current usage of the cyclops tag is so entrenched on this site that endeavoring to change terminology at this point would be pointless. You might as well argue that we shouldn't tag generic snake-haired girls as medusa or tentacled girls as scylla. You might be technically correct, but keeping the more familiar terms is convenient, and the path of least resistance generally wins around here.

If anything, a mass update would confuse a lot of users and leave people wondering what tag to add or search for. Cyclops is a word well-known to a lot of English speakers, but mono-eye is clunky and not something that will come easily to most users.

To be honest, the usage of medusa, scylla and lamia bugs me too, but one problem at a time. If you're worried about the first search term people will use, you can just leave cyclops as an alias to mono-eye and add a tag for the mythological creature like Type-kun suggested: that way a search will yield the alias and the "(mythology)" tag, and people will be eased into it unlike a straight mass update. Besides, at least as far as monster girls go that term isn't all that obscure thanks to Okayado's work.

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