Dragon_girl overused - where do we draw the line?

With the sudden popularity of kobayashi-san chi no maidragon fanart since its anime adaptation, the dragon girl tag has ballooned almost 50% in size. I'm concerned that a lot of this is due to widespread misuse of the tag. The current definition is a female character with a dragon-like appearance, yet we're using it on images with no visible dragon-like traits whatsoever, like post #2678274, post #2679977, and post #2680244. I think we can agree that putting dragon girl on posts like these is a clear violation of "tag what you see, not what you know" and should be strongly discouraged.

The question I'd really like to clear up here is, should we establish some sort of minimum requirement for using this tag? Is it enough for a character to only have one draconic feature, like dragon horns or wings or scales, or should there be some combination required, as with the knight tag? It feels wrong to use dragon girl when all you can see is the horns, like tagging flandre scarlet as vampire just because you see fangs.

I guess that the same question can be posed for something like demon_girl as well. If there is a guideline for them, maybe we can copy the requirements and adjust them if necessary?

I would tag it if they have at least the horns (ears for animals) and the tail, wings being optional.

I'd say it should be all three.

I vote for having dragon_wings, dragon_horns, and dragon_tail all on the same character. Either that, or they're noticeably dracoform with some humanoid characteristics and gender specific features like breasts. Otherwise any post with cat_ears qualifies for catgirl status, even if that's the only catlike feature.

For demon girl, I'd use demon horns and demon wings, with the tail bit being an absolute requirement given how succubi aren't always drawn with them.

I can understand trying to be more stringent to prevent the tag from being flooded with popular characters, but I'd object to removing it from original or obscure characters, making them more difficult to search. Would you remove the tag from post #2695982 just because she doesn't have wings? And even with the popular characters, I think things like post #2603930 should still have the tag even in the absence of wings due the very prominent dragon elements.

I don't think wings should be an absolute necessity. Dragons aren't always depicted with wings, and there are some wingless humanoids that still manage to look unmistakably dragonlike. See post #1649258, post #2435743, and post #2552778. Perhaps for characters without wings, there should be a requirement for other characteristics like dragon scales or fire-breathing. This would still exclude the majority of Maidragon and puzzle & dragons art, with au ra being close to the borderline, but at least the tag would be a bit more useful than it is now.

I would say dragon girl should follow the same criteria as monster girl, whatever that criteria is. In fact, I think it should implicate monster girl. If it's not dragon-like enough to be considered a monster girl, then I wouldn't say it's a dragon girl either.

It feels wrong to use dragon girl when all you can see is the horns, like tagging flandre scarlet as vampire just because you see fangs.

I don't think dragon horns is a good tag to begin with. There's no identifiable characteristic that defines a pair of horns as specifically being dragon horns. The only real definition of dragon horns is "the horns of a dragon girl". But it's circular logic to say "this character is a dragon girl because she has dragon horns" and "this character's horns are dragon horns because she's a dragon girl". So tagging these things as dragon horns is tagging what you know, not what you see.

That makes a bit more sense. I think it would be helpful if dragon girl was attributed to posts of characters that not necessarily have all the defining traits of a dragon girl (some don't have wings or aren't visible) but instead just have the general appearance of one. Just having dragon horns wouldn't necessarily qualify a post for the dragon girl tag, but perhaps dragon horns + visible facial/body scales would make it more than acceptable to tag.

In regards to dragon horns, that is pretty much true -- although one could say that a dragon horn's preeminent feature is its' "ribbed" look, the sharp tusk with its distinctive curvature, and typically brown/black almost rustic color. Pixiv has this same problem too though, especially with characters like kiyohime (fate/grand order), lancer (fate/extra ccc), and of course kanna kamui. With these characters are bunches of 'mistagged' posts with 竜娘 (dragon girl) with not much giveaway features of those traits -- usually just the horns and the tail.

The way I've always thought of it is like how (If I'm remembering this right) the DSM handles diagnosis of many mental disorders; you must have X number of Y traits to be diagnosed with Z disorder.

Perhaps the requirements to be a dragon_girl should be having "enough" traits to be definitively dragon-like, if not all of them. Pick some number of like: horns, tail, wings, fire-breathing, scales, etc.

I'd say we need at least two distinct characteristics for the tag dragon_girl to apply, in that case - like dragon_horns and dragon_tail or wings, or having scales and a dragon type snout.

Most of the dragon_horns I see here are for the oriental dragon, which usually is depicted wingless but with a long snake like body and tail. A girl with the same horn and tail combo would definitely be taggable as a dragon girl, but only having horns, wings, or tail alone is insufficient.

From what I've seen, we use a similar standard for catgirl and bunny girl tagging, so that seems in line with the others, IMO.

Given this definition, Tooru definitely fits the dragon_girl tag. Ditto Kanna Kamui.

Quetzcoatl, however, does not display all the characteristics... and thus isn't a dragon girl. Which she technically isn't - she's a feathered serpent.

We need to weed those posts with her and dragon_girl out, if this definition is accepted.

How 'draconic' should dragon characteristics like dragon_tail, dragon_horns, or dragon_wings look like for it to count for a dragon_girl tag?

Using Kanna_Kamui as an example, what about her, from a visual standpoint, screams dragon? If I didn't read the manga, I wouldn't have been able to tell she's a dragon and could've thought her a sheep_girl appearance-wise.

Also, should we be considering all dragon types? There are Smaug-style western dragons, Shenron-style eastern dragons, Pokemon dragons, Komodo dragons, etc.

GiantCaveMushroom said:

How 'draconic' should dragon characteristics like dragon_tail, dragon_horns, or dragon_wings look like for it to count for a dragon_girl tag?

Using Kanna_Kamui as an example, what about her, from a visual standpoint, screams dragon? If I didn't read the manga, I wouldn't have been able to tell she's a dragon and could've thought her a sheep_girl appearance-wise.

Also, should we be considering all dragon types? There are Smaug-style western dragons, Shenron-style eastern dragons, Pokemon dragons, Komodo dragons, etc.

I still stand by my opinion of having two actually draconic characteristics. Kanna's tail does not fall into a draconian appearance, so I'd say she would need to have at least her horns and wings present to even begin to be considered a dragon girl, but then her features aren't particularly traditional (fluffy wings) so there's trouble with the tag-what-you-see right there.

evazion said:

I don't think dragon horns is a good tag to begin with. There's no identifiable characteristic that defines a pair of horns as specifically being dragon horns. The only real definition of dragon horns is "the horns of a dragon girl". But it's circular logic to say "this character is a dragon girl because she has dragon horns" and "this character's horns are dragon horns because she's a dragon girl". So tagging these things as dragon horns is tagging what you know, not what you see.

I agree with this 100%. Like demon horns, it's impossible to establish a concrete example of what dragon horns look like because they don't exist. I'd go as far as to say that the situation with dragon horns is even worse because different cultures depict dragons with horns or antlers or something else entirely (frills seem to be common among Western dragons).

Our definition of dragon tail ("the tail of a dragon girl") is similarly useless, but at least artists tend to be a bit more consistent in this respect, with dragon tails generally being serpentine whether they're of Eastern or Western origin.

Jarlath said:

Most of the dragon_horns I see here are for the oriental dragon, which usually is depicted wingless but with a long snake like body and tail. A girl with the same horn and tail combo would definitely be taggable as a dragon girl, but only having horns, wings, or tail alone is insufficient.

From what I've seen, we use a similar standard for catgirl and bunny girl tagging, so that seems in line with the others, IMO.

Cat girls and bunny girls are a poor comparison. These are based on real animals and we have a pretty good idea what their ears and tails are supposed to look like.

Given this definition, Tooru definitely fits the dragon_girl tag. Ditto Kanna Kamui.

It's funny you mention Kanna Kamui, since that character is the very reason I wanted to have this discussion in the first place. Cow-like horns and a pom-pom tail are terrible indicators of a dragon girl. Nobody unfamiliar with this character would ever know she is supposed to be a dragon girl, because she looks nothing like one.

iridescent_slime said:

It's funny you mention Kanna Kamui, since that character is the very reason I wanted to have this discussion in the first place. Cow-like horns and a pom-pom tail are terrible indicators of a dragon girl. Nobody unfamiliar with this character would ever know she is supposed to be a dragon girl, because she looks nothing like one.

It's a similar case with Doremy_Sweet whose tail is marked as tapir_tail even though real tapirs have a tiny stump for a tail. Tagging a animalistic feature based on what the girl is supposed to be is veering directly into "tagging what you know" territory and might end up being downright wrong.

I admit I've been tagging Kanna with dragon_* tags since everyone's doing that, but I've been seriously thinking against doing that.

create alias dragon_horns -> horns

Link to request

Only *_horns tag that isn't easily defined, nor based on a real animal.

EDIT: This bulk update request has been rejected because it was not approved within 60 days.

EDIT: The bulk update request #1164 (forum #130132) has been rejected by @DanbooruBot.

Kikimaru said:

create alias dragon_horns -> horns

Link to request

Only *_horns tag that isn't easily defined, nor based on a real animal.

The same is true of demon horns and oni horns. Just because there are varying types doesn't mean we should throw the whole thing out and make it more difficult to search for those interested in those particular types (especially for original or obscure characters that are specified as such). I'm strongly against this. -1

iridescent_slime said:

It's funny you mention Kanna Kamui, since that character is the very reason I wanted to have this discussion in the first place. Cow-like horns and a pom-pom tail are terrible indicators of a dragon girl. Nobody unfamiliar with this character would ever know she is supposed to be a dragon girl, because she looks nothing like one.

I don't think I've ever tagged Kanna as "dragon tail" myself (maybe when I'm copying tags, but otherwise not) for that reason. Probably should be a separate tag for a ball-tipped tail like that, if there are other examples.

^

Sometimes I tag a single oni horn as oni horns and horn. Interestingly enough, it's a bit frustrating to remember to tag horn or horns but I'd rather this way than having an oni horn tag or something unnatural-sounding.

This bulk update request has been rejected because it was not approved within 60 days.

The bulk update request #1164 (forum #130132) has been rejected by @DanbooruBot.