Changing plural to singular (was: Issue with the 'guns' alias)

I noticed this when tagging post #391325. I remember the guns -> gun alias being reversed recently, and sure enough gun redirects to guns when searched for. But both tags are now appearing in the tag list when you search for either of them. And when I tagged post #391325, even though I only added guns, the gun tag was added automatically and appears in the tag list even though it's supposed to be aliased to guns.

What's going on here? Did the aliasing system get changed/bugged? Did I fuck something up?

There's a few implications that are adding the "gun" tag despite the alias.

gatling_gun, pistol, rifle, submachine_gun

Ah, that explains it. Someone's going to need to fix that.

That's kinda neat, really.

I'm not sure if gatling_gun and pistol and rifle should be pluralized, which makes me question if gun should be pluralized.

I think the consensus from forum #13651 was that it shouldn't be, but bowing to the earlier consensus (from the RasberryHeaven forums way back in the day I believe) and the fact that it would be a heck of a lot of work to reverse all the singular -> plural aliases, we made it so for simplicity and consistency's sake.

Interestingly, in an attempt to find the old consensus in the forum, there is another thread from a year ago (forum #2296) where we seemed to have decided on the singular as well.

P.S. jxh2154, please don't throttle me for having mentioned this issue again, but it seems to have reappeared

Pistols I can see being pluralized; a pistol can go in each hand and there are holsters made for two pistols. Outside of mecha posts and illustrations of warfare, I don't see multiple instances of Gatling Guns and rifles in one post being very common.

albert said: I'm not sure if gatling_gun and pistol and rifle should be pluralized, which makes me question if gun should be pluralized.

I don't see why not, if we want to be consistent. The plural argument is rather "Give me images with gatling guns" than "give me an image with two or more gatling guns in it". So anything can be pluralized.

That said, I've noted repeatedly that I am equally in support of singular or plural, so long as it's applied site-wide. Neither one seems any better or worse to me. I like some tags better plural, I like others better singular, but personal preference isn't the way to go, consistency is.

If we're going to switch (again) back to singular (for items that are not inherently/grammatically plural like pants), my only conditions would be:

1) Do it, and stick to it! Never ever change again. Ever.
2) Do it in an organized way. Recruit 5-10 people or so (I'll gladly be one), to go through the aliases list methodically. Assign each person an equal number of pages to inspect. Have them compile a list of aliases that need to change, aliases that conflict, etc. Put it all together, and make the changes in bulk. Automated if possible, but manually if necessary.
3) Have a dedicated sticky for suggesting plural > singular aliases. They should require a minimum of debate and expectation should be that they just get approved pretty much on the spot (i.e. when Albert or I see them).

jxh2154's plan sounds good. We've never done something like that, even when we tried to standardize on the plural: that's why we still have tags like cellphone, chair, computer, keyboard, pen, phone, tablet, smile, penis, dress, piercing, clitoris_ring, large_areola, nipple_piercing, pole, pussy, stripper, ass, ponytail, garter_belt, thong, vampire, handjob, school_uniform, tail, back, bikini, flag, swimsuit, dessert, food, table, and this is just from the first page of the comments. (And if we were really strict, we should probably also include things like handjob, rape, or panty_pull.)

In fact, the more I look at it, the more I get the impression that standardizing on the singular would be easier than *truly* standardizing on the plural.

LaC said: (And if we were really strict, we should probably also include things like handjob, rape, or panty_pull.)

Well, the discussion should be limited to physical objects, I think. Singular vs plural doesn't really make a lot of sense for actions like 'handjob' or 'sex', even if grammatically they're nouns.

But yes, it does make things feel a bit more consistent to have everything singular, minus the grammatically necessary exceptions like pants, or things like eyes, etc. I'm thinking (well, hoping) that the exceptions will be well within the realm of common sense and we'll be able to approve or reject them quickly when suggested.

If this idea does take off, I think it should get its own thread so it doesn't get lost in here.

I had to use all my willpower not to post in this thread before with an obnoxious "see! singular is better!", but now that more people are pushing for the change to singular, I of course have to voice my support for this move.

I'd be very willing to go through the aliases and switch them around, though I think that's an admin-only thing (perhaps I could be made admin temporarily for that express purpose, or given the rights to do that but nothing else admin-wise).

Tags like panties and eyes are of course good exceptions. I'm not even that interested in being 100% standardized, but I do like to have it "default" to singular.

If we do decide to do this, I can volunteer to be one of the "recruits" (don't know what sort of permissions this would require). There's already a short list I compiled back in the day linked to in one of the threads I mentioned before.

Wouldn't be a matter of permissions, I'm pretty sure everyone can *see* the alias list, just not make the changes.

I'd be happy to help.

Question: If A and B are aliased to C, but you change C to be aliased to B (reverse the alias), does A then alias to B, since it is aliased to C which aliases to B?

I think if you have an alias chain A -> B -> C, tag B will always remain because whenever tag A is used and then saved it'll be converted to tag B. Tag B won't be switched to tag C unless someone later edits the image with tag B, in which case tag B present will then be converted to tag C when the person saves the changes. That at least occurred with the gray_hair to grey_hair and grey_hair to silver_hair alias.

Going with that, I think if the alias was A -> C <- B, if you flipped the C <- B alias what you'd get would be A -> C -> B, so A when saved will still be converted to tag C.

Long story short: You, as far as I'm aware, can't daisy chain alias.

Not to unnecessarily add to Albert's laundry list of things to update. But transitivity (daisy-chaining) and multiple aliases to the same tag are sorts of things that could be detected automatically and repaired when an alias is created or modified.

I agree with jxh2154 wholeheartedly, plan-wise and opinion-wise.

I personally prefer singular but my main issue is consistency. And if we put his plan into action, I volunteer to help find aliases and tags to be fixed. For once, obnoxious OCD is on my side.

Well, roastbeefy was feeling proactive and seems to have looked through it all already (thanks for that). There are about 55 on the initial list, a number of which have multiple dependents that need to be dealt with. I'll get started on these tomorrow if I can, and when I'm done I'll ask people to make second and third passes to catch any he missed, or any I did wrong, etc. Then we can start with a thread for suggestions. Naturally the implication list needs a look-through too.

I can't get started on any of this tonight though.

jxh2154 said:
Well, roastbeefy was feeling proactive and seems to have looked through it all already (thanks for that). There are about 55 on the initial list, a number of which have multiple dependents that need to be dealt with.

Wait, all of what? Where is this list?

All of the current aliases and related implications. I'll send you the list I sent jxh.