Case against artist_request

This tag has no purpose or ability to be used. If you search arttags:0 this will return posts needing an artist. Despite it being outlined in artist request that posts with links to profiles shouldn't have the tag, posts from Twitter, Pixiv, etc abound under it. Official art doesn't need to have the artist request tag either but frequently its tag is included on those posts and one can just search arttags:0 -official_art if they're actually gardening posts without artists.

The only reason to request an artist tag is in the case of a collaborative works where at least one of the artists is not known. This is a special case given that we must already know a post is a collaboration and very likely know at least one of the artists. Instead of a stab at the dark, there's a very reasonable expectation that someone in the community with more contextual or linguistic knowledge can determine the artists. We already have collaboration request which can stand alone so not this a reason to keep the artist request tag. The only space for improvement here I can identify is to separate collaboration requests dependent on being able to read a particular language from those that just require more familiarity with the artists and social circles involved in a post, which may include contacting the artists involved to see who else may have participated.

My suggestion is to remove artist_request entirely and instead have a permanent notice on the side of posts without an artist tag or official_art pointing out that one is missing. It should include links to the wiki that will assist people—in the case of posts sourced from Twitter, Pixiv etc. where an artist profile is available—in either creating or updating an artist entry.

For posts that carry the tag but are sourced from Twitter, Pixiv, etc, maybe it would be a good idea to use the check artist tag instead?

Using my own experience as an example, I've found and updated several artist entries that were either severely lacking in terms of what URLs it had or said URL were severely out of date. Whilst laziness is a contributing factor as to why properly sourced posts carry the artist request tag, I'd imagine there is a portion of folks who have used the tag but have refrained from tagging the artist because they weren't sure whether they had a tag already, and thus wanted to avoid making unnecessary tags/entries. Whilst such tags/entries could easily be amended on a later date, I do understand that mentality, especially when it comes to uploading older art or from less-commonly uploaded artists.

Otherwise, I do agree that, with arttags:0, arttags:0 -official_art (especially when paired with source request and non-web source in the case of Imageboards) and collaboration request, the existence of artist_request seems somewhat superfluous. I'd personally suggest turning the current artist_request wiki into a new help page that's included as a link in the permanent notice you suggest - that way, you can be incredibly comprehensive with links to the wiki that would assist people, whilst reducing the amount of clutter that notice would have on the post page.

EDIT: Though, you'd have to figure out what to do with the tagme_(artist) and /art aliases artist_request has as well.

Just because a tag is misused doesn't make it a bad tag. It just means that it needs to be gardened properly.

Also, many of the above searches are faulty for one reason or another, and don't in any way supplant the need for the artist request tag.

• arttags:0
• Misses cases where an artist was accidentally tagged. This has happened to myself when trying to add some other tag.
• As pointed out, it includes many false cases of official art.
• arttags:0 -official art
• Flawed for the same reason as above.
• Also, official art can be incorrectly tagged.

Additionally, there is a reason to add the artist request tag on official art, for instances where it's apparent that there is text identifying who the artist is, but the user doesn't understand the language it's written in. An example of this would be the text in the upper left corner of post #3359004.

As for a notice, many users would find it intrusive and find ways to disable it. Those that actually are interested in doing the work don't really require the notice, as they are doing the work anyways. So the notice would instead be superfluous.

Bottom-line, sure artist request needs to be gardened, but it's still a good tag IMO.

Gardening tasks

1. Go through the arttags:>0 artist_request posts and validate that the artist is indeed correct, and an artist entry has been created.
2. Go through the official_art artist_request posts and make sure that there is no potentially identifying text on who the artist is.
3. Go through the arttags:0 -artist_request posts and add it to any image that comes from a first-party site, such as Pixiv, Nicoseiga, Twitter, etc Help:Image Source.
4. Go through the arttags:0 artist_request posts from first-party sites and create the artist entry if needed and add the tag.

I've done a lot of #4 myself, having gone through the last year of Twitter posts and several of the previous years of Pixiv posts.

Well raised points! Perhaps we can detail the artist request wiki with what you've mentioned, especially with those gardening tasks. I do still think we could utilize check artist in a greater fashion though, perhaps not in the way I suggested, but nevertheless!

You and I have also discussed the topic of posts tagged with artist request that have first part sources before on the unofficial Discord, and while we discussed several possible names for a theoretical tag for such posts, in the end we didn't really come to a satisfactory answer if only because plenty of the sites we source posts from have accounts which repost other people's art without sourcing them.

We do still need to figure out how to encourage more people to create and/or update artist entries on the site, especially those artists that don't link their accounts together thoroughly (like a Twitter account linking to a Pixiv account, but not vice-versa, for example), as well as solve the issue of folks refraining from tagging artists due to the uncertainties I mentioned in my previous post.