The bulk update request #2323 (forum #163668) has been approved by @evazion.
Posted under Tags
The bulk update request #2323 (forum #163668) has been approved by @evazion.
Alright. My main qualm is that I don't think anyone is actually going to use this tag. It's going to be yet another request tag that's slapped on posts but never gets cleaned up. I'm not very happy with how we're trending towards every post having 5 or 10 rote meta tags wasting space at bottom of the tag list.
evazion said:
Alright. My main qualm is that I don't think anyone is actually going to use this tag. It's going to be yet another request tag that's slapped on posts but never gets cleaned up. I'm not very happy with how we're trending towards every post having 5 or 10 rote meta tags wasting space at bottom of the tag list.
I wouldn't say request tags are wasting space. Those are genuine requests for more information for which the tagger is not an expert of. For instance, I'm not an expert on weaponry or military vehicles so I frequently use weapon request and vehicle request, whose requests are usually quickly filled. What would even be the alternative? Writing a comment that isn't searchable nor is ever read by anyone?
For the genderswap tag in particular, well I was the one that added the MTF and FTM qualifiers en masse years ago. Those that I didn't tag were because I knew absolutely nothing about the series, and I wasn't going to spend 30-60 minutes for each image trying to figure out which character was even being genderswapped and which direction the genderswap was going.
What could maybe be done is to mass DMail the adders of the tag for those posts and ask THEM to clarify which type of genderswap it's supposed to be.
Also this might require starting up a new topic, but if we're talking about redundant meta tags, why not discuss the unnecessary image resolution tags like highres, absurdres, etc. Those might have been needed at some time in the past (maybe...?), but nowadays we have search metatags like width: or height: which can be used instead.
People have been adding genderswap tags to Mai Natsume again, so I added a line to her and Cagliostro's wikis stating not to do so and linking to this topic for reference, after undoing the additions.
blindVigil said:
People have been adding genderswap tags to Mai Natsume again, so I added a line to her and Cagliostro's wikis stating not to do so and linking to this topic for reference, after undoing the additions.
I see, well the topic should be discussed again. To begin with the decision to remove the tag from such genderswaps is self-defeating and make no sense so I am glad that you resurrected the thread.
Tags are meant to make it easier to find images and be based on what we can see. Since we can see the character is genderswapped, it really should be tagged as such. It also clashes with the dual_persona tag in cases such as Mai Natsume. Also, say somebody upload one of the few images of the male Natsume... when this is tagged as 1boy it becomes confusing.
As an example say you want to find an image such as this. If you just do a search for:
mai_natsume 1boy
Then you will get images where other boys are as well... and while it could be possible to do a:
mai_natsume 1boy -1girl -multiple_girls
This would exclude any possible future images where the male Natsume was in the same image as one or more girls.
the genderswap tag would solve this issue.
Setsunator said:
I see, well the topic should be discussed again. To begin with the decision to remove the tag from such genderswaps is self-defeating and make no sense so I am glad that you resurrected the thread.
Tags are meant to make it easier to find images and be based on what we can see. Since we can see the character is genderswapped, it really should be tagged as such. It also clashes with the dual_persona tag in cases such as Mai Natsume. Also, say somebody upload one of the few images of the male Natsume... when this is tagged as 1boy it becomes confusing.
As an example say you want to find an image such as this. If you just do a search for:
mai_natsume 1boy
Then you will get images where other boys are as well... and while it could be possible to do a:
mai_natsume 1boy -1girl -multiple_girls
This would exclude any possible future images where the male Natsume was in the same image as one or more girls.
the genderswap tag would solve this issue.
Except we can't see that she's genderswapped. Absolutely nothing in her design or behavior indicates as such.
Also, the solution to finding images of male Mai Natsume would be to tag male Mai Natsume as Mai Hazuki. Because that's what his name was before he became a woman. Mai Natsume is simply his alias as a woman.
blindVigil said:
Except we can't see that she's genderswapped. Absolutely nothing in her design or behavior indicates as such.
Also, the solution to finding images of male Mai Natsume would be to tag male Mai Natsume as Mai Hazuki. Because that's what his name was before he became a woman. Mai Natsume is simply his alias as a woman.
This. The only way you could know this character is a genderswap is if you know their backstory. This violates tag what you see, not what you know.
The genderswap tag is an artistic license tag (Tag group:Artistic license). It's similar to other tags like alternate breast size or alternate hair length or older/younger, in that it's for when an artist draws a character in some way different than their standard canon appearance. This character's standard appearance is as a girl, therefore it's not a genderswap to draw them as a girl.
blindVigil said:
Except we can't see that she's genderswapped. Absolutely nothing in her design or behavior indicates as such.
Her entire first manga series focuses on her dealing with her transformation into a woman and adjusting to living as a girl though and it does have flashbacks to before her transformation. If the genderswap tag is supposed to apply solely to Rule 63 fanart that's fine, but Mai isn't like Cagliostro where the fact she used to be male barely gets mentioned.
In that case a more direct parallel to Natsume might be Osaragi Hazumu, who is never tagged genderswap_(mtf).
Eryops said:
Her entire first manga series focuses on her dealing with her transformation into a woman and adjusting to living as a girl though and it does have flashbacks to before her transformation. If the genderswap tag is supposed to apply solely to Rule 63 fanart that's fine, but Mai isn't like Cagliostro where the fact she used to be male barely gets mentioned.
I tried looking into that myself, short of rereading the entire manga, and I couldn't find any evidence that Mai's previous male appearance was ever properly depicted. Best I could find were vague mentions of formerly being a male and featureless boy shaped silhouettes.
If there is actually a fully detailed depiction of her male appearance, that would be a different matter. But there's no evidence of such a thing existing on Danbooru, I couldn't find any evidence of it elsewhere, no fanart of it anywhere, and I received no response when I asked the last person to bring this up for evidence.
As it stands, Mai Natsume being a genderswap is little more than a character trait that she eventually discards in its entirety. To anyone who hasn't read the manga, there's nothing in her appearance or general behavior that would suggest she was ever a man, and fanart rarely, if ever, makes any mention of it. As far as Danbooru is concerned, it's just meta knowledge that isn't actually visible in any of her fanart.
Contrast this with Ranma-chan, who is almost always tagged genderswap (mtf) because you do see Saotome Ranma, and the entire Ranma 1/2 story is about a boy who is constantly having to deal with switching back and forth between both genders. Being male is his standard appearance, and he never stops acting like a guy, unlike Mai who is introduced as a girl and not once (that I could find) is ever properly depicted as a boy, and even at the very beginning of the series barely acts like a boy at all.
7HS said:
In that case a more direct parallel to Natsume might be Osaragi Hazumu, who is never tagged genderswap_(mtf).
Another example is Suzushiro Mizuki who gets permanently turned into a girl and has those tags. If there is a rule that only characters who can regularly switch forms in their series should have the genderswap tags then that seems arbitrary to me, but it should at least get mentioned in the wiki entries of the tags.
blindVigil said:
If there is actually a fully detailed depiction of her male appearance, that would be a different matter. But there's no evidence of such a thing existing on Danbooru, I couldn't find any evidence of it elsewhere, no fanart of it anywhere, and I received no response when I asked the last person to bring this up for evidence.
The manga does show what Mai used to look like, e.g. this or this and there is some fanart. The story starts after Mai has been turned into a girl and we only see what she previously looked like in flashbacks, but that doesn't change the fact that she got transformed and that her series focuses on how she deals with that.
As it stands, Mai Natsume being a genderswap is little more than a character trait that she eventually discards in its entirety. To anyone who hasn't read the manga, there's nothing in her appearance or general behavior that would suggest she was ever a man, and fanart rarely, if ever, makes any mention of it. As far as Danbooru is concerned, it's just meta knowledge that isn't actually visible in any of her fanart.
Contrast this with Ranma-chan, who is almost always tagged genderswap (mtf) because you do see Saotome Ranma, and the entire Ranma 1/2 story is about a boy who is constantly having to deal with switching back and forth between both genders. Being male is his standard appearance, and he never stops acting like a guy, unlike Mai who is introduced as a girl and not once (that I could find) is ever properly depicted as a boy, and even at the very beginning of the series barely acts like a boy at all.
Saying that someone who hasn't read the manga won't be able to guess that Mai had been genderswapped and then invoking the contents of Ranma's manga to prove that Ranma is a genderswapped character seems rather unfair. Someone with unfamiliar with Ranma-chan who saw an image such as this wouldn't be able to guess that she's a genderswap either. If anything the vast majority of Ranma-chan's fanart has no indication that she used to be a man.
As for Mai's behavior, it does change over the course of her series as she adjusts to life as a girl. E.g. at first she didn't know how to properly use women's clothes, but learns how to. She was initially embarrassed to be seen naked by other girls and vice versa but stopped minding after a while. At first she found it awkward to be hugged by her friends but towards the end she happily hugged them to show her affection. Early on she didn't openly cry but later on she wasn't embarrassed to cry in front of others. And she stopped showing interest towards girls and instead started being attracted to boys.
I just find the way the genderswap tag is applied somewhat arbitrary, since it involves subjective judgements about how obvious that trait is in fanart (most of the time it isn't at all) and to what extent it is featured in the character's source material. Personally I'd be in favor of a more inclusive use of the tag and have it apply to genderswapped characters such as Osaragi Hazumu or Mai Natsume.
