Disambiguating Rod (old title: Issue with how "headdress" is defined in the wiki.)

I was trying to tag the distinctive head covering worn by Maleficent and Queen Grimhilde when I ran into this.

So, take a look at headdress. Fits, right? Bunch of things worn on the head, used as a fallback tag for things that aren't hats or hair_ornaments or such. Fits with what most people would think of when they read the word "headdress".

Now take a look at the headdress wiki:

A strip-shaped ornament made of lace or ribbons used to adorn the head in Lolita fashion.
It often refers to an object in which an elliptical decoration is placed on the head and a ribbon extending from or at the nape of the neck to hold them in place. They are also called "Hedore" for short.

Oh crap. Don't think most of us were using it 'right' then. And I'm guilty of this multiple times, many times in the past. Though most people wouldn't expect that this is for that one specific Lolita-fashion accessory.

So, this name is bad. It's ambiguous. Practically nobody will use it right, unless they happened to check the wiki first. And most people wouldn't, because it sounds like an obvious name for, well, headdresses, in general.

So...

I suggest we keep headdress as it is, for headdresses in general, because most people seem to be using it this way, and it agrees with the general definition of the word.

For that specific Lolita-fashion accessory, it sounds like we already have it described an existing tag, under lolita hairband. Now, maybe there are some headband/hairbands that don't count as lolita hedore, or some hedore being too big too count as hairband, and maybe this distinction matters for some people... but personally? Easiest solution is to just nuke the current headdress wiki (which was only added fairly recently on 2020-09-21), to avoid people getting confused and mistakenly gardening the tag to exclude normal headdresses (or 'mistakenly' including headdress with the hedore definition in other wikis when they are describing a specific type of headdress, like how I almost did).

Second easiest is to merge the headdress wiki with the lolita hairband one (wiki only, not the tags). Frankly speaking, I don't care enough to do this.

Harder is to come up with a separate hedore tag or something and move the wiki there. This, I care even less, because I don't see any distinction. But if anyone wants to do this, if this distinction actually matters somehow, they can go with this.

Anyhow... if nobody objects, I will go ahead and wipe (make blank) the current headdress wiki. This seems to be the easiest. Does anybody have any opinions?

I agree with this. Lolita hairband matches the description of the headdress wiki you quoted perfectly.

Headdress is otherwise in a confusing state with regards to implications. The tag_group:headwear has maid_headdress bulleted below headdress, but no implication back up while lolita_hairband does implicate back to hairband.

Yeah the wiki doesn't make much sense compared to how the tag is used. @KalpacMuskoxen added it so maybe he can explain why.

Also, writing walls of texts as opening posts means most people will just ignore your topic, because nobody's going to bother reading all that. Just something like "The headdress wiki does not reflect the usage of the tag. Anyone mind if it's deleted?" would've sufficed.

nonamethanks said:

Yeah the wiki doesn't make much sense compared to how the tag is used. @KalpacMuskoxen added it so maybe he can explain why.

Also, writing walls of texts as opening posts means most people will just ignore your topic, because nobody's going to bother reading all that. Just something like "The headdress wiki does not reflect the usage of the tag. Anyone mind if it's deleted?" would've sufficed.

Not only as opening posts, I dare say.

nonamethanks said:

Yeah the wiki doesn't make much sense compared to how the tag is used. @KalpacMuskoxen added it so maybe he can explain why.

Also, writing walls of texts as opening posts means most people will just ignore your topic, because nobody's going to bother reading all that. Just something like "The headdress wiki does not reflect the usage of the tag. Anyone mind if it's deleted?" would've sufficed.

Provence said:

Not only as opening posts, I dare say.

I'll try to summarize things better and perhaps dump all the less important stuff into "expand" blocks in the future..

--

Alright, wiping the headdress wiki for now. It also has native_american_headdress implicated to it, which wouldn't make sense given its current definition, so the longer the wiki stays up, the more potential 'harm' it can cause (however minor it may be), so deleted it goes.

If KalpacMuskoxen wants to salvage the wiki article (not the tag), then they can look through the history and copy paste the parts they need into the lolita hairband wiki.

Edit: Wrote a new headdress wiki and another one for native_american_headdress.

Edit2: Wait, should maid headdress imply headdress?

nonamethanks said:

Yeah the wiki doesn't make much sense compared to how the tag is used. @KalpacMuskoxen added it so maybe he can explain why.

Also, writing walls of texts as opening posts means most people will just ignore your topic, because nobody's going to bother reading all that. Just something like "The headdress wiki does not reflect the usage of the tag. Anyone mind if it's deleted?" would've sufficed.

Oh hey! I remember making the wiki! As for why I defined it as such... uhhh...
...I have no clue whatsoever! I'm going to attempt to reverse-engineer my thinking process to rationalize 2020 me's reasoning!

I remember that despite being such a huge tag, it had no wiki entry. Making one involved a lot of time searching for definitions of "headdress" online and finding anything that was remotely similar to the way that the tag was being used for on Danbooru though. The problem with the "headdress" tag is that, if we're defining "headdress" explicitly by its English definition, it is utterly meaningless. Here's why:

"A covering or decoration for the head" -Dictionary.com
"A covering or ornament for the head." -The Free Dictionary
"A decorative covering for the head." -Cambridge
"A decorative covering or ornament worn on the head." -Wiktionary
"A headdress is something that is worn on a person's head for decoration." -Collins
"An often elaborate covering for the head" -Merriam-Webster
"Any element of clothing which is worn on one's head." -Wikipedia
"Clothing for the head" -Vocabulary.com

It even gets worse, when you consider that it could also mean:

"A style or manner of arranging the hair." - Dictionary.com
"A hairdo." -Wiktionary
"A hairdo; a coiffure." - The Free Dictionary

That's incredibly vague! Any piece of non-functional headwear (ex: not a firefighter's helm, mining helmet, sportsball helmet, etc) is technically a form of "headdress"! Yet, we had a "headdress" tag on Danbooru - and there seemed to be a general consensus on how to use it, as we've got over 10k images tagged with it. But where it come from?!

That's when I discovered the wasei-eigo definition of the word (from headdress -> heddodoresu), which was arguably what Danbooru was using as the basis for the tag to begin with. Here's the Pixiv definition, with visual examples..

As per DeepL-san:

A general term for ornaments that decorate the head. There are a variety of designs.
A flashy headgear that represents status, class, or occupation.
Ornamental headgear in general. Mini silk hats, hoods, and large ribbons tied over the head like a catsuit.
A decorative headpiece for a wedding dress, some of which use fresh flowers.
A band-shaped ornament made of lace or ribbon used on the head in Lolita fashion.
In many cases, it is an oval-shaped ornament that is placed on the head and the ribbons extending from both ends are tied under the neck or at the neckline to secure it. It can also refer to the frilly hair bands used in maid uniforms. These are also called "Hedoré" for short.

I think that was my general rationale for that definition, as the "headdress" tag was being predominantly used on images depicting "Hedoré".

Well, lesson for the future, you shouldn't write wikis if they don't reflect how a tag is being used. It's better to have no wiki than a wrong wiki.

The question is, how many other wikis did you write like this?

nonamethanks said:

Well, lesson for the future, you shouldn't write wikis if they don't reflect how a tag is being used. It's better to have no wiki than a wrong wiki.

The question is, how many other wikis did you write like this?

The only reason I wrote that wiki was because it did reflect how the tag was being used. A cursory sweep through the tag and "a strip-shaped ornament made of lace or ribbons used to adorn the head in Lolita fashion" is what people were (and still are) predominantly using the tag for. That, and images of Junko from Touhou posted by people that don't know the word "fengguan". Although I do now realize that headdress can also refer to other ceremonial/ornamental bits of headwear aside from what the tag is usually being used for.

I do apologize for making a wiki entry for a tag as huge and ambiguous as "headdress" without consulting the jury first, though. I should definitely have done so, given how widely used it is. As for the wikis, "headdress" is easily the largest and most ambiguous tag that I've attempted to define. The only comparable ones I can find (new wiki entries for pre-existing tags with loads of posts) are: doorknob, disappointed, beef, bobblehat, and spill. Although I have made plenty of new wikis for smaller things, such as sardine, leech, coyote, suriname toad, etc.

nonamethanks said:

Well, lesson for the future, you shouldn't write wikis if they don't reflect how a tag is being used. It's better to have no wiki than a wrong wiki.

The question is, how many other wikis did you write like this?

Well, spotted another problematic wiki now. Rod.

Seems to be used mostly for magical staves, especially the ones wielded by magical girls. Likely because of "ロッド" being used that way in Pixiv, so all the posts tagged ロッド also get auto-suggested rod here.

Though some examples like post #4382995 that are too small to be called staves (and will also be called "rods" in Western fantasy media that distinguish between staves and "rods" [shorter metallic magical stick with length/girth between wand and staff]).

Pixiv's definition of ロッド is a complete mess though. It just says "Stick-like object. Also used as a name for some characters." The posts tagged ロッド are mostly magical staves (full length), but they are also dowsing rods and construction rods slipped in.

Some time ago I've created another related tag, mage staff, to tag, well, "magical fantasy staves". IIRC I checked rod back then and just thought it was different based on first page results and the wiki article, so I didn't think it was problematic back then.

Anyhow, "rod" is a problematic name, as it is ambiguous. And not very likely useful either even if we take out all the "magical staves", because it just going to be a mish-mash of (metallic) stick-like objects that should have their own specific tags (e.g. dowsing rod) and not an umbrella, ambiguous-sounding "rod" tag.

Therefore, I'd suggest:

• Moving all rod posts into mage staff.
• Leave gardening out the dowsing rods and other examples for later.
• Nuke the rod tag and wiki leave it as ambiguous. With a wiki article explaining the ambiguity and to use mage staff, dowsing rod and maybe stick or a new construction_rod tag as appropriate.

See, this is what I meant by my previous messages. This one too was written by Kalpac, even though it's only been used for magical staffs so far, and there's zero relation between the wiki and the usage.

It should be moved into mage staff or wand where appropriate.

Also fine-tuned the wikis for sardine, leech, coyote, suriname toad and beef, to avoid potentially misleading terms (though I doubt anybody will mistag anything, even if they read the wiki or not). Beef is particular was potentially quite problematic because "The meat of an adult domestic animal, such as a bull or a cow for food" means technically chicken_(food) and pork and mutton can be tagged beef too under that wiki definition (especially because of how animal was potholed). So I swapped out "animal" for "cattle".

So... slowly gardening my way through rod, plopping down mage staff, wand, scepter and crosier when appropriate. And just plain stick and staff for the ones that don't.

Most of the examples are one of the above. That is, magic sticky thingies. Or holy sticky thingies. Oftentimes with no rhyme or reason with regard to actual length or material type.

The are other misc. examples like construction rods (yeah, gonna need a better name for those), dowsing rods, relay batons, Wukong's Ruyi Jingu Bang, other Chinese/Japanese weapon staves, polearms, Shiki's rod of remorse, generic ritual batons, fishing rods and... microphones (seriously?). Punting off the batons (Shiki's included) and staves and polearms and fishing rods for now. And mikes. And any of the fatter staves and scepters that aren't "slim rods".

If anyone wants a term, for, well, the D&D/FF/Phantasy Star-style rods, that is, slim, straight metallic staves/scepters (or slim straight metallic magic stick thingies intermediate in length between staves and wands), they can salvage those into the appropriate tag if they can think of a less ambiguous name (and a usable wiki definition). But for now I'm adding mage_staff or scepter or wand to them as appropriate (though still retaining the rod tags).

There's also another odd misc. example, where people tag rod when they can see the middle pole section of a polearm or staff, but can't discern enough details to tag either. Leaving them in for now, but think those should be nuked later.

Aaaaand run into some hiccups that are slowing me down. There's the annoying holding_rod tag, though thankfully it doesn't have an implication yet. There's also some weird cases like post #3256793 (hybrid dagger-wand?) and post #3369860 (mage staff/greatsword?) that I don't know what to do with. And then there's some annoyances like staff, wand, scepter and rod all tagged for a single post (by a single user too, the uploader), so I had to stare in the background for some time to make sure I didn't miss anything before removing the irrelevant tags.

I almost missed this topic since its in the headdress topic.

Im currently cleaning out baton and I was going to start with rod after that. Can we make a tag for "magical girl baton" or something? They are usually distinct enough from wand and staff (shorter than staff, thicket than wand, has a heart or star or something on one end).

ion288 said:

I almost missed this topic since its in the headdress topic.

Im currently cleaning out baton and I was going to start with rod after that. Can we make a tag for "magical girl baton" or something? They are usually distinct enough from wand and staff (shorter than staff, thicket than wand, has a heart or star or something on one end).

Sure. I was considering that, but didn't want to maintain or write a wiki for yet another tag.

Though, on that subject, how should we tag something like the Sailor Pluto's Garnet Rod? This might run into funny issues when it looks like a "magical girl baton" if only the the top end is visible, but a mage staff when the whole thing is in view. Tag it with both when one can see both the head and main staff body?

This all seems overly complex to me. I'm not aware of wands having any particular width restriction, and it seems like many other taggers aren't either. Plus, under the baton wiki:

"--wand, colorful short batons used by magical girls or magicians."

As for the garnet rod, staff. Just tag it a staff.

NNescio said:

Sure. I was considering that, but didn't want to maintain or write a wiki for yet another tag.

Though, on that subject, how should we tag something like the Sailor Pluto's Garnet Rod? This might run into funny issues when it looks like a "magical girl baton" if only the the top end is visible, but a mage staff when the whole thing is in view. Tag it with both when one can see both the head and main staff body?

We can never make a misstag safe tag. I would say its a mage staff.

Cattywampus said:

This all seems overly complex to me. I'm not aware of wands having any particular width restriction, and it seems like many other taggers aren't either. Plus, under the baton wiki:

"--wand, colorful short batons used by magical girls or magicians."

As for the garnet rod, staff. Just tag it a staff.

Traditional fairy magical wands slim and unadorned, glowing in one end. A magical girl wand is quite thick with a thing on one end (heart, star, crescent, pair of wings, oversized gem etc.). I think it could be useful to be able to filter between the two types. If Im looking for traditional wands post #4407873 isnt what Im looking for.

And yes, I realise there will be borderline cases and canon tagging. We cant make the Danbooru tagging system perfekt but we can keep making it more useful.

Could someone change the titel of this thread to be both about headdress and rod?