Tags you should (not) use

kristallimeri said:
葉月 is the sketch fetishist here so he'll probably be thinking with his penis whenever he speaks on this subject.

Fixed. ;)

Seriously, though; sketch definitely should not be applied to all line art. We need a separate "line_art" tag for that, with a "lineart" alias.
"sketch" should be used for rough drawings; including, but not limited to, those used as a basis or study for a subsequent finished version.

Most sketches will probably be in pencil, but other media are possible too (pen, charcoal...). The defining factor is the roughness and/or the unfinished feeling.
A separate "pencil" tag could be added, covering all pencil drawings, even finished ones.

Clean, crisp lineart, especially if in ink, is not a sketch (unless it's obviously unfinished, eg it has construction lines or missing anatomy). Partial iterations of a picture are not necessarily sketches; for example, a crisply inked picture which is later colored is not a sketch; a partially colored but otherwise complete picture is not a sketch. Those could be tagged as "unfinished".

LaC said: "sketch" should be used for rough drawings; including, but not limited to, those used as a basis or study for a subsequent finished version.

That's precisely how I've always used it. I don't apply 'sketch' to a cleaned up image just because it's monochrome line art.

BTW, someone should go through "sketch -monochrome" with "monochrome" as the tag script, and apply it to any monochrome images in the results. I've done the first few pages to test the idea, so start around page 10. This is a good way of tagging a lot of monochrome images that are missing that tag.

kristallimeri said:
asymmetrical_docking - http://miezaru.donmai.us/post?tags=asymmetrical_docking
"Similar to symmetrical docking, only one pair of breasts is larger than the other."

Asymmetrical docking is based on a joke comment of Phane's, and should not be a real tag. All pics that have interlocking breasts should use Symmetrical docking. This type of thing is way too specialized to have multiple tags to delineate different types.

Also, there's only one post in the tag, which I am now removing.

LaC said:
BTW, someone should go through "sketch -monochrome" with "monochrome" as the tag script...

"comic -monochrome" is another good one to try.

P.S. I went through "sketch -monochrome" and it looks pretty good now.

LaC said:
serafuku => school_uniform
gakuran => school_uniform
school_uniform => uniform

What I've done:

Aliased /s to school_uniform
Aliased seifuku to school_uniform
Implicated serafuku to school_uniform
Implicated gakuran to school_uniform

I realize seifuku doesn't translate into school_uniform strictly speaking, but that's what most users here have come to expect. Maybe in a few months we can revisit the idea of properly aliasing it to uniform.

And while school_uniform -> uniform is technically correct, it's one of those cases where I feel it wouldn't add much. When I think of uniform, I think mostly of police officers, military, stewardesses, etc. I think having the tag be completely swamped with school uniforms would be of little use.

Ok "comic -monochrome" is finished. Blah, that's way too many posts to go through, but it should be correct for a while. At least until a bunch of untagged monochrome comics get posted again... All in all the 'monochrome' tag is ~2000 posts heavier now.

kristallimeri said:
葉月 is the sketch fetishist here so he'll probably know better.

LaC already said it all.

I would add that both sketch and oekaki are way too often omitted, so I'd add them to the "don't forget" list. Also, braid and twin_braids. kristallimeri, could you edit them into your first post, so that everything appears on the front page?

I'm in the process of updating the first post with tags suggested here and also reorganizing it a little. Might take an hour or so.

葉月 said:
Also, braid and twin_braids.

I'll add twin_braids. Is 'braid' the catch-all tag for all forms of braids (meaning, twin_braids and braids implies/should imply braid) or should it only to be used when the image features a single braid? The same question could be asked about the plural form 'braids'.

kristallimeri said:
Is 'braid' the catch-all tag for all forms of braids (meaning, twin_braids and braids implies/should imply braid) or should it only to be used when the image features a single braid? The same question could be asked about the plural form 'braids'.

It's a catch-all, I believe the implication is already in place. About the plural, I'm not sure what came of the discussion whether plurals or singulars are better, I think it was singulars in the end. So braids should be aliased to braid.

葉月 said:
It's a catch-all...

I realize this is true in practice, but wouldn't it be better for 'braids' to be the catch all, leaving 'braid' to be the singular variety. After all you can tag/search for 'pony_tail' and 'twintails' separately; why not 'braid' and 'twin_braids'?

Shinjidude said:
I realize this is true in practice, but wouldn't it be better for 'braids' to be the catch all, leaving 'braid' to be the singular variety. After all you can tag/search for 'pony_tail' and 'twintails' separately; why not 'braid' and 'twin_braids'?

I agree with the sentiments, but singular and plural tends to create confusion and propagates misuse. I'd prefer having braid and braids as the catch-all tags and then having an extra tag such as single_braid, one_braid or something retarded like monobraid for images such as post #150481.

Also, OP has some updates up. Working on more.

I am LaC and I approve of this "monobraid" monicker.

kristallimeri said:
...having an extra tag such as single_braid, one_braid or something retarded like monobraid...

I understand what you're saying. Unfortunately most users won't trouble themselves with the distinction between 'single_braid' and 'braid'.

As for the tag, my vote goes to 'single_braid' since it seems to best match 'twin_braids' as far as symmetry goes. (twin != double, but it's close)

Shinjidude said:
I realize this is true in practice, but wouldn't it be better for 'braids' to be the catch all, leaving 'braid' to be the singular variety. After all you can tag/search for 'pony_tail' and 'twintails' separately; why not 'braid' and 'twin_braids'?

The singular/plural distinction is sort of nebulous because it's not consistently enforced anywhere. The singular and plural versions should be considered equivalent.

I've been using the twin_braids tag because like you said, it mirrors twintails, and I think it's worth distinguishing from single braids. A single_braid tag, while not intuitive, would be easy enough to discover by browsing the braids tag (which is way more intuitive than twin_braids).

Braids should be sorted now into 'single_braid' and 'twin_braids', I also added a 'side_braid' for short little braids that don't form the bulk of the hairstyle and where the braid was bunched up as part of the hairstyle. Someone can rename or recategorized that into something better if you like. There are a couple images that are uncategorized simply because I didn't think 'quad_braid' was common enough to merit a tag.

As much as I think 'monobraid' awesome, why not just use 'braid -twin_braids' if you want only instances of singular braids to be found?

葉月 said:
As much as I think 'monobraid' awesome, why not just use 'braid -twin_braids' if you want only instances of singular braids to be found?

Because 'braid' and 'braids' are aliased and many (most?) people neglect to add 'twin_braids' even when there are two.

That's true, but by the same token, what are the chances they will suddenly start adding 'single_braid'?

葉月 said:
That's true, but by the same token, what are the chances they will suddenly start adding 'single_braid'?

I note that myself at the beginning of this page. I don't think it will work in practice, but at least it provides a way to fix it more easily after it becomes corrupted again.