replace 'loli' tag with 'heikon' and 'arikon' ?

creating new thread as suggested by NoNameThanks: https://danbooru.donmai.us/forum_topics/8650?page=150#forum_post_234019

I believe the loli tag potentially creates too much confusion because of the contrast between how it is defined here (pre-adolescent girls 3-12) and how it is used in Japan (far more inclusive, all shoujo essentially, including adolescent teen girls)

This ultimately leads to shoujo-content being tagged as loli in contrast with the tag's definition instead of it only being used for youjo-content as intended. This ultimately leads to over-representation of how much pre-pubescent content there is, and to the unnecessary censorship of mid-pubescent erotica which falls outside the scope of the definition.

If the intent is to have a tag or tags representing pre-adolescent girls, rather than use "loli" in a way which contradicts decades of use in Japan, I'd propose we resurrect two shorthands found from the 1979 magazine Cybele Denshuubu (volume 2 page 54, top-right corner below catgirl)

★ ハイ . コン ( ヘイジ　コンプレックス ) 5~10
★ アリ . コン ( アリス　コンプレックス ) 7~12
★ ロリ . コン ( ロリータ　コンプレックス ) 10~15​

The first (heikon) would cover pre-adolescent girls while the 2nd (arikon) would cover girls in early adolescence.

The 3rd (rorikon) might be returned later for describing middle-adolescence girls as originally intended, but that may require some de-aliasing, something that could be done while splitting the loli tag into its base components.

I would also posit that we remove the 'sexual' component of the tag, because there is nothing sexual about Heidi of the Alps or Alice in Wonderland like there is with Lolita, those are just cute non-sexual stories. If there's a need to blacklist it could be done via some other tag.

I think this is a horrible idea, the tag is fine as it is.

god this is so fucking stupid

1. I've never heard either of those two terms in the current lexicon of artistic fandom terminology, and I think I'm not alone here. In my opinion, if you're trying to make it more clear what a tag implies, you need to appeal to the broadest spectrum of searches (and therefore exclusions) possible, not just turbo-lolicons who might know seriously old lingo like that. Which brings me to my second point...

2. We already have subtags for extreme underage like you're wanting to cut out.

3. I'm not sure I quite understand your last paragraph, but we already have tags for the fashion subgenre of lolita, and you can filter it out further by only looking for rating:general pictures.

Still, I think there is no necessity to split loli into separate, more-specific tags, nor replacing it. As viewers cannot determine a child's exact age visually on images at a glance. We already have *_child to describe non-sexual ones. Even in real life, sometimes a child may look younger than his/her actual age.

Pokeball99 said:
god this is so f***ing stupid

This does not seem like a stupid idea, but just redundant.

Cinnamon Toast said:
2. We already have subtags for extreme underage like you're wanting to cut out.

Mayhem-chan said:
People in here have already talked about how wanting to be overly "accurate" (accuracy is questionable here btw)

See topic #23250 for an instance. Even an experienced user wanted to alias a technically different tag into another on - all for the sake of searchability. Despite this can cause huge misconception to the less-informed users.

extremely unnecessary and irrelevant, none of what you suggest has any chance to work with how danbooru works
People in here have already talked about how wanting to be overly "accurate" (accuracy is questionable here btw) to the real world even when it cannot realistically be tagged both correctly and in a helpful manner at the same time, is just straight counterproductive.

Almost no danbooru user know those words, so both for those who want to search it, and those who want to blacklist/exclude it, it would be a big middle finger, on top of requiring a daunting overhaul in the site for no reason

tyciol said:

I believe the loli tag potentially creates too much confusion because of the contrast between how it is defined here (pre-adolescent girls 3-12) and how it is used in Japan (far more inclusive, all shoujo essentially, including adolescent teen girls)

I literally just watched a video this morning about Houshou Marine and Shiranui Flare debating who in Hololive is a loli, and their usage was considerably different from the one you keep suggesting is used in Japan. Even actual native Japanese people don't agree with your assertions.

Which, either means you're wrong (or making shit up), or, more likely, there is no universal meaning of the term, and arguing that we're using it incorrectly, when even people who invented the term don't always agree on what it means, is a complete waste of time. Maybe Japanese people are looking at us, and grimacing at how stupid we are, but it doesn't matter, because they aren't the ones using the site, and trying to make these kinds of changes to the tag would just confuse westerners for no benefit.

I still think you're a) putting too much emphasis on the wiki giving a focus on "pre-adolescent" when it is clearly for the obviously underaged; b) putting too much emphasis on what authors of shows believe lolicon means, ala Rumiko Takahashi; when the thing you should be putting focus on is what the fandom goes with (especially in relation to the wider public). And the fandom aligns itself with the usage of loli reflecting underaged characters who clearly don't look like adults at first glance, both in Japan and outside of it, and that is essentially how the tag is used on Danbooru.

Just look at Blue Archive and the posts tagged there with loli, and then check what age its characters are, and you'll find they're all above 12 for the most part. Think of all the 400+ year old characters that exist that still look obviously underaged, whether acting like actual grandmas or acting like overgrown children. And regardless of all this, payment processors don't make a distinction between any of these, so anything that looks like a sexualized child, whatever their 'canon age' may be, goes under loli.

Again, for the majority of all this, you could've just argued that you wanted the wiki to say "Sexually explicit or sexually suggestive artwork of girls who appear to be underaged (roughly between the age of 3 to 17), regardless of canonical age" instead, because even teens can look like elementary school kids. And that's another reason - taggers often tag based on extremes, because without context (tag-what-you-see), whether or not someone's an adult or a teen can vary wildly from one artist to another, due to the stylization taken. It's why we don't tag teens (see topic #21947). And regardless of all that, most folks don't read wikis anyway, so they tag either based on example ("lemme check the tag to see if this seems right, or if not, i'll ask in the thread") or based on vibe ("yeah no this looks like a child getting fucked, it's getting the tag").

And you're not going to be able to remove the sexual aspect of it, there's a reason why, even with the subcultural aspects associated with Japanese lolicon, they still crack jokes about lolicons being child predators, because the common understanding of the word in Japan is still as a synonym for a pedophile. You've had several politicians in Japan come out against lolicon works already, calling it CP, which has prompted reaction from others making works specifically highlighting the difference between subcultural lolicon and real lolicon, such as author Yamikawa Kou in his work U12, highlighting the emphasis on 'cute fictional characters' that I had previously mentioned, by having a lolicon helping underaged girls against actual pedophiles. But for many, the reason why they head for loli, is because they're going out to seek drawn, fictional cunny.

It's too late to change things. Loli (a term that since the beginning has had a vague definition) has become an umbrella term for all kinds of females with the appearance of somebody under the age of 14-15, regardless of their actual age or how different they look from real little girls. To introduce these additional tags you would have to create a definition of loli that is universally accepted, and from there divide it into your desired subcategories. Kyoko Azuma's proposal (the one you mention) is a good one, but it's just that, a proposal, and neither he (may he rest in peace) or anyone else has enough influence to rewrite the concept of "loli" on the minds of all lolicons. They could work as additional tags under the umbrella "loli" tag to get more specific results, but replacing "loli" with either of these terms would bring hell to the site and its taggers.

Another problem with your proposal is that it lacks male equivalents that can expand the concept of "shota". As far as I know, there are no other terms like these besides "toddlercon", which is of recent creation and western origin.

Cinnamon_Toast said:
I've never heard either of those two terms in the current lexicon of artistic fandom terminology, and I think I'm not alone here.

It's because they are really old and never were used. You can read this E-Hentai thread for more details, but in short, they are additional terms created to expand the concept of lolicon that failed to be popular.

Support for the tag to be renamed while logged out to make the site more monetizable since the terms are unfamiliar

But while logged in or at a non-Member user level it should revert to current behaviour as nobody is going to recognize or learn these two new confusing terms + the 3rd will be mistagged a lot, if kept.

That aside, IMO the rationale in the original post is really poor, and it would be too difficult to distinguish these age ranges due to wildly varying art styles

If the intent is to have a tag or tags representing pre-adolescent girls, rather than use "loli" in a way which contradicts decades of use in Japan, I'd propose we resurrect two shorthands found from the 1979 magazine Cybele Denshuubu (volume 2 page 54, top-right corner below catgirl)

★ ハイ . コン ( ヘイジ　コンプレックス ) 5~10
★ アリ . コン ( アリス　コンプレックス ) 7~12
★ ロリ . コン ( ロリータ　コンプレックス ) 10~15​

The first (heikon) would cover pre-adolescent girls while the 2nd (arikon) would cover girls in early adolescence.

The 3rd (rorikon) might be returned later for describing middle-adolescence girls as originally intended, but that may require some de-aliasing, something that could be done while splitting the loli tag into its base components.

I would also posit that we remove the 'sexual' component of the tag, because there is nothing sexual about Heidi of the Alps or Alice in Wonderland like there is with Lolita, those are just cute non-sexual stories. If there's a need to blacklist it could be done via some other tag.

One of the issues here is that people are too unfamiliar with these terms. Besides one magazines from 40+ years ago use of these terms. How often are these terms used in Japanese culture today?

and then the second issue I would have is that loli isn't always tagged correctly. That's why we have a loli/shota check thread for just that such purpose. Essentially what you want is to make that job now harder because now we'll have to worry about is the character pre, early or middle adolescence ... and that would take canon knowledge of a series/movie or an artists OC.

This is easy to do with real people because height and appearance is a good indicator of ones age but a fictional character can look younger or older then they actually are given the artist whismy.

For example

post #382343

This character looks young but is actually cannonically 17? Do we tag him .... heikon or rorikon?

what about Rebecca who's often drawn as a loli?

post #5757366

and then not?

post #6096378

I imagine we'll have to use both terms and that can add to confusion which will of course... leading to it either being mistagged or undertagged.

and more importantly to the average user ... will this lead to more stuff being potentially paywalled?

I see zero issues with how the tag currently works and has been working for many years. Loli for sexual content, child for non-sexual content; it can't be simpler than that. What would be a bigger issue would be users tagging these two incorretly, like using child for rating:sensitive posts (child is designed for 100% innocent pictures, like a picture you would show to your family).