Deprecate pokemon_(game)

BUR #20138 has been rejected.

When evazion expressed discontent with the current chain of Pokémon implications in forum #254518, I began to wonder what purpose the pokemon_(game) tag actually serves. After looking at the wiki and discussing it on Discord, it seemed to be to assist in searching for concepts that would be otherwise difficult to find. However, all of those concepts turned out to be just as easy if not easier to find without the use of pokemon_(game).

• "It lets you differentiate between characters' game and anime appearances."
• You can just search for misty_(pokemon) -pokemon_(anime) or misty_(pokemon) pokemon_(anime).

• "It lets you search for posts where both anime and game characters are present."
• You can just search for pokemon_(anime) in-franchise_crossover, or misty_(pokemon) dual_persona for when it's the same character. Looking at the current results, however, in-franchise_crossover needs some populating in regards to Pokémon.

• "It lets you tag posts that don't reference a specific game, such as via game mechanics or a non-specific game cartridge."
• You can just search pokemon game_mechanics, pokemon game_cartridge and so on. As for that scenario in and of itself, I really don't think anyone is specifically searching for posts where the reference is too generic to be pinned to any one game.

An argument against nuking this tag was made comparing the pokemon_(game) and pokemon_(anime) tags to male_pubic_hair and female_pubic_hair, in that we can't have one without the other as it would make the untagged case unsearchable. However, these two scenarios are hardly comparable. Trying to find or exclude female_pubic_hair before the tag was greenlit was essentially impossible outside of solo posts, as searches like 1girl pubic_hair are flooded with false positives of hetero posts where only the male character had pubic hair. Even excluding male_pubic_hair didn't work, as many users don't bother tagging it and only add the base pubic_hair tag. Conversely, Pokémon has many subtags for each individual game and anime series which, thanks largely to the many Pokémon nerds that contribute to the site, are rarely missed. There are also relatively few false positives - unlike hetero posts where, by definition, there has to be both a male and female presence, the Pokémon games and the anime are rarely depicted at the same time. Searching pokemon_dppt will give you almost exclusively results that only reference the game(s).

It's also worth noting that pokemon_(game) aims to encompass literally every Pokémon game we have posts of, despite the fact that, especially in regards to the subseries or individual one-off games, there are almost no direct correlations between any of these individual titles outside of the Pokémon themselves. Even though they don't contain so much as an easter egg connecting them, Pokemon Trozei, Detective Pikachu, Pokemon Conquest, and New Pokemon Snap are all lumped under this pointlessly all-inclusive umbrella tag.

Since there's over a thousand _(game) posts that aren't tagged with a specific game, instead of just aliasing pokemon_(game) to pokemon (which believe me, would have been far easier) this BUR will instead deprecate it, and move all its existing implications directly to pokemon with the exception of detective_pikachu_(game), which already implies pokemon through detective_pikachu. The BUR will then remove pokemon_(game) from all posts that are already tagged with a specific game.

Maybe pokemon_(game) had some utility when it was created over a decade ago. However, Danbooru has evolved much since then; these days, it's just tag bloat performing double duty for a number of more specific tags that do a better job anyway.

now what about say "pokemon_sm" and "pokemon_sm_(anime)" for example?

Kommo-o said:

now what about say "pokemon_sm" and "pokemon_sm_(anime)" for example?

I have some thoughts about this, but it's a separate debate. With big tags like these it's better to focus on one change at a time.

and another thing

Some people use "pokemon_(game)" in the search bar to just focus on the human characters and ignore the pokemon themselves *cough* Gardevoir *cough*

or is that's just me?

Kommo-o said:

and another thing

Some people use "pokemon_(game)" in the search bar to just focus on the human characters and ignore the pokemon themselves *cough* Gardevoir *cough*

or is that's just me?

You can cut out most of the Pokemon-focused results by excluding no humans and furry, although the Gardevoir family is hard to get around without directly excluding the character tags.

Would it be worth making a "pokemon_focus" tag to help people search for and exclude those results more easily? It seems like the better option compared to the workarounds described above.

Obst said:

Would it be worth making a "pokemon_focus" tag to help people search for and exclude those results more easily? It seems like the better option compared to the workarounds described above.

Good idea

I’ve got mixed feelings. The current set of implications is really unwieldy and messy, and it’s a pain to manage. However, Pokemon’s such a big franchise that the pokemon_(game) tag does a lot of work narrowing searches down that would be difficult to replicate.

For instance, I’ve used it for is searching for cosplays of the various trainer classes. It’s a mess trying to individually search for ace_trainer_(pokemon), psychic_(pokemon), lass_(pokemon), and all the others individually. There are just too many. I’ll use pokemon_(game) cosplay to help narrow it down. (Although this is a very imperfect search itself, so I usually add extra restrictions.) Now this might be an argument for adding a trainer class tag, although I’m hesitant to make the current Pokemon tag system even more unwieldy.

I do think a lot of use cases can be addressed with in_franchise_crossover. There are a ton of posts that need updating with that tag, however, so I’d like to hold off on the bulk update until that can be done.

This bulk update request is pending automatic rejection in 5 days.

This bulk update request has been rejected because it was not approved within 45 days.

The bulk update request #20138 (forum #255243) has been rejected by @DanbooruBot.

BUR #21261 has been approved by @evazion.

deprecate pokemon_(game)

This has to be done in a couple of steps for some technical reasons related to moving the implications.

The bulk update request #21261 (forum #260205) has been approved by @evazion.

BUR #21262 has been approved by @evazion.

Moving implications.

The bulk update request #21262 (forum #260207) has been approved by @evazion.

BUR #21263 has been approved by @evazion.

mass update pokemon_(game) ~detective_pikachu_(game) ~new_pokemon_snap ~pokemon_battle_revolution ~pokemon_bdsp ~pokemon_bw ~pokemon_bw2 ~pokemon_colosseum ~pokemon_conquest ~pokemon_dppt ~pokemon_frlg ~pokemon_go ~pokemon_gsc ~pokemon_hgss ~pokemon_legends:_arceus ~pokemon_lgpe ~pokemon_masters_ex ~pokemon_mystery_dungeon ~pokemon_oras ~pokemon_ranger ~pokemon_rgby ~pokemon_rse ~pokemon_sleep ~pokemon_sm ~pokemon_stadium ~pokemon_sv ~pokemon_swsh ~pokemon_tcg_gb ~pokemon_unite ~pokemon_usum ~pokemon_xd ~pokemon_xy -> -pokemon_(game)

Removing pokemon (game) from all posts already tagged with a specific game.

The bulk update request #21263 (forum #260209) has been approved by @evazion.