You have completely missed the point of what I was trying to say. You say searching an empty tag would bring up a wiki that can be used, but I was saying that people have a bad tendency to not look at the wikis at all. It is a well-known problem that your proposed solution to my concerns would waltz right into. There's also the fact that I was trying to think about this as if I were a casual member user with a two-tag search limit. Take it from someone who once was one: casual members are not typically going to check the wikis unless they plan on uploading and/or tagging (and sometimes not even then). You have to account for them too when proposing these kinds of things, as while having to use a wildcard search if I wanted to see, say, Saber in a frilly outfit would be a mild inconvenience at my current level, this would utterly cripple me as a casual member user, because frills catches all frilly outfits, not just skirts, dresses, sleeves, etc.
AngryZapdos said:
Keeping the tag around impacts searchability in a different but more impactful way. Compared to the users that even you admit are relatively few and far between who are just searching frills, there are many more searching for the individual subtags like frilled_skirt. These users are having their searches negatively impacted by frills' mere existence in it enabling lazy tagging.
Also...I noticed you cut out my small list of example searches when responding to this section. Which is interesting, because it removes a certain amount of context that completely changes what I was trying to say.
Maiden_in_Orange said:
But what if I wanted to see, say, Hakurei Reimu without all the frills? Or what if I wanted to see any given character normally lacking in frills (let's go with Luigi here because why not) in a frilly outfit? Or KSG's example in populating the jersey maid tag?
While yes, just frills as a search term is not very common, I don't think...The tag in conjunction with another tag probably is, especially among member level users. That is whom I was actually referring to. And honestly, I don't think a user searching for frills instead of frilled skirt or what have you is going to really care what garment is frilled. Otherwise, they would've used something like frilled dress if they wanted to see that. That is the magic of umbrella tags like these: you can go broad on what you want to search, or you can narrow it down, and you don't need unlimited tag searches to do that. The problem with mintagging is frustrating for those who want to see specifics, yes, but deprecating the frills tag will simply punish the people going broad as much as it would punish mintaggers.
And who's to say your intent on punishing mintaggers would work as intended? Personally, I think were this deprecation to go through, as KSG points out, these mintaggers would more than likely just not tag anything frilled altogether. Because the problem with mintagging goes far beyond just the example of frills, in that these users don't really care about the needs of those searching for specific frilled garments. Just look at something like red footwear: mintaggers don't even bother to tag even basic shoes half the time! The problem you see with tags like frills isn't that the tag itself exists; it's that mintaggers are lazy and simply don't care for tags like frilled skirt or boots to begin with. They just want to be over and done with tagging. Which is a huge problem! But frills has plenty of uses that simply getting rid of the tag is going to severely impact searchability as opposed to like with the "x legwear" tags.
Speaking of, your example with legwear works in theory, but let me point you to this old failed attempt to undeprecate legwear not long after it was deprecated. I wouldn't be surprised if frills, were it to be deprecated, ended up with a similar BUR at some point in the near future with similar reasoning over not being sure of the garment other than it being frilly. Also, getting rid of legwear isn't exactly comparable: the problem with that tag is that it took two tags to search anything like black legwear + thighhighs, which meant a member level user couldn't search for specific characters or what not. Changing it to black thighhighs solves this issue, because then you had that tag and your choice of character. Much less frustrating.
Also, wildcard searches are just plan clunky to use. I appreciate their existence when I do need them, but that's hardly ever. I'd much rather use a tag to search for frills than a clunky wildcard search when going broad with any given search. Because that's what tags are for. And going by some of the other voices in here, I sincerely doubt I'm the only one who feels that way.
AngryZapdos said:
This BUR hasn't even been approved, yet you're speaking as if this defeatist scenario (which flies in the face of all available evidence) is a foretold conclusion.
People like me are arguing because while no, this BUR going through isn't a foregone conclusion, do notice the ratio of upvotes to downvotes. As a downvoter, that's worrying. So unsurprisingly, people for the tag staying are going to make whatever case they can. Because the admins (at least presumably) read through these arguments when debating whether to approve or reject larger proposed changes like this. These are just as much a show to the admins of "No, this proposed idea is horrible. Here's why:". So even though I seem to be in the minority on this one: if any of my arguments prove to be what keeps this BUR from passing, even after if an admin comes in after it gets autorejected, I will damn well argue my case for the tag staying.