Perfect pool purge perhaps?

miyga said:
I really see no reason to have different categories of things that can be objectively defined. It really seems completely arbitrary; I see no reason why something like "perversion of canon" couldn't be a tag (and if pixiv had a specific, one-word term for it, it almost certainly would be a tag instead).

I think the need to rely on meta-knowledge makes such concepts work better as pools. The rule of thumb is generally to "tag what you see", so unless we make some ridiculously specific tags, there is no easy or accurate way to cover things like pool #1174 or pool #6620 with tag searches. But you're right in that there are pools that would be better as tags, or ways that they may be redefined to work as tags. You can post your suggestions in topic #8956 if you want to help with this.

Edit: Ninja'd. Oh well.

Saduharta said:

And, as a note on something that caught my attention last night; obviously that's not what pools are, but going over the recently editted pool list probably a third of them are still subjective: Save Me..., Handsome Ladies, Feral Instincts, Disgustingly Adorable, Badass, Badass Adorable, Quotable Dialogue, Heartwarming, Almost Heartwarming, Clever... and that's leaving out more that could be posted to the "Pools That Could Be Tags" thread.

I realize those aren't "perfect" pools per say, but it does seem like they'd all fall under the same problems and definitions.

Yes, that's where my point from earlier comes into play. In small numbers, such pools tend to be allowed to keep existing, but when they become too populous to handle, they can't be ignored anymore so they get culled. Disgustingly Adorable in particular has been nominated for the chopping block several times over the years, with several fruitless attempts to "clean" it up as well, but as the only one of the three "adorable" pools to be based on a subjective quality like "the cutest", it seems to not be enough of an issue to really get anyone to bother with it. (Badass and Unhappy Adorable are, at least, intended for any fusion of the two themes, rather than a measure of "how" cute it is)

On the other hand, several of your listed examples fit firmly within the intent of the pool system. Almost Heartwarming, for example, is for any depiction of an event intended to invoke heartwarming feelings followed by an abrupt about-face in the mood, without getting subjective criteria like "how" heartwarming one thought it was in the mix. You could technically make that a tag, but it'd be so specific it'd be nearly useless in such a form.

Arrei said:

Yes, that's where my point from earlier comes into play. In small numbers, such pools tend to be allowed to keep existing, but when they become too populous to handle, they can't be ignored anymore so they get culled.

So it's not so much that they're subjective, it's subjective and they have a lot of posts? ...so if people add an arbitrary number of images to subjective pools they suddenly become a concern? I mean, I'm guessing it's not a lot of work deleting a pool, so I don't see why there needs to be a size for concern or not, simply a statement of the reason a pool is kept or deleted. And in the case of these perfect pools, the reason given is that they're subjective.

And if it IS simple to delete pools, there's no reason to allow pools breaking guidelines to simply be allowed to exist just because they're small.

...but as the only one of the three "adorable" pools to be based on a subjective quality like "the cutest", it seems to not be enough of an issue to really get anyone to bother with it. (Badass and Unhappy Adorable are, at least, intended for any fusion of the two themes, rather than a measure of "how" cute it is)

Even "Badass Adorable" though, for instance, is a fusion of two subjective themes; Badass is no less so than Adorable, let alone Perfect or Sexy. And if any of the concepts are objective enough for us to define (say we say Unhappy is definable), then making it a tag combination seems to be the way to go. So even if Badass was objective as well, which it's not, then the pool would just become the tags Badass and Adorable, and you'd find fusions of the two by searching for the two tags together.

Sure that might not find someone that's being badass and adorable because separate people are being badass and adorable, but we don't have "Blonde Girl" pools just because blonde + 1girl might find girls without blonde hair due to blonde haired men being in the picture.

On the other hand, several of your listed examples fit firmly within the intent of the pool system. Almost Heartwarming, for example, is for any depiction of an event intended to invoke heartwarming feelings followed by an abrupt about-face in the mood, without getting subjective criteria like "how" heartwarming one thought it was in the mix. You could technically make that a tag, but it'd be so specific it'd be nearly useless in such a form.

What makes a tag "too specific"? There are only 2 pictures tagged "meat_cleaver" on Danbooru, so if it's about specificity does that mean it should simply be tagged "knife" and any that are specifically meat cleavers should go in a small pool devoted to meat cleavers?

If that's not what you mean by "specific", what do you mean then? If you say it's definable enough to make a tag out of it, I know of no criteria that says it ~shouldn't~ be a tag.

Not too many posts, too many pools. Like if the adorable pool ended up spawning "Adorable Puppies", "Adorable Girls", "Adorable Boys", "Adorable Inanimate Objects".

As for a reason pools go undeterred at first, I'd imagine it's because the mod team doesn't entirely discount the fact that people enjoy these. As long as such things don't get in the way and aren't egregious misuses of the pool system (such as people making pools for their personal favorites), there's no need to be draconian about the rules - that's just more work and more headache for them. When there's too many of them, then that's when they both start getting in the way and becoming egregious misuses.

Too specific could mean several things. In Almost Heartwarming's case it'd be that a general "ruining the mood" tag would not be sufficient, requiring the creation of numerous tags dealing with specific moods being ruined, which just isn't very useful for identifying posts. The meat_cleaver tag is actually a case of an improper tag, as those two posts should be under the cleaver tag instead. Then there's pools like Fred posted above, dealing with specific fusions, references, or parodies of specific properties and themes that don't warrant a tag just to say this specific thing is referencing another specific thing, but are still clearly related.

Fred1515 said:
there is no easy or accurate way to cover things like pool #1174 ...

For certain doujin fan games such as koumajou densetsu, we do use copyright tags instead of tribute/parody pools.

Fred1515 said:

I think the need to rely on meta-knowledge makes such concepts work better as pools.

There are a number of tags that rely on meta-knowledge already. For instance, trap, canonical_sex, or out_of_character.

Toks said:

There are a number of tags that rely on meta-knowledge already. For instance, trap, canonical_sex, or out_of_character.

This may be a bit off-topic, but the canonical sex wiki says scans and screenshots only, but only a single image features that.
And you could just search for sex ~screencap ~scan ~official_art instead.

S1eth said:

This may be a bit off-topic, but the canonical sex wiki says scans and screenshots only, but only a single image features that.
And you could just search for sex ~screencap ~scan ~official_art instead.

I don't see why we'd want to limit canonical_sex to scans and screencaps. Isn't the tag for fan-depictions of sex that actually happens, as opposed to official art of sex?

Toks said:

I don't see why we'd want to limit canonical_sex to scans and screencaps. Isn't the tag for fan-depictions of sex that actually happens, as opposed to official art of sex?

Because you'll get into the situation where a lot of explicit fanart will retroactively satisfy the criteria for the tag.

I think keeping them as pools is the best option for now.

S1eth said:

Because you'll get into the situation where a lot of explicit fanart will retroactively satisfy the criteria for the tag.

I doubt that. Such fanart is usually just fan pairing, isn't it? Besides, there aren't many titles where sex actually happens (non-hentai stuff of course), at least I think so.

S1eth said:

Because you'll get into the situation where a lot of explicit fanart will retroactively satisfy the criteria for the tag.

I doubt that would be too common. Can you give any examples of it?

Besides, if canonical_sex was used for official art then you could just do a search like sex ~game_cg ~screencap ~scan ~official_art as you mentioned, so the tag wouldn't be as useful under that definition.

Saladofstones said:

I think keeping them as pools is the best option for now.

Opinions are much more convincing if you actually provide the reason behind them, rather than just stating them raw. Without reasons, the discussion can't go anywhere. Also, "them" is rather vague, so I'm not entirely sure which pools you're talking about.

This has started to become off the original topic which is dead. Any additional discussion should be in a new topic.