Sweat tags

The sweatdrop tag is meant to be for large, comical sweatdrops that bear a closer resemblance to something like the 💧 emoji than actual sweat (examples include the sweatdrops in in post #1979573, post #2207933, post #2791457, post #3046589, and post #259218). However, because of its ambiguous name it has been flooded over the years with posts featuring drops of regular sweat. It is now more of a search for singular drops of regular sweat, though there are also users adding sweatdrop as a substitute for sweat.

My proposal is to comb through the sweatdrop posts and use something like comedic_sweatdrop or cartoon_sweatdrop for the large, comical ones while removing sweatdrop from posts featuring characters with more than one drop of real sweat. Once this is done, we should alias it to singular_sweatdrop and then de-alias it, leaving sweatdrop as a disambiguation wiki.

Keeping it simple, I'd suggest that the guidelines for sweat tags be as follows:

• Make sweatdrop a disambiguation wiki
• Use comedic_sweatdrop/cartoon_sweatdrop for comedic sweatdrops
• Use sweat for any amount of real sweat
• Use sweating_profusely for a large amount of real sweat (already implies sweat)
• Use single_sweatdrop for a single drop of real sweat (make it imply sweat)

I'm against implying (single) sweatdrop to sweat. It's not really the same; someone who searches sweat does want to see sweaty girls after doing sport or having sex or sweating armpits whatsoever.
They don't want to see stuff like post #4354464, post #4353697, post #4353775, post #4354936 where the single sweatdrop pretty much depicts the feeling of embarrasement. It's another concept that shouldn't be implied to sweat.

But I have nothing against the creation of a real comedic_sweatdrop tag.

Sounds good, +1

AngryZapdos said:

• Use sweating_profusely for a large amount of real sweat (already implies sweat)

I don't like this, sweating profusely is often used for a large amount of comedic sweatdrops or a lot of flying sweatdrops too. Trying to regulate the tag will be useless due to its name.

I disagree with redefining sweating profusely to any "large amount of sweat". I think the tag is mostly used correctly for sweat caused by anxiousness rather than heat or exercise, and it would be a shame to dilute it. The term "profusely", while literally meaning "in great quantity", is unnatural and memey phrasing specifically to convey this. See the Sweating Jordan Peele meme for an example of what most people should be thinking when seeing the tag.

The idea was brought up on Discord of using the compound search sweating_profusely comedic_sweatdrop after broadening the former's tag, but the sweat caused by sweating profusely doesn't necessarily appear any different to real sweat. Maybe you could do something like sweating_profusely + ~nervous ~embarrassed ~scared etc... but the concept is then less specific tonally and runs into usability issues, so is probably better kept as is.

I think the creation of a comedic sweatdrop tag is a good idea, as the concept is currently difficult to search for. I'm not sure how many people are searching for only a single drop of real sweat, though. I'd rather just combine sweatdrop and sweat, and then use the wet tag to mark a character as very sweaty. The wiki indicates wet can be used for body fluids, and a search of sweat wet will show thousands of examples of its use in this manner already.

Obstetrics said:

I disagree with redefining sweating profusely to any "large amount of sweat". I think the tag is mostly used correctly for sweat caused by anxiousness rather than heat or exercise, and it would be a shame to dilute it. The term "profusely", while literally meaning "in great quantity", is unnatural and memey phrasing specifically to convey this. See the Sweating Jordan Peele meme for an example of what most people should be thinking when seeing the tag.

I'm fairly certain that having the word "profusely" in the tag's name does not cause people to immediately think "ah, this tag is for characters who are anxious". In fact, a quick Google search for "sweating profusely" returns many results on medical conditions that cause abnormal amounts of sweating. This leads me to believe that people do, in fact, take the term "sweating profusely" to mean "sweating a lot", rather than the oddly specific "sweating a lot specifically due to being anxious".

The idea was brought up on Discord of using the compound search sweating_profusely comedic_sweatdrop after broadening the former's tag, but the sweat caused by sweating profusely doesn't necessarily appear any different to real sweat. Maybe you could do something like sweating_profusely + ~nervous ~embarrassed ~scared etc... but the concept is then less specific tonally and runs into usability issues, so is probably better kept as is.

If the kind of sweat you want to tag often looks identical to real sweat with the only difference being the character's emotional state, then how do you propose we tag it when we can't determine a character's emotional state, or if it's ambiguous as to whether it's sweat from anxiety vs. sweat from physical exertion/heat/some other thing? This kind of concept sounds better-suited to a pool rather than a tag.

I think the creation of a comedic sweatdrop tag is a good idea, as the concept is currently difficult to search for. I'm not sure how many people are searching for only a single drop of real sweat, though. I'd rather just combine sweatdrop and sweat ...

I am also not sure how many people are searching for only a single drop of real sweat. I talked to a few people about this and one of them mentioned it would be good to have a tag for it, so I added it to the list. I don't personally think we need it, but if other people do, then I don't mind its existence.

I'd rather just ... use the wet tag to mark a character as very sweaty. The wiki indicates wet can be used for body fluids, and a search of sweat wet will show thousands of examples of its use in this manner already.

The wet tag is for anything that is wet. This is a rather broad definition, and as such many things other than sweaty skin exist within its usage. For example, about half of that sweat wet search exists because of posts tagged with wet_clothes, which implies wet. Trying to use such a search to find particularly sweaty characters is going to return a large amount of false positives, which is why it would be very convenient to have a tag that describes a particularly sweaty character - something like sweating_profusely.