NNescio said:
So, overall, it would seem like that GFL isn't quite like other fanbases...
Before I address your other points, I will remind you that you did point out how Azur Lane and KanColle both use different names for the same ship a few weeks ago, a difference that tagging-wise seems arbitrary, but otherwise makes sense for the fanbase in question.
NNescio said:
Though... hmm... thinking about it, changing some of the names to just serial numbers do make them more ambiguous. Especially for people more familiar with the gun than the actual T-Doll. I would... say... strongly disagree with removing "mortar" from M2. Some of the M(number) names might also be problematic that way, due to the habit of the American military of sticking M on every single piece of hardware.
Does also make it harder to tag guns too, because now people have to remember two sets of names, and some of them can be quite... odd, with say, the real-life gun having a hyphen but the T-Doll doesn't, then another gun having a hyphen but the T-Doll uses a space instead, and then some like Sig 556 not having a hyphen but then the T-Doll version introduces one.
Yeah, a lot of the 'one word'/hyphen/space differences in naming are rather arbitrary (though often indicative of their origin), but then you add on arbitrary 'changes' on top of that for the T-Doll version... it does really discourage complete tagging.
Some of the guns are also more well known with the model name or gun type on top. P99 alone might make some people go huh (for people not familiar with both the gun and character)m but Walther P99 is iconic with most people knowing it's that "James Bond gun".
Though I get your point here, this feels like a non-issue to some degree, as you can not only have the tag for the gun included in the T-Doll's wiki (and thus have it suggested), but also much of the fanart drawn for the T-Doll may or may not include the gun to begin with, as in contrast to other gacha games of this style, in-universe they aren't beholden to the gun. They may get upgrades that make them super proficient with the gun, but otherwise can use other guns too. Both the spinoff Neural Cloud and the sequel Girls Frontline 2 even do away with the in-universe G&K-enforced codenames derived from the guns, using actual names instead (and for some T-Dolls, revealing their actual/original names for the first time).
NNescio said:
As for the QBZes... I guess that's done to differentiate them from Japanese guns (both in real life and for the current Danbooru tags). Personally, I'm not that familiar with guns, so if I see a "Type Number" name I'm going to assume it's a Japanese gun of some sort. If those aliases go through and I see, say, a character named "Type number" that I'm not familiar with, and I see the gun untagged, I will likely similarly type "Type_number" to find that gun. It would not cross my mind to go looking for it under QBZ, so if I can't find the gun under "Type_" I will not bother looking it up and just leave it untagged. This might even be worse for some taggers—they might go and create another "Type_number" generic guntag instead, without realizing it's already listed under QBZ-"number".
Though you might assume that "Type Number" equals Japanese, both the Chinese and the Japanese adopted the use of "type" akin to "mark" or "model" in the 1920s. The Japanese server doesn't distinguish it either, it just uses "95式" or "97式" as the Chinese servers do. Additionally, we already use "Type Number" for several Chinese guns (either because that's how they are referred to as in English, or because of Girls' Frontline introducing those guns to Danbooru), such as the Type 03 (which would also be a QBZ), the Type 56 and its Carbine variant, the Type 59, the Type 63, the Type 64, the Type 79, the Type 80, the Type 81, the Type 88, the Hanyang Type 88, the Type 92, and the Type 97 Shotgun. The outlier here would be the QBU-88, which is also referred to as a Type 88, but they call the doll wielding the gun that too, so that's fine. Given this wider context, having QBZ-95 and QBZ-97 isn't intuitive tagging-wise for the T-Dolls at all. (And before you ask, on the Japanese side we have the Type 4, the Type 62, the Howa Type 64, the Howa Type 89, and the Type 100)
Additionally, my points from above on mentioning the relevant gun tag in each wiki, which the newly-dubbed Type 95 and Type 97 wikis would already have, and the frequent irrelevance in fanart. If need be though, you could always just alias the "type" names to the regular gun tags.
NNescio said:
there are two 'fanbases' at play here that both intersect. One for the English fanbase of GFL, and another for the English 'fanbase' of, well, real-life military guns. So when there is some agreement in names (or at least enough to autocomplete), fans of one 'fanbase' can easily tag for the other. (Or more likely, people who aren't really unfamiliar with both but still recognizing some of the more iconic guns from movies and anime and other games), Though, I do acknowledge that GFL is the 'primary' fanbase here, and tagging of GFL chars is of a more higher priority than the guns they wield.
There's plenty of gun nuts in the GFL fanbase, no matter English or Chinese, and while they may use different names for plenty of these guns, they've all largely accepted the names used in-game, only eschewing them if it is too tedious (such as referring to M950A by the gun manufacturer's name, Calico; and even then, M950A will be used because that's what the game uses).
