Wait, what is the proposed usage of mantle? If it's to alias it to capes, then I'm kind of meh on it. If it's to make it an ambiguous term, then I'd be all for that.
Posted under Tags
Seconding leaving it empty, with a wiki mentioning that it's an ambiguous tag and to use cape, capelet, cloak, or robe instead.
The Japanese use of マント (manto, often 'translated' into "mantle") can be extra-problematic as it can refer to any of the four above. So leaving "mantle" will invite frequent mistags.
Technically it's a katakana rendition of French manteau, but a lot of people tend to 'transliterate' it into "mantle" instead, adding to the confusion.
Speaking of, probably should remove マント from the "other names" field of the capelet wiki too. Think it is responsible for some mistagged cloaks and robes and capes.
BrokenEagle98 said:
To be honest, I had never heard of mantle being referred to as either capes or capelets. The only mantles I have ever known is the layer between the Earth's crust and its core, and the shelf that sits over the fireplace.
It's almost never used for actual clothing nowadays. The main exception being certain religious vestments, like those worn by the Catholic Pope or Orthodox bishops. Those would probably be tagged cloak or robe on Danbooru.
Otherwise, it's just used figuratively (e.g. "mantle of leadership"), or for other 'coverings' like the fireplace's mantle (often spelled "mantel" instead), a mollusc's mantle, the Earth's mantle, the mantle region of a flame, the lamp's mantle, the cerebral mantle... and so on.
In older English (way before Shakespeare's time) it was used specifically for a sleeveless type of cloak, and Shakespeare also uses it for cloaks and robes (sleeved or without), as well as figurative uses.
Fantasy works (written in modern times) will also sometimes use "mantle" as a fancy word for "cloak" (or robe), for things like magical artifacts or other cloaks that have considerable symbolic/ceremonial value (read: important to the plot), because of the figurative/ceremonial and older English use of "mantle", as mentioned above.
And now it has resurfaced again in English translations of Japanese works for anything that looks capelike (including capelets) or cloaklike or robelike, because of inexperienced translators not aware of the English distinction and blindly just 'translating' Japanese マント into "mantle" no matter the length or appearance of the actual garment.
TL;DR: It's an ambiguous term, so yep, again best to leave the tag empty as an ambiguous tag.
Updated
In my view, a mantle was some cloth, usually lined with ermine fur, a monarch would wear as a symble of power or special occasions, a definition that seems to be shared by Wikipedia. That seems to be closer to the danbooru definition of a cloak, although most examples seem rather more ornate and luxurious than most posts with the tag.
Searching for king, there's a few examples of it, but they don't seem consistently tagged:
I think a mantle tag would be viable, even if only for its regal form.
indexador2 said:
In my view, a mantle was some cloth, usually lined with ermine fur, a monarch would wear as a symble of power or special occasions, a definition that seems to be shared by Wikipedia. That seems to be closer to the danbooru definition of a cloak, although most examples seem rather more ornate and luxurious than most posts with the tag.
Searching for king, there's a few examples of it, but they don't seem consistently tagged:
- post #2502060 has it tagged as cloak
- post #3833783 has it as cape
- post #1198032 has capelet
I think a mantle tag would be viable, even if only for its regal form.
It might potentially have been viable, if not for マント 'polluting' everything (in tag suggestions, Google Translated artist post pages, translation notes on Danbooru, other translations on other places including official canon ones, fan wiki articles, etc). So people especially ESL users are highly likely going to misuse this tag whenever they encounter an outfit that is even mentioned as "mantle" anywhere. Think it happened quite frequently before when mantle existed as a separate tag (and then it was likely aliased to capelet after because it was probably filled with Alice Margatroid examples with her capelet).
Perhaps use fur_trim ~cloak ~cape ~capelet ~robe to find such cases (and perhaps king ~cloak ~cape ~capelet ~robe to catch the reminder). Maybe come up with an additional ermine_trim tag (implying fur_trim) too to further fine-tune these searches.
Edit: Or wait, better yet to introduce a royal_mantle tag for such cases. Most people should be able to use royal_mantle intuitively even when they don't read its (potential) wiki. Also write its wiki to suggest to also tag cloak or robe when appropriate, and to also include religious examples like the papal mantle (and lookalikes), as further clarification for those who actually do read.
Updated
The bulk update request #5778 (forum #187943) has been approved by @evazion.