Despite the technicalities of the weapons, they are visually identical in all ways and the pedantry involved in them causes problems with the usability and findability of images. This was brought to my attention via forum #233103 and the replies thereafter.
There is no visual or functional difference between these weapon pairs and the insistence on using them is entirely in the realm of technicality. The two tags largely only exist due to implications on specific weapons rather than people actually tagging them. This is extra-noticeable because a quarter of battle rifle is also tagged assault rifle, often due to someone tagging assault rifle and then someone else tagging the specific weapon without removing assault rifle.
Sorry, but I had to disagree with the idea of aliasing the battle rifle into assault rifle. This can cause a great misconception to less-informed people out there. We know that the main difference is the ammunition. If you want to do so, having a technically accurate umbrella term automatic rifle would have been a more reasonable idea to cover both visually similar assault rifle and battle rifle.
While I recognized the fact this imageboard tags primarily use more visually-oriented, descriptive ones. By that logic, would you mind if I had to request aliasing embarrassed -> shy. As well as deprecating ambiguous shame. Because people cannot tell apart whether a person is feeling shy or embarrassed. Both terms are almost interchangeably used. See topic #23088. However, I don't get it why many users are against deprecating such ambiguous, arbitrary-looking tag - while we already have the more visible shy.
Aliasing battle_rifle to assault_rifle is an awful idea when you have weapons the like M14 and Fedorov_avtomat that do not share the same similarities to an assault rifle. Same thing for the Recoilless guns because the Carl Gustaf and the AT4 aren't the only kinds of Recoilless Rifles, they are just a shoulder-fired variant of that category. As mounted recoilless rifles like those that can be found on the m50_ontos
All of this stinks of a strange need to be “correct” without any regards to how it makes it more annoying to find images all because some rifle is manufactured to shoot a bigger bullet.
What if an artist drew a character holding an M14 but says in the commentary that it’s chambered in 5.56 to make it California legal or something? By your definition, it is no longer a battle rifle and the implication is not wrong. That should be a sign that the implication is silly and based on an arbitrary technicality.
Tagging should avoid being a technical vocabulary check as much as possible.
All of this stinks of a strange need to be “correct” without any regards to how it makes it more annoying to find images all because some rifle is manufactured to shoot a bigger bullet.
What if an artist drew a character holding an M14 but says in the commentary that it’s chambered in 5.56 to make it California legal or something? By your definition, it is no longer a battle rifle and the implication is not wrong. That should be a sign that the implication is silly and based on an arbitrary technicality.
Tagging should avoid being a technical vocabulary check as much as possible.
For one, a M14 chambered in 5.56 is more than likely a Mini-14, a rifle. Two, assuming if it is a M14 chambered in 5.56, it would be an automatic rifle not an assault rifle as one of the defining features of an Assault rifle is the use of a pistol grip.
Merging assault_rifle and battle_rifle might be worthwhile, but not in a way OP proposes. It would be better to use automatic_rifle as an umbrella tag, as was already suggested.
I support merging battle rifle and assault rifle. Battle rifles aren't actually visually distinct from assault rifles, they just tend to be older arms that are (wood stocks and stuff). Automatic rifle wouldn't necessarily be a good tag either. Plus battle rifle could have confusion with Halo's bullpup. Wikipedia even says BRs, ARs, and full-powered rifles are basically visually identical with mostly similar features. We really only need the distinction between ARs/service rifles and marksman/sniper rifles. "What about DMRs which are basically between those two?" You'd just do whichever one it looks closer to.
While I think the individual weapon models are sufficient, I think the best umbrella tag for finding old-timey rifles would be something like "wooden stock", or tags like the existing kalashnikov rifle.
The recoilless rifle tags that aren't rocket launchery should just be removed from the tag and only tagged "rifle".
Kommandant said: For one, a M14 chambered in 5.56 is more than likely a Mini-14, a rifle. Two, assuming if it is a M14 chambered in 5.56, it would be an automatic rifle not an assault rifle as one of the defining features of an Assault rifle is the use of a pistol grip.
Some other argument(s) against this BUR:
Indeed we all know that tags are intended to represent visual cues. But why don't they just simply type rifle plus any other tags in order to look up for posts that contain FN FAL etc.? We already have rifle that covers both assault rifle and battle rifle. Even movies and video games can sometimes be wrong on depicting firearms, why should an imageboard give a misconception about such well-known firearm models?
Once again, aliasing both battle rifle and assault rifle into automatic rifle will make more sense in sense of technicality and tag searchability. My alias would be applicable to early pre-1945 selective fire rifles before battle rifle became a designated term (i.e. M1918 Bar, Fedorov Avtomat, FG42).
Veraducks said: Tagging should avoid being a technical vocabulary check as much as possible.
That's why other users are always helpful to review and add more tags.
This BUR made by a experienced user of this site in this topic is indeed controversial for its high probability to cause major misconception among people who are not really knowledgeable about firearms. All for the sake of tag searchability. This is the alternate one. The term automatic rifle would make more sense, covering the technicality of both types of guns regardless of calibre - without causing more tag clutter. They are all capable of automatic (selective) fire.
LQ said: Self-loading rifle or autoloading rifle would probably be more appropriate, as most BRs aren't automatic, or simply assault rifle per the original BUR.
Thank you for the suggestion. Changed it. PS: Please check out topic #23273 too.
Self-loading rifle or autoloading rifle would probably be more appropriate, as most BRs aren't automatic, or simply assault rifle per the original BUR.
@Veraducks said: create alias battle_rifle -> assault_rifle create alias recoilless_rifle -> rocket_launcher
Despite the technicalities of the weapons, they are visually identical in all ways and the pedantry involved in them causes problems with the usability and findability of images. This was brought to my attention via forum #233103 and the replies thereafter.
The second line of the aforementioned BUR has been resolved. This is an alternate option and third attempt.
MyMindServant said: Merging assault_rifle and battle_rifle might be worthwhile, but not in a way OP proposes. It would be better to use automatic_rifle as an umbrella tag, as was already suggested.
The reasoning actually make sense after some reconsideration. Moreover, in context of drawings, the proportion between full-power (BR) and intermediate (AR) rifle cartridges are indistinct. Requested aliasing both to "automatic rifle" in order to keep the real world accuracy of nomenclature. See also forum #288538.
For the semi-auto only ones like the SKS, rifle is already sufficient. So dismiss forum #233427. Please tell me or either DM me if you find this is mistaken (especially to downvoters).
