Tanukis are not raccoons

BUR #31341 has been rejected.

remove alias tanuki_boy -> raccoon_boy
remove alias tanuki_girl -> raccoon_girl
remove alias tanuki_tail -> raccoon_tail
remove alias tanuki_ears -> raccoon_ears

This alias is not true, and accomplishes literally nothing.

They are not even closely related species, tanukis are closer to dogs than to raccoons.

Although they can both feature dark circles around their eyes and striped tails, the typical raccoons are usually grey with stripes like common_raccoon_(kemono_friends), and tanukis are usually more red or light brown, like raphtalia, with or without a striped tail.

I agree, in real life they are very different even if the patterns are similar. Different body type, snout, and as you said they're closely related dogs hence the English name for them being "Raccoon Dogs." All of this is correct, but the problem is that in art the two are almost indistinguishable.

Personally I wouldn't mind removing the alias from Tankuki Girl/Boy if only to find canonical Tanuki more easily, but I don't see a point in dividing the tail/ears at all.

It's also worth noting we have a tanuki tag which people are using for the actual tanuki characters as well. post #7850954 post #6907124 post #4248668

zetsubousensei said:

I don't see a point in dividing the tail/ears at all.

To quote the raccoon tail wiki:
"While there are differences between a raccoon tail and a tanuki tail (raccoon tails are ringed but actual tanuki tails are tipped), they are often conflated with each other to the point where many characters who are supposed to be tanuki are depicted with ringed tails (thus, why raccoon and tanuki tails are consolidated into a single tag)."

In other words, there are plenty of tanuki-themed characters who have raccoon tails instead of the "correct" tails. So, no, I don't see any point in splitting them either.

> Personally I wouldn't mind removing the alias from Tankuki Girl/Boy if only to find canonical Tanuki more easily

If there was a way to search for tanukis, e.g. with tanuki_boy and tanuki_girl, then I'll probably wouldn't mind the tail and ear aliases. They were still total dumb, also

alias tanuki_ears -> raccoon_ears
alias tanuki_tail -> raccoon_tail

never would happen, raphtalia tail is not raccoon tail. I don't know how did it happen in the first place?

But this tanuki -> raccoon goes a long way, like lying about raphtalia species in its own wiki*, or recommending raccoon_costume for tanuki_mario, planning it to make it impossible to search for. (This failed, taggers still tag tanuki_suit and tanuki_costume.)**

> All of this is correct, but the problem is that in art the two are almost indistinguishable.

No, they are not. They are differently colored on the pictures. And even if they were, animals are canon tags anyway, "draw a fox and call it a wolf" holo is something we can't avoid.

[*] internet says that there are sources that she is raccoon as well, idk if its a mistranslation.
[**] this recommendation kinda makes sense, since the costume has a ringed tail, but taggers don't like it, so it failed. Also just tagging it with tanuki_costume + striped_tail would more or less accomplish the same.

In other words, there are plenty of tanuki-themed characters who have raccoon tails instead of the "correct" tails. So, no, I don't see any point in splitting them either.

Some are, but not all. Probably not even the majority.

And I don't see any reason to alias them together. Canonically wrong, visually wrong, what's the point then? Is there any?

BUR #31342 has been rejected.

remove alias tanuki_boy -> raccoon_boy
remove alias tanuki_girl -> raccoon_girl
remove alias tanuki_tail -> raccoon_tail
remove alias tanuki_ears -> raccoon_ears
create alias tanuki_boy -> red_panda_boy
create alias tanuki_girl -> red_panda_girl
create alias tanuki_tail -> red_panda_tail
create alias tanuki_ears -> red_panda_ears

There are pictures of tanukis with red/light brown and striped tails.

The bulk update request #31342 (forum #306716) has been rejected by @reg_panda.

BUR #31344 has been rejected.

remove alias tanuki_boy -> raccoon_boy
remove alias tanuki_girl -> raccoon_girl
remove alias tanuki_ears -> raccoon_ears

Keep the tail alias, for bushy, striped tails.

So in the first 50 pictures for raccoon_boy, there are

post #7904167
post #8069841
post #8069824
post #8069807
post #7820998
post #7892385 (this one translated '狸' as 'raccoon'. Both google and bing translates it as raccoon. Is that a good translation, that is, do japanese people use '狸' for western raccoons?)
post #7874239 (animal crossing tanukis, AFAIK they are canonically raccoons in the english version)
post #8069151

with visible non ringed tails. They attempted to draw a tanuki, and they succeeded at not drawing a raccoon, but a tanuki.

I don't know which ones are attempted tanukis but with ringed tails. Probably
post #7948944

The tanukis are all mistagged, 100% of them, and they are not searchable. Also 16% of the raccoon_boys have a clearly non ringed tail clearly visible on the picture. That's bonkers.

Also how comes that other aliases go like "hey can you alias this?" "no, here is 1(!) counter example." "Okay sorry for bad BUR"

狸 is tanuki
洗熊 is their word for raccoon.

Still maintain there isn't a meaningful difference for the ears + tail and I would suggest gardening tanuki since that's the tag we're using for them. Anything like post #7820998 with a leaf on their head is almost certainly supposed to be one Tom Nook and relatives are canonically tanuki as well.

I am not against a tanuki_girl or tanuki_boy tag but there is no reason to divide the ears/tail.

zetsubousensei said:

狸 is tanuki
洗熊 is their word for raccoon.

Still maintain there isn't a meaningful difference for the ears + tail and I would suggest gardening tanuki since that's the tag we're using for them. Anything like post #7820998 with a leaf on their head is almost certainly supposed to be one Tom Nook and relatives are canonically tanuki as well.

I am not against a tanuki_girl or tanuki_boy tag but there is no reason to divide the ears/tail.

Agreed with this. Tanuki girl/boy would be fine, we don't need a separate ear/tail tag.

we don't need a separate ear/tail tag.

The alias is what we don't need. Just go through the first page of raccoon_tail, about 80% of them is either a grey and striped raccoon tail, or a not striped tanuki tail. There are very few images that could be both, which should not be a reason for this alias. It is not even like aliasing bear tail and panda tail to rabbit tail, just because they both look the same (and they _do_ look like the same, if you only look at the tails), since tanuki tails and raccoon tails do not look alike.

zetsubousensei said:

Personally I wouldn't mind removing the alias from Tankuki Girl/Boy

Trouble_Windows said:

Tanuki girl/boy would be fine

You both downvoted BUR #31344 . Is it because of the ears? I don't see the point of that alias, basically all the animal ears look the same (there are very few types), there is no point to alias raccoon and tanuki ears together, especially if there are separate tanuki_boy/girl and raccoon_boy/girl. Although it is the same for reindeers and deers.

reg_panda said:

You both downvoted BUR #31344 . Is it because of the ears? I don't see the point of that alias, basically all the animal ears look the same (there are very few types), there is no point to alias raccoon and tanuki ears together, especially if there are separate tanuki_boy/girl and raccoon_boy/girl.

It's tag bloat that clarifies a distinction that isn't needed because they look the same. No, "basically all animal ears" do not look the same. That is a silly non-argument.

raccoon_ears tanuki_girl (or boy) would accomplish the same thing.

reg_panda said:

post #7892385 (this one translated '狸' as 'raccoon'. Both google and bing translates it as raccoon. Is that a good translation, that is, do japanese people use '狸' for western raccoons?)

Fwiw, I've never seen 狸 used for western raccoons (that's アライグマ). The juxtaposition with a fox character in the image is also a tanuki thing, not a raccoon thing.

reg_panda said:

post #7892385 (this one translated '狸' as 'raccoon'. Both google and bing translates it as raccoon. Is that a good translation, that is, do japanese people use '狸' for western raccoons?)

I'm pretty confident that uploader just stuck that in Google translate, because they're clearly not a translator if their 0 note changes is any indication. Most of their commentary translations are either simple things like names, or translations that don't entirely make sense contextually, as if they were machine translated. The commentary for that post should probably say tanuki, not raccoon, and someone should maybe tell that user to stop google translating commentaries. These kinds of misunderstandings are exactly why we discourage that.

BUR #31745 has been rejected.

remove alias tanuki_boy -> raccoon_boy
remove alias tanuki_girl -> raccoon_girl
remove alias tanuki_tail -> raccoon_tail

Keep the ear alias, split the rest.

It seems that some people insist that *_tail and *_ear tags should be (and currently are) distinct and interesting on their own, and not just like woman_leg and man_leg for animal people, that do nothing interesting.

This BUR aligns with that idea, opposed to the current situation.

If this BUR gets accepted, I think tanuki people and tanuki animals with raccoon tail could be tagged either with raccoon tail, or with tanuki_tail + striped_tail. It would be possible to search for raccoon people, tanuki people, tanuki people and animals with tanuki tail, tanuki people and animals with raccoon tail, opposed to the current tagging with the aliases.

I personally don't see much value for the ear alias. It can be used as shortcut for "raccoon or tanuki". But comes with the cost of being an exception, looking ugly, and annoying. At least it doesn't spoil the rest of the tags, and it should be easy to split it automatically in the future.

I don't think anyone would be bothered by tanuki_girl and tanuki_boy but tacking the tail tag on is screwing you ober here because they are barely different from raccoon tails in any notable way.

> they are barely different from raccoon tails in any notable way.

I .. don't think it is true? Can you support this claim? What would be the refutation of this claim?

E.g. Raccoon tails are striped, while tanuki tails are not. They seem very different to me, certainly more different than most *_tails differ from each other.

Also 15% of raccoon_tail is just raccoon_tail raphtalia and raccoon_tail kagemori_michiru. Is there any reason for the tag raccoon_tail to contain these pictures, as opposed to not do that, and only contain raccoon tails?

Distinguishing striped and not striped tails is as easy as it gets, in forum #306821 I was able to identify 8/50 boys in raccoon_boy with not striped tails. Now there are cases when it is not clearly visible if the tail has stripes, but this also apply to other *_tails that they are less distinguishable, when only partially visible.

Isn't this enough?