Species supertags

@Moon Flower  
I mean a pidgey species swapped into a pony isnt a pidgey anymore. Species swaps are about /characters/ not species. If I tf my gryphon into a dragon, he stops being a gryphon, but is now a dragon, while retaining the ‘character’ gyro feather.
 
Therefor the species implications should totally be a thing.

@Gyro  
I wasn’t aware Pokémon names are treated as species rather than character. That’s a worth a discussion on its own, this has pros and cons. The franchise itself uses it as both, so it’s confusing from the start.
 
But in that case, when they represent a species, then I can omit a part of my previous post (using strike through formatting). But ultimately, it doesn’t change or negate the core part of my statements.

@Gyro  
@Moon Flower  
Please excuse me for the double post, but in case people read my previous message already, I want to make sure they see this one too.
 
If Pokémon names are tied as species, then implying things would be viable. So it actually does change some of my statements after all.
 
Then pidgey could actually imply “bird, avian”.

@Moon Flower  
The show uses Pikachu as a specific character, and as a specie, though within the Fandom it’s referred to as ash’s Pikachu.  
https://m.bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Ash%27s_Pikachu
 
It’s like how pokemon is both a phylum and a franchise

@Moon Flower  
Just to clarify and confirm, yes Pokémon names (pidgey, pikachu, charizard etc) are species names first and foremost. It’s why Pokémon games will give you the option to give your Pokémon a nickname, after all. The main characters in the animé are just unimaginative and never name their Pokémon, presumably so kids who start a particular arc in the middle don’t get confused about which Pokémon Ash is sending out.

There are 2 more… species tags that are looming out there right now, all courtesy of twokinds.  
keidran  
basltin

@soccy-draws  
This thread is not about setting species as species type tags but about how should fictional species be tagged, should a fictional animal with fur get the “mammal” tag or should a bird-like pokemon get the “bird” tag ;) Thread for just setting species tag to their brown color is here: https://furbooru.org/forums/tagging/topics/species-listing

So a little bump here, is there any consensus as to what to do with the tagging situation, or any thought of a ruling on the matters? There seemed to be some support for the idea of a ‘fictional species’ tag and doing away with ‘scalie’ and ‘avian’, but the topic seemed to tail off there in favour of Pokémon implications.

Here’s what I’d propose:
 
“Fictional species” is split into two categories: “mythological species”, and “intellectual property species” (or “IP species” for short). The former is basically just any fictional creature that’s part of the public domain, whereas the latter is self-explanatory (Xenomorph, specific Pokemon, etc.).
 
A specific creature tagged as “IP species” implies the real and/or mythological animal(s) it’s based on, where applicable (“charizard” would imply “dragon”, for example).
 
A specific creature tagged as “mythological species” implies the real animal(s) it’s based on, where applicable (like how “gryphon” implies “avian” and “feline”).
 
So let’s see how this would work. Let’s say you’ve got a scalie who wants some whacking materiel. If he’s okay with Pokemon or Digimon showing up in his search, he doesn’t exclude “IP species”. If he isn’t, he excludes it. If he just can’t get off unless a character is from an established franchise, then he includes “IP species”. If for some weird reason he’s fine with a Pokemon showing up, but so help you God if that Pokemon is based on a mythological creature, he just excludes “mythological species” from the search.
 
 
It’s very late, so I’m going to bed. This must be what trying to draft a legal document is like, so hopefully what I just wrote is readable and makes sense.

@DerpyFast  
Whats your opinion on whether ‘scalie’ and ‘avian’ should exist? Given that the mods dont want to add one for ‘mammal’
 
The fictional species was a fix suggested to also eliminate those categories since they would be folded in to reptile/dragon/mammal/bird/etc.
 
Also we separate out fannon from offical published canons already, so its probably reasonable to have IP species and Original Species.
 
I rather like your definition of mythological species. I was trying to figure out how to nail it down, but ‘any creature that’s a part of the public domain’ is probably a damn good one.
 
Thanks for the input :)

@DerpyFast  
This seems fairly good, if I may make on addition it’s that (if you weren’t already thinking this) ‘mythological species’ and ‘IP species’ (and ‘original species’ for fandom created species likes sergals or protogen) should both exist under a supertag ‘fictional species’. Makes it easier to exclude all fictional species from a particular search.
 
But also yes, as Gyro says, part of this initial proposal was to do away with ‘scalie’ and ‘avian’ and have fictional species such as Argonians or Chozo imply ‘reptile’ and ‘bird’ respectively. That’s the real crux of the issue, and some kind of consensus as far as whether or not ‘scalie’ and such should be removed is the ultimate end here. As it stands, there’s some support for the idea of a broad fictional species tag or tags, but there’s been no definite plan to change the current status quo, at least on the part of the site staff.

@DoesNotExist  

 
I agree.
 
@Gyro  
I honestly don’t know if “scalie” and “avian” should be tags. My intuition says that if you have those two tags, you should have a “mammal” tag and a “marine” tag, giving you a “Big Four”, and stopping there. I don’t think anyone wants this to explode into a million supertags, so I’ll try to find a more concrete justification for why you should or shouldn’t have a “Big Four”.

I’m still int eh camp of “these supertags are not useful or helpful”.

@LightningBolt  
My position is this: I think the categories can be kinda useful or helpful, but I don’t think they’re either as tags themselves. We don’t really have a system for suggesting that certain tags get added alongside others, it either is or it isn’t. And when you’re painting with such broad strokes, it isn’t an awful lot of the time.
 
To be crystal clear: I also don’t think supertags are useful. At least, none of the ones that have appeared in this thread.
 
But I recognize the need that Gyro and others have pointed out, and that’s for some other way to group certain tags together that often - but not always - go together, or are subject to personal interpretation that might differ from the official interpretation. I just think the solution to this lies somewhere outside of the tagging system entirely - by which I mean leveraging the search functionality in some way. I’ve already suggested two ways we might go about it.

@Wingbeat  
I agree.

@Wingbeat  
I mean thats sort of the conclusion reached here among the rest, that we should ditch scalie/avian and just classify it into mammalian, reptile, dragon, bird, etc where appropriate.

If there’s any thought that it’s worthwhile to separate out fiction and real species (like how the current setup with ‘scalie’ and ‘reptile’ separates reptiles and reptilians) then I will continue to argue that a better way would be using the broad ‘fictional species’ tag (with sub-tags if and as needed) and doing away with ‘scalie’ and ‘avian’, instead tagging ‘reptile’ and ‘bird’ et cetera. There’s something of a precedent for this, considering that the ‘original species’ tag already exists for specifically fan and fandom-created species.
 
If there’s not thought to be any use in separating them out, then ‘scalie’ for example isn’t really a helpful tag. If it only exists to apply to all species with scales, then perhaps simply a ‘scaled’ or ‘scales’ tag would be a better wording, and ‘reptile’ would still apply to fictional reptiles.

Okay to summarize in a compact easy to understand on the agreements so far;
 
Species Supertags, avian, scalie and so on are likely better to be nuked.
 
‘Artificial species’ tag is likely applicable, could be brought together with ‘original species’.
 
Pokémon species (and alike) may imply irl animals/families if they are unquestionably suitable for it.
 
Is that it?

@Fleetfoot  
Sounds about right to me :)

@Fleetfoot  
I’d agree with that.
 
Is ‘artificial species’ the preferred term? I still think ‘fictional species’ is a better name, but I’m not necessarily married to it.

@Fleetfoot  
@DoesNotExist
 
“Artificial species” feels similar to “artificial intelligence”, I would use that maybe for species that were created in a lab (but I think this kind of origin is not an important information and should not be tagged anyway) rather than for all of the non-real ones :P

What do we think about the Original species/ published species/mythological species split? I think its useful, but I”m not as hardline about it.

@Gyro  
If we’re going with the fictional species tag, then I could see these as being useful - not just for helping to narrow the field a bit, but also so that when some new image comes along of Snardbort the blumpig, those tags can be added to help folks like me figure out just what kind of species “blumpig” is.

@Wingbeat  
I did a quick FA search for blumpig, in case you were refering to an actual fictional species. Can never tell with this fandom. :P

@Gyro  
I think they’re useful as well, though as subtags under an overall ‘fictional species’. That may be more new tags than some folk would like, but it’s a worthwhile distinction to make.