Posts

@Fleetfoot  
Sounds about right to me :)

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?

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.

@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.

@Wingbeat  
I agree.

@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.

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

@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”.

@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.

@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 :)

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.

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.

@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

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

@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.

@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

@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”.

@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.

@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.

@LightningBolt  

 
Not true, I was for this in the Discord discussion.
 
Other than that, in general I think something obvious like Pidgey from Pokémon should also be tagged avian and bird - if actually shown in their original form that is, meaning not ponified or otherwise transformed, of course. Thus bird and avian shouldn’t be implied by, but tagging should be consistent of whatever it is. Pokémon are mistly based on animals after all. Ratata is a “furry, rodent, rat”, Pikachu is a “furry, rodent, pika”, Ekans is a “scalie, snake”, Horsea a “scalie, seahorse” etc.
 
Less prominent would be Pokémon such as Bulbasaur, well, “plant” and then I don’t know what else, so I would just leave it as “plant”.
 
But then you have Pokémon such as Voltorb, Ditto, and Chansey which are… something where none of those tags would apply, imo. So they just don’t get any such tags.
 
And to be honest, would you really not tag a Pidgey as avian and bird?  
Just look at this “realistification”, the original Pokémon art style is not far from what could as well be a real thing.  

 
Another argument to tag bird Pokémon with “bird, avian” is that it wouldn’t be uncommon for people to search for “pokemon, bird” or “pokemon, avian”. Of course that will apply to other species and supertags too. Yes, Charizard should be tagged as “dragon” and Alolan Exeggutor should not. Well this Pokémon type mess would warrant creating a “not a dragon” tag for the memes about how Charizard isn’t a dragon type but Alolan Exeggutor is, but that’s not part of this discussion.
 
It also applies to other fandoms. MLPs should be tagged “pony, horse, equine” and “earth pony”, “unicorn”, “pegasus” respectively. Sonic the hedgehog should be tagged “biped, anthro, hedgehog, furry”, while Miles “Tails” Prower would be “biped, anthro, fox, furry”.

@Wingbeat  

 
Why make things that can be simple complicated?
 
Anyway, if the final decision is to not tag applicable Pokemon with at least highest level species tags like “mammal”, “reptile  
(if the “scalie” tag is ditched), “bird” (if the “avian” tag is ditched), etc. then at least tagging “fur”, “feathers”, “skin” and “scales” should be on the same level of importance as tagging species. Right now only about 30% of posts tagged “mammal” has the tag “fur”, personally I was not adding this tag to posts I encountered unless the character was visibly fluffy or the other tags like fur color or markings pattern implied it.

@Wingbeat  
Do you think sergal should imply mammal despite not being an irl mammal?
 
Additionally saved searches still wouldnt really cut it, because that’s gonna be an ever growing list of things that should be tagged mammal but arent.

Honestly, this is spilling over into feature suggestion, but if we had the option to make (and/or share) saved searches, it might be a way to achieve the same result without having to make an official global call on whether darmanitan should imply mammal or gorilla or whatever.

Or birds. I can 100% say that I want to see pokemon birds when I search for birds, and watch the bird tag, without having to watch every single bird pokemon species.

@Wingbeat  
I’d say it’s unlikely that somebody will be looking for all mammalian-looking pokémon, but what I think is more likely would be somebody looking for mammals or mammalian-looking species in general, without wanting pokémon to be excluded from that list.