After talking on Discord about tagging problems and staying up all night working on ideas, I think I can provide a VERY primitive sketch of the idea I mentioned in Discord.
In summary context, it is not new that many do not know how to tag various things, I include myself in x tags, and the tagging system is chaotic for the few moderators there are to run it.
And the guide we have, although it is certainly fantastic, always has a small room for possible improvement.
So, here we go with the prototype of the new Tag Guidelines:
First, we put why tags matter. The explanation is perfect as it is now.
Now, we put the FAQ part of tagging… under that. This is for a total rookie to understand correctly what is in general a Tagging System. Why put this in here too?
Situation: An artist comes from websites without good tagging functionality (Furaffinity, Pixiv, DeviantArt). He reads the tagging guidelines and only finds out how to use the functionality. But not What is this functionality and why.
Option 1: The artist doesn’t care about the tagging system, and does what they believe is correct.
Option 2: The artist tries to learn how to do it correctly.
Option 3 and worse: The artist gets discouraged about the tagging system and doesn’t upload their art because they don’t understand how to do it correctly.
This FAQ will help him learn about the tagging system without the need to take a look at other pages of the website. And, the functionality of the expandible answer will be used after this in other zones.
Next section: Important tags, that must go in almost every image. This goes in it collapsable category. “What it is safe” and “What are the sexual rantings?” are two possible questions that enter in matter, and leave the user to search more easily what they are looking after.
Separate collapsable questions make it easy to find information and to keep concentration while learning.
Rating tags explanation goes here first. That way, the newcomer knows how to rank their image according to our booru ideology.
Next: Franchise and content tags. That is the same as we have now. But this time starts with Franchise tags instead of the not furry. This is basic psychology, first, you teach how to work something, and then, lastly, you teach the exceptions of what you teach. This way, it is much easier to learn what to do, and this is how schools work these days.
Recapitulation until this moment:
- General info
- FAQ of images, tags, and sources here
- Important tags
- Rating tags
- Franchise tags
- Not furry tag
- But what if…
Now, the easy part is done. We only move things here and there and relocate them better.
Next part: Essential tags.
Essential tags are tags that are needed in every image. For now, we have only a few examples. Let’s be more concise about them.
The artist tags need to be explained better. I see how so many people don’t tag correctly their artist’s name.
For example, they forget the “artist:” goes before, or they don’t put anything as a tag. Meanwhile, they are the artists themselves, they don’t get recognized for their art. In the same way, we put Artist needed, as an exception, same explanation as before with not furry.
An aggregation: “Official art” tag goes with these two together. Why? Much of the official art, promotional art, etc., etc., is impossible to know who is behind. But at the same time, is useless to have the “artist needed” tag because it is impossible to find the original author. This is a true exception from the exception, the only case along with anonymous art that doesn’t need to have the artist tag, but at the same time, doesn’t need the “artist needed” tag.
Meta tag goes next but needs to be better defined in what is meta. Even myself cannot understand how to use it.
Seizure warning, and text, are next.
Now, I know what you will say. What happens with intersex? Wait, and you will see why I don’t put it in there.
New category: Physiology and species tags.
Every image, except the landscapes and a few more, needs to be at least one character, and that character needs to be Something. Here we introduce what is anthro, feral, and humanized.
And, of course, when is Something, is Specifically Something. After putting the physiology, we need to determine what species is.
Again, Recapitulation:
- General info
- FAQ of images, tags, and sources here
- Important tags
- Rating tags
- Franchise tags
- Not furry tag
- But what if…
- Essential Tags
- Artist tags working explanation
- Artist needed
- Official Art, Meta, seizure
- Physiology and species tags.
- Shape of the body (physiology)
- Specie of the character.
With these steps, we now have an image with its ranting tag, its franchising tags, and some of the most essential tags required.
Let’s continue with the Specific Tags.
Biology tags: Female, male, intersex, and everything in between, go here.
Orientation tags go next, when we have determined what are the sex of the characters, we can decide what are the correct interactions between them.
Nearly the end, it is turn to the Ocs tags, and how it works. Because a lot of users still don’t know how to tag their ocs.
And finally, after a long list: The less important tags, but still necessary. Examples are machine learning generated, shipping, solo, crossover, furrified…
Final Recapitulation:
- General info
- FAQ of images, tags, and sources here
- Important tags
- Rating tags
- Franchise tags
- Not furry tag
- But what if…
- Essential Tags
- Artist tags working explanation
- Artist needed
- Official Art, Meta, seizure
- Physiology and species tags.
- Shape of the body (physiology)
- Specie of the character.
- Specific tags
- Biology
- Orientation
- Ocs
- Less important tags
Better organized, with categories as the FAQ, and the frequent questions about it make the tagging rules easier to understand and can be used at the same time as a guide for the first tagging sessions.
If you see the diagram, the order is significant. First ratings, then franchises, then artists, next physiology and species. Biology, sexual orientation, ocs, and miscellaneous are last behind, the tags ranking in importance from greatest to least.
I hope you like this idea, is a sketch, that needs a lot of changes, but it is forming, and maybe the staff, in their knowledge, knows better how to improve that, while using their experience in the field.
Wish you a good day or night and thanks Ciaran for the idea of posting in here!
