Topic: [REJECTED] Tag alias: perma -> permanent

Posted under Tag Alias and Implication Suggestions

Watsit

Privileged

Both should probably be invalidated, since it's largely (if not exclusively) tagged based on lore/external information or subjective interpretation. You can't "see" something being permanent in a still image or video clip (even "a long time" isn't permanent), and dialog doesn't count (characters can say or think something is permanent, but end up surprised when it's not).

Since I don't think there's anything else valid that the tag could be used for, they should probably be aliased to invalid_tag.

Waydence

Member

Does permanent have a reason to exist? Like, are there any people who are interested in permanent situations in general? Is permanency fetish a thing?

watsit said:
Both should probably be invalidated, since it's largely (if not exclusively) tagged based on lore/external information or subjective interpretation. You can't "see" something being permanent in a still image or video clip (even "a long time" isn't permanent), and dialog doesn't count (characters can say or think something is permanent, but end up surprised when it's not).

Since I don't think there's anything else valid that the tag could be used for, they should probably be aliased to invalid_tag.

There's clearly interest in permanent chastity and similar stuff, so it might make more sense to change that stuff to lore tags.

Watsit

Privileged

waydence said:
There's clearly interest in permanent chastity and similar stuff, so it might make more sense to change that stuff to lore tags.

Lore tags aren't just a dumping ground for things that don't fit TWYS. For something like chastity in particular, it would depend on the artist specifically saying it's permanent. "Permanent chastity" is often depicted via a broken key or a welded lock, neither of which actually mean the chastity device can never come off via other means. Nor does in-image characters saying it's permanent mean it actually is for lore purposes (just as a character saying "I'm banging my mom" while having sex with a mature-looking woman doesn't inherently make incest_(lore) applicable, as they could be lying, or talking in an adoptive mother context). Lore tags only apply when the creator expressly says so, not taggers' interpretation of the post.

Sylenial

Member

watsit said:
Both should probably be invalidated, since it's largely (if not exclusively) tagged based on lore/external information or subjective interpretation. You can't "see" something being permanent in a still image or video clip (even "a long time" isn't permanent), and dialog doesn't count (characters can say or think something is permanent, but end up surprised when it's not).

Since I don't think there's anything else valid that the tag could be used for, they should probably be aliased to invalid_tag.

While I imagine there are a lot of pictures that misuse the tag, there are definitely pictures where you have some form of computer readout or other in-picture implication of a permanent situation. Any picture which includes some form of "Time until release: Infinite" type readout, for example.

Watsit

Privileged

sylenial said:
Any picture which includes some form of "Time until release: Infinite" type readout, for example.

That would fall under the same rules as dialog. A computer saying something doesn't make it any more taggable than a character saying something.

Sylenial

Member

If we're being this nitpickey about what constitutes as lore, external information, or subjective interpretation then tags like 'rape' are equally useless. There's not a single picture where you can objectively declare to be rape without lore, or external information. They have to be tagged entirely based on subjective interpretation which is your argument for why a tag like 'permanent' shouldn't exist. Tears? They could be role-playing CNC. Dialog? Same issue you bring up with 'permanent'. You can't go into the picture and ask the characters involved whether they consented to the act depicted by the picture. You have no choice but to apply assumptions.

Do we also get rid of these tags effectively disallowing people from blacklisting them? There are many pictures where there is strong implication (but not objective truth) of something permanent/infinite/etc. happening in the picture that someone would probably like to be able to blacklist. They may not perfectly fit the strictest definition of TWYS that doesn't mean they're not useful.

Watsit

Privileged

sylenial said:
There's not a single picture where you can objectively declare to be rape without lore, or external information. They have to be tagged entirely based on subjective interpretation which is your argument for why a tag like 'permanent' shouldn't exist. Tears? They could be role-playing CNC. Dialog? Same issue you bring up with 'permanent'.

There's a difference between being able to use in-image indicators like a character visibly having an upset expression and/or being physically forced into sex, to tag rape, compared to a character saying something that they may or may not know to be true. Non-consensual sex does look different from consensual sex for tagging purposes (this is very clearly different visually from this), and there's tags when it's visually questionable (questionable_consent). In contrast, "permanent" doesn't look any different from "temporary" in an image or video clip (there's nothing that visually separates this from any other transformation for example), so whether a given post gets tagged "permanent" or not will be completely arbitrary.

Role-playing CNC is something that gets debated on posts for whether it appears to be role-playing or not, and this is resolved based on visual elements of a post. If it looks like rape, it's tagged rape, even if it's meant to be role-playing. And indeed, dialog should not be used to tag rape if it doesn't look like rape (and if it does look like rape, dialog is irrelevant).

sylenial said:
Do we also get rid of these tags effectively disallowing people from blacklisting them? There are many pictures where there is strong implication (but not objective truth) of something permanent/infinite/etc. happening in the picture that someone would probably like to be able to blacklist. They may not perfectly fit the strictest definition of TWYS that doesn't mean they're not useful.

If there's associated visual elements, they can be tagged. broken_key, for example. But without a firm visual basis to use a tag, it becomes that much more unreliable to use for blacklisting since some people will feel the tag applies and other people won't. There's no standard to say who's right or wrong, resulting in it blacklisting things a person thinks shouldn't be blacklisted, and not blacklist things they think it should be blacklisted. That's not useful.

Sylenial

Member

Clearly this is something that would need more debate than just us two.

My point is that you can't just use "subjective interpretation" as a reason why a tag shouldn't exist because unless you can write down a list of instructions which, when followed, grants you knowledge of a character's consent that can stand up against scrutiny then by definition tags like 'rape' can't be objective.

"This looks close enough to rape" is still a subjective interpretation. It's likely the right call, and it's a good use of the tag, but it still requires subjective assumptions to be made as consent is not a visible attribute. It's why you should always get explicit consent IRL because you might interpret a situation incorrectly, because what you see might not be sufficient.

I'd still argue that 'permanent' is a valid tag, but I will also agree that when looking at the tag many uses of it are not good uses.

Donovan DMC

Former Staff

sylenial said:
Clearly this is something that would need more debate than just us two.

My point is that you can't just use "subjective interpretation" as a reason why a tag shouldn't exist because unless you can write down a list of instructions which, when followed, grants you knowledge of a character's consent that can stand up against scrutiny then by definition tags like 'rape' can't be objective.

"This looks close enough to rape" is still a subjective interpretation. It's likely the right call, and it's a good use of the tag, but it still requires subjective assumptions to be made as consent is not a visible attribute. It's why you should always get explicit consent IRL because you might interpret a situation incorrectly, because what you see might not be sufficient.

I'd still argue that 'permanent' is a valid tag, but I will also agree that when looking at the tag many uses of it are not good uses.

We wouldn't even have gender tags if we allowed zero subjective interpretation, characters are inconsistent and many things have no clear cut line

Tags are often never 100% objective, we need them to just be objective enough where most would agree (or where they would provide the most utility)

Clawstripe

Janitor

I agree with Watsit that they ought to be invalidated. What's being permanent? Permanent chastity? Permanent grin? Permanent nudity? Permanent as in glued in place? Permanent as in the picture will be permanently posted on e621? Permanent what?

Beholding

Member

Lore tags aren't just a dumping ground for things that don't fit TWYS.

I am once again asking what is the purpose of lore tags, then. Who decides what's a valid lore tag and what's a "dumping ground"? Do you have hard criteria for this or is it just vibes?

Personally, my reasoning is that a lore tag is worthwhile if it's something that changes how the art is perceived, especially if it's something uncomfortable that people might want to blacklist, such as incest. Permanence satisfies both of these criteria.

donovan_dmc said:
We wouldn't even have gender tags if we allowed zero subjective interpretation, characters are inconsistent and many things have no clear cut line

Tags are often never 100% objective, we need them to just be objective enough where most would agree (or where they would provide the most utility)

Similarly: What's the cutoff? Exactly how do we determine whether a tag is too subjective to use?

Donovan DMC

Former Staff

beholding said:
I am once again asking what is the purpose of lore tags, then. Who decides what's a valid lore tag and what's a "dumping ground"? Do you have hard criteria for this or is it just vibes?

Personally, my reasoning is that a lore tag is worthwhile if it's something that changes how the art is perceived, especially if it's something uncomfortable that people might want to blacklist, such as incest. Permanence satisfies both of these criteria.

water_bottle_(lore) changes how a bottle sitting on a table is perceived, but that doesn't make it a valid lore tag
No, there are no hard lines on what is or isn't a lore tag

beholding said:

Similarly: What's the cutoff? Exactly how do we determine whether a tag is too subjective to use?

Whenever enough people decide to come together to push for aliasing away a tag? Tagging is community effort, practically nothing has a hard line

Sylenial

Member

beholding said:
Personally, my reasoning is that a lore tag is worthwhile if it's something that changes how the art is perceived, especially if it's something uncomfortable that people might want to blacklist, such as incest. Permanence satisfies both of these criteria.

This is why I'm not entirely a fan of invalidating this tag altogether unless we can come up with good alternative tags to represent things like permanent or extremely long term incarceration, immobilization, torment, etc. since I try to tag my art with as many tags as I can think of that would be useful for a blacklist, some of which I haven't added because they don't fall within TWYS since they're part of the description and not the image but it means that there are unfortunately still gaps I can't catch someones blacklist with.

Maybe 'permanent' isn't the best tag because it's too vague on its own, but it still feels like it's trying to fill a void that isn't well defined otherwise. Or maybe we already have good alternative tags that I'm unaware of.

Watsit

Privileged

beholding said:
Personally, my reasoning is that a lore tag is worthwhile if it's something that changes how the art is perceived, especially if it's something uncomfortable that people might want to blacklist, such as incest. Permanence satisfies both of these criteria.

I personally look at whether it's important "need to know" information, that largely extends beyond the given post. Something like incest is important enough to most people, as both a positive (kink) and negative (squick), and the canonical status of two characters as siblings or parent/child or whatever else carries through to other images of them. Similarly for gender identity, it's important to most people to know how to refer to characters and it carries over to other images of them. Unseen sexual attributes too (e.g. tagging an ambiguous-looking character as male_(lore) or female_(lore)), as it relays information about what genitals a character has that other images of them may show, for people to set their expectations appropriately.

A one-off "permanent" status doesn't really fit this. With transformations, chastity, etc, what you see is what you get. It doesn't really change the context of the piece beyond what you can already see, and it's not really relevant to other images of the character.

Beholding

Member

donovan_dmc said:
water_bottle_(lore) changes how a bottle sitting on a table is perceived, but that doesn't make it a valid lore tag

Okay fine, something that significantly changes the emotional response to an image, like incest does (currently the only fetish lore tag we have and thus the only precedent we have to work with).

watsit said:
I personally look at whether it's important "need to know" information, that largely extends beyond the given post. Something like incest is important enough to most people, as both a positive (kink) and negative (squick), and the canonical status of two characters as siblings or parent/child or whatever else carries through to other images of them. Similarly for gender identity, it's important to most people to know how to refer to characters and it carries over to other images of them. Unseen sexual attributes too (e.g. tagging an ambiguous-looking character as male_(lore) or female_(lore)), as it relays information about what genitals a character has that other images of them may show, for people to set their expectations appropriately.

A one-off "permanent" status doesn't really fit this. With transformations, chastity, etc, what you see is what you get. It doesn't really change the context of the piece beyond what you can already see, and it's not really relevant to other images of the character.

I agree with your framework, but I disagree that permanence does not satisfy any of these criteria. It is both a kink and a squick for a lot of people, else it wouldn't have nearly 2000 uses, and it absolutely does "change the context of the piece beyond what you can already see". Do you really think there's no emotional difference between someone getting transformed for a single day and someone getting transformed for the rest of their life? This makes as much sense as saying there's no point in an incest tag because it's still just people having sex -- "What you see is what you get."

Tangent:

(just as a character saying "I'm banging my mom" while having sex with a mature-looking woman doesn't inherently make incest_(lore) applicable, as they could be lying, or talking in an adoptive mother context)

I've already explained why this is unreasonable and would make tagging impossible if carried to its logical conclusion. If it's not reasonable to tag a flat-chested character with visible bulge as ambiguous_gender with the argument it's theoretically possible they could be a maleherm or an andromorph wearing a packer, it's not reasonable to say we can't use dialogue as a basis for anything because it's theoretically possible everyone is lying.

Also, we do in fact have a general tag for the exact scenario you described: stated_incest. As you pointed out in the thread I linked, that avoids your concerns because the tag makes no assumptions about whether or not it's true, just that it's stated. We could do something similar with permanence.

(At this point we might want to propose an actual BUR to make a permanence lore tag, or move this to the lore tag crowdsourcing thread.)

Clawstripe

Janitor

beholding said:
Okay fine, something that significantly changes the emotional response to an image, like incest does (currently the only fetish lore tag we have and thus the only precedent we have to work with).

I agree with your framework, but I disagree that permanence does not satisfy any of these criteria. It is both a kink and a squick for a lot of people, else it wouldn't have nearly 2000 uses, and it absolutely does "change the context of the piece beyond what you can already see". Do you really think there's no emotional difference between someone getting transformed for a single day and someone getting transformed for the rest of their life?

Again, what is being permanent? All permanent says is that something in the image is supposed to be permanent. Your argument would be better off used for tags that specify what is being permanent: permanent_chastity, permanent_smile, glued_in_place, permanent_marker, whatever. Indeed, this would allow more flexibility in finding an adjective that would better satisfy all sides as it would allow taggers to break down how something can be shown as being permanent/long lasting/effectively-permanent-in-our-perceived-framework-of-reality instead of just slapping an ambiguous permanent on the image and calling it a day.

Beholding

Member

clawstripe said:
Again, what is being permanent? All permanent says is that something in the image is supposed to be permanent. Your argument would be better off used for tags that specify what is being permanent: permanent_chastity, permanent_smile, glued_in_place, permanent_marker, whatever. Indeed, this would allow more flexibility in finding an adjective that would better satisfy all sides as it would allow taggers to break down how something can be shown as being permanent/long lasting/effectively-permanent-in-our-perceived-framework-of-reality instead of just slapping an ambiguous permanent on the image and calling it a day.

Why not both? permanent would be useful for blacklisting purposes as an umbrella tag for those more specific scenarios.

TheGreatWolfgang

Privileged

beholding said:
I am once again asking what is the purpose of lore tags, then. Who decides what's a valid lore tag and what's a "dumping ground"? Do you have hard criteria for this or is it just vibes?

See topic #23515, I believe it is still in use and valid ever since the introduction of lore tags.
There is no hard criteria set for lore tags, but it is indeed based around "vibes" of whether or not it fits with the current list of lore tags (i.e., gender, age, & familial relations).

The most important thing you have to understand is that the lore tags are primarily based on the character's lore, not what is coincidentally on the scene that does not fit TWYS.
Second to that, lore tags should "provide information that is either incorrect when following TWYS, or simply cannot be confirmed visually in the image itself, yet still relevant to the post." (see lore tag category).

While all lore tags "break" TWYS, it does not mean that all other tags that "break" TWYS should be turned into a lore tag (quote "Lore tags aren't just a dumping ground for things that don't fit TWYS.").

beholding said:
Okay fine, something that significantly changes the emotional response to an image, like incest does (currently the only fetish lore tag we have and thus the only precedent we have to work with).

...

(At this point we might want to propose an actual BUR to make a permanence lore tag, or move this to the lore tag crowdsourcing thread.)

Regardless of its possible viability, it does not fit into the lore category because it is not a tag "based on a character's lore", like how all the other lore tags are.

Permanent is simply a tag that, as you say, describes a somewhat niche kink of "permanence" which could vaguely include other non-lore-based tags like permanent_chastity, permanent_smile, etc.

IMO, the tag should be aliased to permanent_(disambiguation) since it is (a) vague in naming even as an umbrella tag and (b) does not form any coherent definition that is based around its subtags other than the idea of "permanence", which could theoretically range from getting a simple permanent tattoo to a more extreme identity_death.

More discussions on topic #61614.

Updated

Beholding

Member

thegreatwolfgang said:
See topic #23515, I believe it is still in use and valid ever since the introduction of lore tags.
There is no hard criteria set for lore tags, but it is indeed based around "vibes" of whether or not it fits with the current list of lore tags (i.e., gender, age, & familial relations).

The most important thing you have to understand is that the lore tags are primarily based on the character's lore, not what is coincidentally on the scene that does not fit TWYS.

I've told you multiple times how absurd it is to expect people to follow years-old forum posts over official rule pages, which make no mention of this and in fact directly contradict it:

Help: Lore Tags
Whenever a submission must be tagged as something that is "wrong" a lore tag should be added to provide the correct information. In the same vein, if a submission has further information that is relevant to the image, such for example the incest fetish being present this information should also be added so that people can either specifically search for it, or avoid it via their blacklist.

My bottom line is that the primary goal of any rule or regulation here should be to enhance usability of the site. Currently, there is a gap where people can't search/blacklist certain content because it doesn't mesh with TWYS. Lore tags can fill this gap. Why shouldn't they?

Donovan DMC

Former Staff

beholding said:

thegreatwolfgang said:
See topic #23515, I believe it is still in use and valid ever since the introduction of lore tags.
There is no hard criteria set for lore tags, but it is indeed based around "vibes" of whether or not it fits with the current list of lore tags (i.e., gender, age, & familial relations).

The most important thing you have to understand is that the lore tags are primarily based on the character's lore, not what is coincidentally on the scene that does not fit TWYS.

I've told you multiple times how absurd it is to expect people to follow years-old forum posts over official rule pages, which make no mention of this and in fact directly contradict it:

Help: Lore Tags
Whenever a submission must be tagged as something that is "wrong" a lore tag should be added to provide the correct information. In the same vein, if a submission has further information that is relevant to the image, such for example the incest fetish being present this information should also be added so that people can either specifically search for it, or avoid it via their blacklist.

My bottom line is that the primary goal of any rule or regulation here should be to enhance usability of the site. Currently, there is a gap where people can't search/blacklist certain content because it doesn't mesh with TWYS. Lore tags can fill this gap. Why shouldn't they?

You're quoting a help page that was created literally 6 years ago and has not been touched since
https://e621.net/wiki_page_versions?search%5Bwiki_page_id%5D=29689 (created just a month after the topic)

I also don't see how this random help page is somehow the only thing that gets to qualify as "official rules"? (in fact, the help page actively links to the topic)
The topic was literally created by the head admin, if anything each are as official as the other , and furthermore the topic has been expanded on and is actively where lore tags and how they function is/was discussed

When multiple people are telling you this isn't how lore tags work, maybe you should listen to them rather than some crusty help page that was clearly forgotten about?
That help page also really doesn't help your point, it's very vague and can be twisted to "prove" any point about lore tags

Or, if you don't like listening to normal users, listen to staff members. Me. I was staff. This is not how lore tags work

Updated

TheGreatWolfgang

Privileged

beholding said:
I've told you multiple times how absurd it is to expect people to follow years-old forum posts over official rule pages, which make no mention of this and in fact directly contradict it:

My bottom line is that the primary goal of any rule or regulation here should be to enhance usability of the site. Currently, there is a gap where people can't search/blacklist certain content because it doesn't mesh with TWYS. Lore tags can fill this gap. Why shouldn't they?

You can't keep using the excuse that, just because something isn't written in stone by an admin on an official page, you wouldn't follow it.
Everything about site practices get discussed on the forum all the time and not everything gets a wiki page of their own if it isn't too important.
If a practice is commonly agreed on (such as creating disambiguation tags or creating sets for niche tags), we would often just point to the existing discussion and advice users accordingly.

The very "rule page" you have linked even points to the years-old forum topic I linked, so the points on there are still relevant.
While neither pages specifically mention lore tags must be "based on the character's lore", functionally all of the currently accepted lore tags are as such (i.e., gender, age, familial relations).

Initially, the lore tags were only for general tag contradictions, such as between gender and gender_(lore).
That's why the help page mentions the first line, "Whenever a submission must be tagged as something that is "wrong" a lore tag should be added to provide the correct information."
After that, we opened up for familial relations and tags related to incest, which do not rely on any existing contradictions in the general tags.
That's why the help page mentions the second line, "...if a submission has further information that is relevant to the image, such for example the incest fetish being present this information should also be added so that people can either specifically search for it, or avoid it via their blacklist."

From that point on, we have mostly failed to introduce any new tags into the lore category.
This is mostly because of the "vibes" thing mentioned earlier and partly because there has yet to be a compelling argument made to introduce more of them.
So far, the most promising addition to lore tag is your consensual_(lore)/nonconsensual_(lore) suggestion on topic #54574, but that's about it I think.
In contrast, the current argument for making a permanence_(lore) tag seems trivial at best.

Beholding

Member

thegreatwolfgang said:
You can't keep using the excuse that, just because something isn't written in stone by an admin on an official page, you wouldn't follow it.

Yes I can, because that is how rules work. Expecting people to completely disregard official pages is insane. Official pages are official rules, that is their entire purpose. If the official pages are wrong, they need to be updated. Forum posts are terrible places to store official guidelines, not only because they can be scattered across an arbitrary number of threads, but because forum threads are subject to ongoing discussion. If a forum discussion comes to a definitive conclusion, that conclusion should be codified and placed in a more accessible location so that future users don't have to read through the entire discussion or revive a resolved discussion.

The very "rule page" you have linked even points to the years-old forum topic I linked, so the points on there are still relevant.

Except the rule page and the forum topic directly contradict each other, so which is correct? NotMeNotYou wrote both, so Donovan, your argument of "I'm staff and I said so" does not hold water; NotMeNotYou is also staff and they said the opposite. The only meaningful difference between the two is time, and given the rule page was made after the forum topic, it's only reasonable to conclude it's the more current version.

As always, this would be solved in an instant if the rule page were just updated. If the rule page is wrong, I don't understand why the admins think it's a good idea to leave incorrect information on such an accessible page.

While neither pages specifically mention lore tags must be "based on the character's lore", functionally all of the currently accepted lore tags are as such (i.e., gender, age, familial relations).

So you acknowledge this isn't a set-in-stone definition of How Lore Tags Must Be, it's just that you personally feel that all future lore tags should maintain consistency with the ones we currently have. Well, sorry, but I don't. "We haven't done this thing before" is not in and of itself a reason not to do something.

In contrast, the current argument for making a permanence_(lore) tag seems trivial at best.

To quote myself:

My bottom line is that the primary goal of any rule or regulation here should be to enhance usability of the site. Currently, there is a gap where people can't search/blacklist certain content because it doesn't mesh with TWYS. Lore tags can fill this gap. Why shouldn't they?

Do you really think "Users should be able to find the content they want on an art archive" is a "trivial" argument?

Dinbyy

Member

sylenial said:
Maybe 'permanent' isn't the best tag because it's too vague on its own, but it still feels like it's trying to fill a void that isn't well defined otherwise. Or maybe we already have good alternative tags that I'm unaware of.

There are a lot of situations involving a permanent change as made by the creator of the content. Chastity, cursed equips, tf, vore, slavery, mind altering... the list goes on.

As a lore tag it would likely be used when the creator wanted something to be told as permanent, and could be useful for people looking for it. Though it's also junk since an image doesn't need to twys for it to apply. Like, a person can plainly get chastised, cursed, tf'd, digested, enslaved, mind altered, and it wouldn't have to be apparent to the viewer its perma at all but the author intended so? That's not really great.

I think there would be much good for there to be tags for each perma thing, but it would have to be twys and not lore.

Donovan DMC

Former Staff

beholding said:

thegreatwolfgang said:
You can't keep using the excuse that, just because something isn't written in stone by an admin on an official page, you wouldn't follow it.

Yes I can, because that is how rules work. Expecting people to completely disregard official pages is insane. Official pages are official rules, that is their entire purpose. If the official pages are wrong, they need to be updated.

Considering help pages are not kept up to date, looking at a 6 year old help page most staff probably don't even remember exists and yelling "LOOK!!!! YOU'RE WRONG!!" is in no way constructive. Tagging in its entirety is a community project, if a majority of the community decides something should be applied a certain way, then without staff intervention to deny that change, that is the new normal

This should not be foreign, it has been pointed out to you numerous times that this is how the site works

beholding said:
Forum posts are terrible places to store official guidelines, not only because they can be scattered across an arbitrary number of threads, but because forum threads are subject to ongoing discussion. If a forum discussion comes to a definitive conclusion, that conclusion should be codified and placed in a more accessible location so that future users don't have to read through the entire discussion or revive a resolved discussion.

Yes they are subject to "ongoing discussion", that is literally the point of that topic. There is no conclusion, and there likely never will be
Practically nothing about lore tags has been set in stone, the things being mentioned are not hard rules

You're getting pushback from the people that actually handle tagging on the site, which is where most actual decisions on how/when tags apply, and what kinds of tags get made happen
It is exceedingly rare to have a hard rule for anything tagging based, most of the existing actual rules do not pertain to tagging, and the ones that do apply broadly (spam/twys/bad category changes/etc) and are not for specific details on how tags are used

beholding said:

The very "rule page" you have linked even points to the years-old forum topic I linked, so the points on there are still relevant.

Except the rule page and the forum topic directly contradict each other, so which is correct? NotMeNotYou wrote both, so Donovan, your argument of "I'm staff and I said so" does not hold water; NotMeNotYou is also staff and they said the opposite. The only meaningful difference between the two is time, and given the rule page was made after the forum topic, it's only reasonable to conclude it's the more current version.

How is a help page written 6 years ago and promptly forgotten about the most current version? So what if it was written after the topic was created, the discussion was still actively going on 4 years after the topic and help page were created

beholding said:
As always, this would be solved in an instant if the rule page were just updated. If the rule page is wrong, I don't understand why the admins think it's a good idea to leave incorrect information on such an accessible page.

Most of the admins likely have no idea the page even exists, and the ones that do likely haven't bothered to read its content to check it against how lore tags are actually used right now
Most of the help pages are out of date by some amount, there's only one or two staff that would bother to take the time to look over them for correctness, and that has only happened to the sections important to the wider userbase like the search cheatsheet

beholding said:

While neither pages specifically mention lore tags must be "based on the character's lore", functionally all of the currently accepted lore tags are as such (i.e., gender, age, familial relations).

So you acknowledge this isn't a set-in-stone definition of How Lore Tags Must Be, it's just that you personally feel that all future lore tags should maintain consistency with the ones we currently have. Well, sorry, but I don't. "We haven't done this thing before" is not in and of itself a reason not to do something.

This is once again, how the site works. This is how it has worked for years. Staff step in when a ruling is needed, else tagging is entirely self sufficient within the community and does not require hard rules, like you keep insisting it does

thegreatwolfgang said:
You can't keep using the excuse that, just because something isn't written in stone by an admin on an official page, you wouldn't follow it.
Everything about site practices get discussed on the forum all the time and not everything gets a wiki page of their own if it isn't too important.
If a practice is commonly agreed on (such as creating disambiguation tags or creating sets for niche tags), we would often just point to the existing discussion and advice users accordingly.

Neither of the practices listed as an example here are listed in any "rules", because they aren't rules, they're how the community has chosen to self govern, and they are what has stuck

We literally crawled out of a purge on disambiguation tags a few years ago, they came back because the community opinion on them broadly shifted, proving once more most tagging practices are decided by the community rather than some decision coming down from the staff

I'm not sure why you seem hellbent on denying how the site visibly works. Just look around, it should be plainly obvious

beholding said:

In contrast, the current argument for making a permanence_(lore) tag seems trivial at best.

To quote myself:

My bottom line is that the primary goal of any rule or regulation here should be to enhance usability of the site. Currently, there is a gap where people can't search/blacklist certain content because it doesn't mesh with TWYS. Lore tags can fill this gap. Why shouldn't they?

Do you really think "Users should be able to find the content they want on an art archive" is a "trivial" argument?

This seems about as valuable as mammal for blacklisting/searching considering how wide the net of "permanent" is

Updated

TheGreatWolfgang

Privileged

beholding said:
Yes I can, because that is how rules work. Expecting people to completely disregard official pages is insane. Official pages are official rules, that is their entire purpose. If the official pages are wrong, they need to be updated.

At no point did anybody tell you to completely disregard official pages. And let's get things straight, those are help pages which help guide you on a given topic, not rule pages which dictate fixed site rules.
Even if a help page supposedly contains inadequate/wrong information, where else do you think we could clarify it?

Your constant and persistent refusal to accept whatever is told to you on the forum and your insistence of having everything written down for you through official pages is only going to be a major roadblock for yourself when it comes to learning how thing work on the site.

Forum posts are terrible places to store official guidelines, not only because they can be scattered across an arbitrary number of threads, but because forum threads are subject to ongoing discussion. If a forum discussion comes to a definitive conclusion, that conclusion should be codified and placed in a more accessible location so that future users don't have to read through the entire discussion or revive a resolved discussion.

When something is important, it gets pinned on the forum. You can see the numerous pinned threads now on the top of the page, some of which contains official guidelines.

The one about lore tags, topic #23515, was pinned on the forum for almost 3 years before being unpinned to make room for other more pertinent threads.
It still remains as the go-to thread for requesting lore tags as advised on help pages.

Most AIBUR listings have their relevant forum topics/discussions attached next to them, which can be easily pulled up without having to go through the forum search.

So yes, almost everything regarding the inner workings of the site goes through the forum.
It is up to you whether or not you choose to acknowledge it, not up to whether or not it would be easy for future users to access them.

So you acknowledge this isn't a set-in-stone definition of How Lore Tags Must Be, it's just that you personally feel that all future lore tags should maintain consistency with the ones we currently have. Well, sorry, but I don't. "We haven't done this thing before" is not in and of itself a reason not to do something.

...

Do you really think "Users should be able to find the content they want on an art archive" is a "trivial" argument?

Yes, the definition for lore tags is still not set in stone, as evident by how I mentioned that the definition evolved with the inclusion of familial relations and incest-related tags.

And yes, I do still feel it is trivial to include such things in the lore category as I'm not fully convinced that a category change is necessary.
Like I said on the other thread, a properly renamed tag could work just fine with its current definition. It can be in the general category without needing to be moved to lore.

As to the question of whether or not other people would feel the same sentiment in regard to lore tags, you just need to look at the various tags-to-lore suggestions you made.
Some can be successful if you have convinced people enough while some others not so much.

Watsit

Privileged

dinbyy said:
There are a lot of situations involving a permanent change as made by the creator of the content. Chastity, cursed equips, tf, vore, slavery, mind altering... the list goes on.

As a lore tag it would likely be used when the creator wanted something to be told as permanent, and could be useful for people looking for it. Though it's also junk since an image doesn't need to twys for it to apply. Like, a person can plainly get chastised, cursed, tf'd, digested, enslaved, mind altered, and it wouldn't have to be apparent to the viewer its perma at all but the author intended so? That's not really great.

The problem is, in the context of a single image, "permanent" is very muddy. Like, an artist can say a character is "permanently vore'd" in an image because it's their kink, but the character shows up in plenty of future images conspicuously not-vore'd because the artist wants them to be vored again and/or used for other things. It's not really permanent in a useful sense if it's only one post, but as a lore tag it would be based on artist say-so, as if it was some kind of AU. So what utility is there in having a "permanent" tag if there is no truly lasting permanence for the character(s) in question in most future posts? This would even cause a problem with blacklisting; to a viewer it doesn't appear any more permanent than any other vore image, and the character shows up again clearly showing it to be non-permanent, but someone blacklisting "permanent" would miss seeing posts at random for no real reason.

And even in cases where something is "permanent" for a character, a general tag is too broad to be useful. In a long-running comic series, if a character gets a scar on the eye at some point that persists for the rest of the series, that would be a permanent scar. Would it make sense to tag "permanent" for every image of the character's scar from that point on? Or something like pokemon_mystery_dungeon where it's a common trope that a human gets permanently transformed into a pokemon at or near the beginning of the story, would "permanent" need to be tagged on every post of the permanently-transformed human character? How about if the creator decides at the very end to have them transform back into a human, thereby invalidating the transformation having been permanent?

All this on top of people tagging "permanent" based on visual hints or dialog or vibes without the say-so of the artist. Images with a broken_key are also usually tagged permanent_chastity_device, or if a character says the chastity device is permanent, despite no affirmation from the artist that the chastity device is truly on the character permanently into the future, and even if the character shows up again without the chastity device. If there are visual elements at play, it's better to tag/use those visual elements specifically, rather than assuming they mean something more than is apparent.