Topic: Tag alias: young -> under_18

The tag alias #81902 young -> under_18 is pending approval.

Reason: Reason: This tag seems to get applied incorrectly quite often to posts containing characters at the younger end of adulthood.

The wiki clearly indicates, however, that it is used to describe characters clearly under the age of 18. In other words: non-adults.

By adding 'young' to the blacklist, everyone would be filtering posts that are often incorrectly tagged as 'young'. This is the issue I'm running into.

Blacklisting "under 18" content should be an easy thing to do without also filtering out some non-under 18 posts. Renaming the tag to better communicate what it's for would make the blacklist more effective by improving tagging reliability.

For this reason, I want to propose changing the name of the 'young' tag to 'under_18' (or something similarly obvious) to make it very clear what the purpose is behind the tag so it is more obvious to a user whether they are applying the tag correctly, since we realistically (and evidently) can't count on users reading the wiki first.

EDIT: We have solid arguments against "under_18" which I agree with.

Now looking for feedback on using "underage" instead which avoids the semantic issues associated with putting a number on it, but still aims to resolve the core issue raised here.

what about 1000-year old dragon lolis?

dba_afish said:
what about 1000-year old dragon lolis?

Arguement is that when users search for something, they expect to see that something, hence the rationale of 'Tag What You See'. If it looks under_18, then tag as such. Works the same, but opposite with blacklist. And users really should be able to reliably filter that stuff out if they don't want to see it.

But I can see now the semantic issues that come with putting a number on it. But I don't think that should downplay the functional, UX case being presented here.

What about using "underage" instead of "under_18"?

I don't think a rename is going to fix the blurry edge of older teens and early adults. I don't think there's any solution for it that'll work 100% of the time. There's too many factors at play ranging from style to species to just how a specific character looks.

regsmutt said:
I don't think a rename is going to fix the blurry edge of older teens and early adults. I don't think there's any solution for it that'll work 100% of the time. There's too many factors at play ranging from style to species to just how a specific character looks.

The blurry edge will always be there, that's not the issue this is addressing.

to quote the wiki entry

A blanket tag for characters who are "not adult" — characters who have a clear physical appearance of being under the age of 18, "underage", "minor", etc.

It's to prevent characters that are clearly adult, but on the younger end of adulthood from being incorrectly labelled as 'clearly underage.' That's the issue.

pewdiecrustlesspie said:
The blurry edge will always be there, that's not the issue this is addressing.

to quote the wiki entry
It's to prevent characters that are clearly adult, but on the younger end of adulthood from being incorrectly labelled as 'clearly underage.' That's the issue.

Changing the name of the tag isn't going to solve any perceived issues, in fact changing it to "under 18" will cause numerous more issues and DNPs ala cub, it's a more loaded term which should not be the direction of travel
Not to mention that applying "under 18" to fictional characters just doesn't work, the ages of fictional characters can be all over the place
We tag based on appearance, not age ("apparent age" is based on appearance)

I'm not a fan of putting a specific age number in the tag's name since it can be hard to determine on certain species, such as realistic feral animals.
For example, the average lifespan of a dog is 10-15 years, so it would technically mean they are all "under 18".
On the other hand, it is much easier to just describe them as appearing "young" for their species.

Moreover, I think people like artists & character owners would be more reluctant to tag, or have their arts be tagged, with a tag specifically called under_18 when they are already pushing back against being tagged with young.
It just doesn't appear good from an outsider's perspective, especially when artists who post here do not want to be known for creating "under 18" arts.

Also, baring in mind that a rename of young to any other term (like under_18) would require all subtags to follow suit (e.g., under_18_anthro, adult_on_under_18, under_18_penetrated).

thegreatwolfgang said:
I'm not a fan of putting a specific age number in the tag's name since it can be hard to determine on certain species, especially realistic feral animals.
For example, the average lifespan of a dog is 10-15 years, so it would technically mean they are all "under 18".
On the other hand, it is much easier to just describe them as appearing "young" for their species.

Also, baring in mind that a rename of young to any other term (like under_18) would require all subtags to follow suit (e.g., under_18_anthro, adult_on_under_18, under_18_penetrated).

Agree with arguments against "under_18". Updated the OP.
What about "underage" instead?
Type "underage" into the search bar, you'll see that there's already a large group of subtags using it. Incorporating "underage" would help standardize things.

pewdiecrustlesspie said:
Agree with arguments against "under_18". Updated the OP.
What about "underage" instead?
Type "underage" into the search bar, you'll see that there's already a large group of subtags using it. Incorporating "underage" would help standardize things.

The only reason any tags use it is because "young" doesn't work grammatically with them, else underage would not be used anywhere, because it has the same problems

I think really the biggest issue is that it is a vital tag for blacklisting and that 'adult-looking characters incorrectly tagged young' is less of a problem than 'cub art going untagged because of lore' is.

pewdiecrustlesspie said:
Agree with arguments against "under_18". Updated the OP.
What about "underage" instead?
Type "underage" into the search bar, you'll see that there's already a large group of subtags using it. Incorporating "underage" would help standardize things.

The term "underage" is usually tied to legal terms and may not be a reliable age indicator; e.g., underage_drinking and underage_smoking could be anyone under the age of 21 in the US.
Moreover, the definitions of underage can vary from the age of 16-21 across different states/countries and may be different based on the activities involved, so to "standardize things" on this front would be impossible.

Changing the subtags to underage/underaged also sounds odd; e.g., underage_on_underage, dominant_underage, underage_penetrated, underage_but_hung.

pewdiecrustlesspie said:
Agree with arguments against "under_18". Updated the OP.
What about "underage" instead?
Type "underage" into the search bar, you'll see that there's already a large group of subtags using it. Incorporating "underage" would help standardize things.

'underage' is a status classification hence not realy applicable under twys, also different societies have different legal standards as to what is underage.

'young' is a descriptor of ones appearance and as such is inclusive to characters outside of early age or are ageless.

'under 18' is like underage against twys(requires outside information to know age) and would exclude old or ageless characters. Also 'under 18' could also be misconstrued to be height(i.e. under 18 inches tall) or anything else really.

I'll just note that we have plans on the matter.