Snowball maybe, but not snowman because that tag is used for the regular shape, not actually indicate the ones that are made from snow (post #817760, post #812944, etc).
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Snowball maybe, but not snowman because that tag is used for the regular shape, not actually indicate the ones that are made from snow (post #817760, post #812944, etc).
It just adds fuel for my argument that the tag will become something that incorporates such wildly different image objects that the links under its wiki becomes more valuable than the tag itself. Why not just include the links under each snow tags' wiki instead, and not help to create a useless umbrella tag.
I don't see how it adds anything to your argument that falling snow is not snow. Sensible umbrella tags are standard Danbooru usage and enhance instinctive searching.
rantuyetmai said:
Snowball maybe, but not snowman because that tag is used for the regular shape, not actually indicate the ones that are made from snow (post #817760, post #812944, etc).
Since we've already determined that a crescent_moon is not the same as a crescent, I find this argument dubious. We have recent precedent for the distinction between symbols and the objects they make reference to.
rantuyetmai said:
I don't see how it adds anything to your argument that falling snow is not snow. Sensible umbrella tags are standard Danbooru usage and enhance instinctive searching.
No, see the problem isn't that they these objects aren't made of snow. The problem is that you're making a tag that umbrellas fairly different depictions, with the only unifying concept that they're made of snow. While there are other cases like this, the fact is that "snow" itself is hardly useful enough as an image element to warrant unifying the wide variety of different kinds of objects that could be made of snow. The individual specific image elements like snowball, ground snow, falling snow are individually much more significant in labeling the image than the broader umbrella tag you propose. Individually they tell a significant element in the image, the unifying concept that they're made of snow though tells actual little of what is in the image and as such insignificant. The only real values this umbrella tag would have is that it would contain a list of the subtags, but if you included this list into the individual tags, it then makes the umbrella completely useless.
The only value this umbrella tag has is that it promotes a slight ease of initial tagging, but the fact that users have already been failing to use the specific tags like snowing shows that such an umbrella tag will only serve as a tag to force other users to have to tag the subset tags that will actually offer a significant value in searches.
Sigh.
There are two fundamentally irreconcilable factions here and there always have been.
1) It's snow/tofu. It doesn't matter if it's falling/grounded, fried/unfried, implicate it. If you want something specific, accept the fact that you've got to search a little harder/longer. I want to see them all when I search snow/tofu because that's just what it is.
2) It's falling snow/fried tofu. State matters because I want to see less of the things I wasn't looking for. The goal of tags is precision and flexibility for those corner cases, and I don't want to see ground snow/unfried tofu when I search snow/tofu.
But you can't do both without resorting to tag hierarchies that necessitate tags like unfried_tofu and ground_snow, both implicated to a standard. That can be either totally intuitive or patently absurd based on the topic.
Weighed against each other, I'd say I find myself more sympathetic to the first group about 60% of the time, and to the second group 40% of the time.
In this case? Argh, I don't know. I've been going through forum threads for almost five hours and my anime backlog - I'm here because I watch anime after all - is growing (I haven't even watched Madoka 6 yet, fuck). Forgive me for not coming to a conclusion right now but this is really one of those cases where I wish we could decide with a coin toss or a poll. My feeling is that whichever we choose, the world won't end.
I think it's fine for you to delay the decision. I honestly felt pretty bad when I saw you started posting, and thinking about you having to go over the miles of text (in more than one thread) that I alone had posted.
jxh2154 said:
In this case? Argh, I don't know. I've been going through forum threads for almost five hours and my anime backlog - I'm here because I watch anime after all - is growing (I haven't even watched Madoka 6 yet, fuck).
Take your time. Watching Madoka should take priority.
Okay, sorry for the delay, didn't quite mean to disappear for a week. I need to check these forums more frequently (though I usually hit email at least once a day) but it's been really hard lately. Hooray for three-day weekends though.
I guess at the moment I'm feeling swayed by NWF's lake/rain example. I don't think it's a perfect comparison, because "lake" or "ocean" or "pond" or "puddle" are immediately intuitive concepts understood as distinct from "rain" and nobody would think to tag them as each other. The same is not as immediately true of "snow" and "snowing". When solid precipitation (snowing, hailing) reaches the ground it's still called snow or hail, while liquid precipitation (raining) hitting the ground is no longer called rain. I wonder where sleet comes in... and maybe it depends on the size of the hail?
Isn't language fun?
But even so, I think I'd like to keep them separate tags per NWF's suggestion. I would think quite a large number of posts would have both, but not all. The only other real alternative was ground_snow but I can't bring myself to embrace that tag for whatever reason.
Not the best example indeed but Renim's demonstration was perfect nonetheless (and I unsurprisingly entirely support what he and S1eth said).
Potentially, when deciding whether an umbrella tag is desirable:
> On one hand we have users missing content from counterintuitive tag usages and not checking wikis (not implicating).
> On the other hand we have inability to perform specific searches, and increased odds of undertagged subset tags, also leading to missed content or noise (implicating).
That's safety vs. functionality.
The compromise that users will never be informed enough, and posts will always remain undertagged (eventually forcing you to perform any search at the highest level) is simply not a good stance to me when you have people all over the site constantly working against this.
If we intend all tags to have a wiki, maybe it's time to start blaming users for not looking at them.
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