It's come to my attention that a there's a new character tag, taihou_(forbidden_feast)_(azur_lane), created by @ampzz. As far as I know, that's just a skin for the character in-game, not a different character, and the search results don't seem different from taihou_(azur_lane) red_dress or similar combinations such as taihou_(azur_lane) cocktail_dress.

If it is the case, then I don't think every skin of a game character is worthy of its own character tag, and that this one in particular is redundant.

It's just following the convention of similar games like FGO, where characters regularly get new designs and as a result get a lot of fanart. It might be more or less appropriate in this case, but convention can be useful with tagging and searching sometimes.

I'm the one who started the practice of tagging skins for Azur Lane characters. I've been doing it for the same reason we do it for other franchises: being able to find specific skins is useful, and using gentags doesn't always cut it.

In general, most Azur Lane characters have multiple skins, and not all of them can be found easily with gentag searches. The only reason it works in this case is because it's the only skin she has (so far) and because I cleaned up the tagging on this character a while back, specifically so I could find this skin. Many posts weren't tagged correctly before - either they were missing red dress, or they were mistagged as red dress when they were actually red kimono (her default outfit).

Even after gardening, taihou_(azur_lane) red_dress doesn't entirely work. There are false positives (post #3406107) and false negatives (post #3261893). There will always be corner cases like this where using gentags to find a skin doesn't completely work.

As for the issue that it's just a different outfit and not a "true" character - I don't think it matters. Ultimately calling something a chartag just means the tag is green. It doesn't necessarily mean it's a separate character.

In the past we've back and forth on whether alternate forms of characters should be tagged with gentags or chartags, but at this point I think we've basically settled on using chartags. See topic #11847, topic #8454, topic #3561 for the history of this with Touhou.

In the past we've back and forth on whether alternate forms of characters should be tagged with gentags or chartags, but at this point I think we've basically settled on using chartags. See topic #11847, topic #8454, topic #3561 for the history of this with Touhou.

Now, I haven't played Touhou before (yes, what am I doing here), but it seemed on those instances that the different character tags are an alternate persona of sorts, with meaningful differences with the original character, whether in this Taihou's particular case, it appears to be just a dress she happened to be wearing at a party.

I do find it pretty inconsistent to have different character tags for skins, which are usually some slightly different clothing, and not for remodels/retrofits, which are in fact a significant change in appearance that are often older or more developed than the original characters e.g. Yuudachi Kai Ni, which is much more popular than the non-remodeled version.

As for the category of the tag, it's not just about the color, but also the position it is on the page; by default, tags displayed on the sidebar follow a hierarchy, with decreasing generality and increasing number. I'd personally rather the character section contained only the information needed to identify characters present at an image, not cluttered with tags about their clothing, but of course I have no say in the whole thing.

For searching purposes, it's useful to be able to find all visually distinct appearances of a character, whether they're different personas or different outfits. There's precedence for this in a lot of places:

• Touhou: *_(pc-98) characters and Tanned Cirno are just alternate character designs from specific games.
• Vocaloid: Hatsune Miku has many alternate designs, including Hatsune Miku (Append), Yuki Miku, Sakura Miku, and Racing Miku.
• Kantai Collection: Certain named remodels get chartags (Verniy, among others).
• Overwatch: We have chartags for every skin (nearly 200 in total).
• League of Legends: Similar to Overwatch, most popular characters have 5-10+ chartags for every alternate skin.
• Precure and Sailor Moon: magical girl characters usually have chartags for their magical girl forms.

I think it's arbitrary to say that some variations of a character get tags and some don't, based on whether or not their persona has somehow changed enough. It's not always an easy distinction to make, and for Danbooru purposes, the important thing is just to be able to find specific character designs.

I do find it pretty inconsistent to have different character tags for skins, which are usually some slightly different clothing, and not for remodels/retrofits, which are in fact a significant change in appearance that are often older or more developed than the original characters e.g. Yuudachi Kai Ni, which is much more popular than the non-remodeled version.

I don't think Kancolle sets a good example. The rule there seems to be that a remodel gets a tag if their name changes, regardless of what else changes. That's not a good basis for tagging.

As for the category of the tag, it's not just about the color, but also the position it is on the page; by default, tags displayed on the sidebar follow a hierarchy, with decreasing generality and increasing number. I'd personally rather the character section contained only the information needed to identify characters present at an image, not cluttered with tags about their clothing, but of course I have no say in the whole thing.

We use gentags for certain Fate skins. It's terrible. See the craft essence list in the Fate/Grand Order wiki. You get incredibly generic tags like olympian bloomers, show time, water shine or tropical summer. They're highly ambiguous and highly confusing. You have no idea what these tags are when you see them in a tag list.

I used the naming scheme prinz eugen (unfading smile) (azur lane) rather than unfading smile to avoid those issues. It avoids ambiguity, it's clear what the tags mean, and it's easier to find in autocomplete. It follows that if a tag is named prinz eugen (unfading smile) (azur lane), it makes more sense for it to be a chartag than a gentag.

Chartags for every version of a fate character are one of the reasons why I still have no idea who anyone in the series is, despite seeing fate art uploaded here every day

On a separate point: besides the examples given, another place we use gentags for costumes is certain idol series; we have for example bokura_wa_ima_no_naka_de and cute_&_girly_(idolmaster). Those always apply to multiple characters, though, so it's kind of a separate case.

Fate is an exceptional case. Fate tagging is a mess because Fate lore is a mess. Most franchises aren't as convoluted.

Azur Lane is relatively straightforward. You have a bunch of a characters and some have a few different skins. That's it.

It's more comparable to Overwatch, where again, we have tags for nearly 200 different skins and it's fine. They exist because it's hard to find specific skins otherwise, and they're chartags just so that they're at the top of the tag list instead of the bottom. People understand that Witch Mercy, for example, is just a skin for Mercy, not a different person, and that it's only a chartag for convenience.

Somewhat related, I wish Kaga_(Battleship)_(azur_lane) would imply kaga_(azur_lane) since BB!Kaga is just a younger version of Kaga, not a different character altogether.

Klaudandus said:

Somewhat related, I wish Kaga_(Battleship)_(azur_lane) would imply kaga_(azur_lane) since BB!Kaga is just a younger version of Kaga, not a different character altogether.

They are treated as entirely separate characters in Azur Lane though?
If you get one of them you don't automatically get them both since their classifications are completely different.

This is so uneccessary.
The justification for FGO is that the different servant versions aren't the same identity.
In this case it's still the same character and identity.

Just have regular tags for those but messing up (again and further) the cosplay tags is also not really desireable.
or make regular general tags. Just having them as general tags wouldn't create a new *_(cosplay) tag which should be desired.

ampzz said:

They are treated as entirely separate characters in Azur Lane though?
If you get one of them you don't automatically get them both since their classifications are completely different.

Yes that's the point. Also I do believe this "tag" is too unnecessary because if so... This would reflect to "Kancolle" as well, as they had more various outfits from different girls already.

The only ones that does really befit this are Kaga as a Battleship and the younger Bel-chan. Anything else is just "She is wearing a different outfit"

T34/38 said:

Yes that's the point. Also I do believe this "tag" is too unnecessary because if so... This would reflect to "Kancolle" as well, as they had more various outfits from different girls already.

The only ones that does really befit this are Kaga as a Battleship and the younger Bel-chan. Anything else is just "She is wearing a different outfit"

KanColle doesn't actually have names for the alternate outfits wherein Azur Lane, and Girls' Frontline do since they are at the end of the day - a purchased product. I was just going with the flow of all this anyhow so I'm non-fussed over it.

The only reason I never bothered to go through all the Girls' Frontline costumes was since I thought just having the character name + alternate_costume would suffice for any of the released skins.

If it ends up being turned into a gentag then I'd be thankful if the same thing happened to Fate/'s disgusting mess of a chartag spam.

My (somewhat weak) preference is to keep them as character tags. We're dealing with designs that are going to be applied to 1 character 99% of the time, so I think it only makes sense to link them together. Is the current wiki documentation, such as the lists on saber or list of vocaloid derivatives, not enough to clear up confusion?

If we do convert them to general tags, qualifiers are inevitably going to be necessary. I clean up the punkish gothic tag from time to time because people keep assuming it's punk + gothic and not a copyright-specific tag.

The Idolmaster Cinderella Girls franchise also has named alternate costumes for its characters, and I've considered adding them, but I suspect dealing with 12+ new tags per character would make taggers suicidal.

feline_lump said:

If we do convert them to general tags, qualifiers are inevitably going to be necessary. I clean up the punkish gothic tag from time to time because people keep assuming it's punk + gothic and not a copyright-specific tag.

Sounds like that tag could benefit from having an (idolmaster) qualifier.

As for keeping these tags as character tags I don't care much either way but I'm leaning towards character for the reasons evazion brought up.

I just don't see why we should create one more uneccessary *_(cosplay) tags.
This already works well with royal icing or dangerous beast. They are just costumes applied to Fate characters and it was once decided to turn dangerous beast into a gentag when it was a chartag.

Lacrimosa said:

I just don't see why we should create one more uneccessary *_(cosplay) tags.
This already works well with royal icing or dangerous beast. They are just costumes applied to Fate characters and it was once decided to turn dangerous beast into a gentag when it was a chartag.

We haven't created any *_(cosplay) tags as a result of this decision. post #3263714 uses taihou (forbidden feast) (azur lane) and taihou (azur lane) (cosplay).

I do agree that specialized tags would help in trying to find specific variants of outfits, and I do appreciate on some level the sheer effort that went into tagging them, but...

Fundamentally I don't feel separate chartags are necessary. Or at least not worth the cost of cluttering up chartags. This complicates chartag number searches even more, and more annoyingly, CLUTTERS UP autocomplete tags seriously, spilling over to Kancolle (and Warship Girls and other related games) since all the characters share the same ship namesakes.

With the rate of skins coming up, the list will be filled full with Azur Lane charskins, making it highly annoying to use autocomplete tags.

Most of the specific skins can be searched for by using character + several outfit-related gentags. Dress or maybe cocktail_dress for Taihou's forbidden feast outfit, and black_bikini for whatever-Eugen-swimsuit-wear-is-I-don't-remember. Now, this isn't perfect due to mistaggings and false positives, but this is the same for other copyrights like Touhou (like trying to look for Remi's 'popehat' CoLA outfit).

A lot of the skin's names are also non-descriptive and hard to remember. They are named to draw attention when marketing them to player, not to aid description. This makes it even more highly frustrating for the average user to remember the 3 or so extra skin tags (which may soon balloon to 10+ the way they release new skins to generate revenue), never mind the sheer potential amount.

For the above two reasons (outfit tag + char being good for most purposes like in other copyrights, and the idiosyncratic hard to remember names), I'm also against having it as a gentag except for some particularly notable outfits on a case-by-case basis (and the skin is named in a descriptive enough and unique enough manner to avoid confusion).

Otherwise, chartags are going to be filled with things like Remilia_Scarlet_(Curiosities_of_Lotus_Asia), Sado_(Setsubun)_(Kantai_Collection), Venom_Snake_(tuxedo) (that one's even a named DLC skin!), Makarov_(Pumpkin_Mishka)_(Girls_Frontline), Vittorio_Veneto_(qipao)_(Warship_Girls_R), Enterprise_(Starlight_Oath)_(Azur_Lane), Leon_S_Kennedy_(pirate)_(Resident_Evil_6), etc. etc. and all the tens to hundreds possible outfits/skins, PER character.

Enjoy scrolling the list (and accidentally misclicking unless you squint through the multiple similar lines) when you type out tags for autocomplete.

feline_lump said:

My (somewhat weak) preference is to keep them as character tags. We're dealing with designs that are going to be applied to 1 character 99% of the time, so I think it only makes sense to link them together. Is the current wiki documentation, such as the lists on saber or list of vocaloid derivatives, not enough to clear up confusion?

There's a third option — no chartag, no specific gentag, just tag the clothes.

feline_lump said:

If we do convert them to general tags, qualifiers are inevitably going to be necessary. I clean up the punkish gothic tag from time to time because people keep assuming it's punk + gothic and not a copyright-specific tag.

This here would seem to indicate that the tag is poorly-named. Maybe it should be renamed to punkish_gothic_(idolmaster) instead.

--

Now to sum it up, chartags are used to tag characters. Alternate persona(e) of a character may have sufficient weight to stand as separate characters in of themselves, such as when they're performing another role under disguise (all the superhero/alter-ego tags including magical girls), an alternate self from an alternate timeline (code_g_(azur_lane)), a clone with a distinct personality (misaka_imouto), an alternate version of the character from a separate continuity (alice_margatroid_(pc-98). Fan-versions of characters may also be given separate chartags (usually when they are tagged consistently on Pixiv/Nico/etc, have different personalities from their canon selves, and/or are drawn in a specific way, like plasma-chan_(kantai_collection).) In any case, having different names for the alternate versions of the characters adds additional weight to term being considered for separate chartags.

Same character in a different outfit, no, not even if the outfit is named.

evazion said:

We use gentags for certain Fate skins. It's terrible. See the craft essence list in the Fate/Grand Order wiki. You get incredibly generic tags like olympian bloomers, show time, water shine or tropical summer. They're highly ambiguous and highly confusing. You have no idea what these tags are when you see them in a tag list.

I'm glad someone brought this up. It's incredibly frustrating to see posts with utterly misleading tags like water shine or royal icing and have to constantly check the wiki to make sure that someone isn't just making up new gentags we don't need. Every general tag pertaining to a copyright-specific costume or skin should have a qualifier to make it immediately obvious what the tag is meant for.

OK, I'm seeing the issues with keeping these as character tags now. To weigh our best options at the moment:

• Don't tag named costumes at all and revert to using descriptors. OK when an outfit has a single defining feature that practically never appears elsewhere. Not so much when it doesn't. artoria pendragon (swimsuit rider alter) is not saber alter + swimsuit. Also, generally inconvenient.
• Use character tags. This has the least potential for misuse, but severely bloats character count searches and search suggestions.
• Move single-character costumes to general tags along with the multiple-character ones. Because a lot of outfit names don't make sense out of context, this also necessitates qualifying any name that might not be immediately clear. Alternatively: Create a single general tag that encompasses a category of designs, like remodel (kantai collection).

Also, it's worth considering that virtually all of the highest-volume copyrights are affected by this:

• Touhou gives characters revamped outfits every time they appear in a new game, and frequently in spinoff media. Current practice is to tag specific copyrights, except for tanned cirno, who is named and would flood her copyright tag.
• Kantai Collection has remodels, tagged as remodel (kantai collection), and seasonal skins, which are not apparently tagged.
• Fate (series) not only has a massive amount of alternate timeline versions of the same characters, they also share status with a small number of alternate skins. Others are variously tagged as either character tags or general tags.
• Idolmaster began with a limited number of costumes shared across all characters, and ended up with an average of 20+ unique costumes for 200+ characters. The idolmaster (classic) costumes are general tags, and only a small number of newer ones are tagged at all.
• Vocaloid has a large number of legitimized fanmade designs. Ones attached to songs use copyright tags, and ones originating from Pixiv/Piapro/other art platforms get character tags.
• Pokemon has issues with multiple designs and interpretations of human characters. The anime, manga, and game versions of the player characters get separate character tags, while the other humans are searched by copyright. The creatures use alternate form and alolan form.
• Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica would represent the "preferred" case of a series sticking to consistent designs and having a modest amount of alternate forms, outside of spinoffs. It is in the minority.
• Love Live! has numerous alternate costumes as general tags, including both school uniforms and costumes for songs.
• Precure uses the Cures' names as character tags on top of the character name. In practice, this means that transformed Cures have two times the character tags they need, which is not especially practical for a series heavy on group shots.

Part of me wishes we could create a new tag type for costumes/skins just to standardize all of this nonsense and stop having forum spats. But that would be a huge ordeal on its own.

ampzz said:

They are treated as entirely separate characters in Azur Lane though?
If you get one of them you don't automatically get them both since their classifications are completely different.

Gameplay-wise, they're mechanically different as it is a gacha, but storywise, they're the same character.

The story in one of the game events shows flashbacks, this includes BB!Kaga as the events take place at the time before her conversion to Aircraft Carrier, and the events make it clear that at the end of the event, she goes thru the conversion, which is how we get the Kaga most people are familiar with.

If the event had been an alternate timeline where both can coexist at the same time, storywise, then I'd say yeah, they're completely different characters, instead, they're the same character, just at a different time in their lives.

The equivalent would be to have two different tags for Son Goku, one as a child and one as an adult.

Not saying Kaga_(battleship)_(azur_lane) should disappear as a tag, but instead that such tag implies Kaga_(azur_lane) as well

But that's just me.