I noticed there's a =o and a =d tag alongside the :o and :d tags. Is there a difference between using these when the only difference is the eyes?

it doesn't look like most of the posts in =o are using |_| so it should probably just be nuked. For =d the pictures should be moved to :D + either |_| or ||_|| depending on how wide the eyes are.

=o and =d both look like they only exist because people keep repopulating them as alternatives to :o and :d. One user in particular seems especially fond of them, no matter how many times other users remove them.

Said user has actually been adding both =o+:o and =d+:d to posts, most if not all of which don't even feature "|_|" eyes at all, for like 2 years.

They don't appear to serve any irreplaceable function. Not only do we already have |_| and ||_|| tags for the eye shape, it appears that the primary user of these two tags hasn't even been paying attention to the eye shape as they regularly use both =o and :o or =d and :d at the same time, as in post #3883082.

Also, the existence of these tags may be a source of confusion, leading taggers to believe that =3 is equivalent to |_| :3 (it isn't).

Most other emoticon combo tags got purged in topic #14655, and these two were probably just missed. My vote is to mass-update them to their :o and :d equivalents after first ensuring that |_| and/or ||_|| have been tagged wherever necessary.

EDIT: Double-ninja'd

EDITx2: My fears about =3 have been confirmed by post #3025160. Ugh, what a mess.

iridescent_slime said:

EDITx2: My fears about =3 have been confirmed by post #3025160. Ugh, what a mess.

It's actually the same exact person that did that, meaning it's probably more intentional than just confusion.

blindVigil said:

It's actually the same exact person that did that.

I know, I found it while looking at their tag edits. @iLoveHentai626, you need to take a look at this thread.

Especially since the wiki explicitly states that =3 is a puff of smoke rather than :3.

Thanks for the responses, guys.

Edit: Also found :0 among others.

MegaFlare said:

Especially since the wiki explicitly states that =3 is a puff of smoke rather than :3.

=3 / fume / head_steam (I'm sure there's other tags for it) is another can of worm that will eventually need to be addressed. =3 is too ambiguous as a name and it easily causes confusion like in this case.

nonamethanks said:

=3 / fume / head_steam (I'm sure there's other tags for it) is another can of worm that will eventually need to be addressed. =3 is too ambiguous as a name and it easily causes confusion like in this case.

For what it's worth, taking a brief look through each tag, fume is like half and half things that could fit under =3 and things that couldn't, and head steam is something entirely different altogether, though I did see a handful of examples that might better fit under one of the other two.

Visible air is sometimes used for the above as well.