The bulk update request #2850 is pending approval.

Implying starter Pokémon.

I knew this would happen after I approved the Pokemon gen BUR.

First off, what does a starter_pokemon tag bring to the table? It's so meta it's better off as a wiki article, not a tag.

I agree that this is too meta. I feel like a lot of Pokemon tagging is becoming too meta.

I´m against the idea, that a bulbasaur cosplay would be tagged as starter pokemon, even if the specific pokemon (creature) isn´t visible in the image. For example post #2434203

Edit:
But I´m not against the tag, only against the implication.

I know it's not up to me whether we keep or delete group tags such as these, but at least I like starter_pokemon. I think it's a nice way to search for the Starter Pokémon tags at once. There are 78 Starter Pokémon (not counting forms such as Mega Venusaur that are implied to normal forms such as Venusaur).

As I mentioned on Discord some other day, I've been hoping to imply starter_pokemon_trio to starter_pokemon, and then talk about possibly deleting pool #4223 (Pokemon - Starter Trio). This would be like how pool #13460 (Legendary / Mythical Pokémon) was deleted in favor of legendary_pokemon and mythical_pokemon.

Guaro1238 said:

I´m against the idea, that a bulbasaur cosplay would be tagged as starter pokemon, even if the specific pokemon (creature) isn´t visible in the image. For example post #2434203

I'm not sure why not. That cosplay is of a Starter Pokémon. It's also a cosplay of a gen 1 Pokémon, hence the tag gen_1_pokemon in that post.

We can search starter_pokemon cosplay to see cosplays of Starter Pokémon. But to be fair, that search has also a fair share of starter Pokémon together with unrelated cosplays.

A cosplay of Latias is also tagged legendary_pokemon and gen_3_pokemon, as in post #2632761.

Danielx21 said:

I know it's not up to me whether we keep or delete group tags such as these, but at least I like starter_pokemon.

Of course you do: You created it.

I think it's a nice way to search for the Starter Pokémon tags at once. There are 78 Starter Pokémon (not counting forms such as Mega Venusaur that are implied to normal forms such as Venusaur).

Or you could look up the starters on Bulbapedia, figure out which starter you want to search for, then come back to Danbooru.

If you're a giant Pokenerd, you should've memorized all the starters, so a starter tag doesn't help the hardcore fans anyway.

I'm in agreement with Hillside Moose. This is better suited in a wiki article instead of a tag.

Hillside_Moose said:

If you're a giant Pokenerd, you should've memorized all the starters, so a starter tag doesn't help the hardcore fans anyway.

It helps to find them and do other kinds of searches. For instance: starter_pokemon gen_2_pokemon, or ash_ketchum starter_pokemon.

Even if you personally don't use them.

Danielx21 said:

It helps to find them and do other kinds of searches. For instance: starter_pokemon gen_2_pokemon, or ash_ketchum starter_pokemon.

Even if you personally don't use them.

It's not about me, it's about YOU. We're doing a lot of maintenance for tags that only YOU seem to use.

The searches you provided don't tell me anything useful. Take starter_pokemon gen_2_pokemon, for example. Ostensibly used to search for the Gen 2 Starters (Chikorita, Cyndaquil, Totodile and their evolutions), but you also get a bunch of results like post #3758837 and post #2677954. The starter_pokemon tag only tells you that a starter is present, but not which starter.

Again, decide on a starter, then work your way from there, instead of creating a bunch of hodgepodge tags that might get you a desired result.

Hillside_Moose said:

It's not about me, it's about YOU. We're doing a lot of maintenance for tags that only YOU seem to use.

It's a good point that if I'm the only person who uses something, delete it. I don't mind. But wait, may I ask what kinds of maintenance have you been doing, if any (other than accepting BURs)? I think I've been doing most of the work on Pokémon tags and wikis. (Except I didn't do some nice things like most Pokémon species descriptions and such, which other people did.)

If this BUR got accepted, it wouldn't even take any work to add starter_pokemon in new posts. The starter_pokemon would be added automatically. And, conversely, if we want that tag deleted, a single BUR could remove starter_pokemon from all posts. I'd prefer to keep it, but as you said, it could be only me.

Hillside_Moose said:

The searches you provided don't tell me anything useful. Take starter_pokemon gen_2_pokemon, for example. Ostensibly used to search for the Gen 2 Starters (Chikorita, Cyndaquil, Totodile and their evolutions), but you also get a bunch of results like post #3758837 and post #2677954. The starter_pokemon tag only tells you that a starter is present, but not which starter.

Again, decide on a starter, then work your way from there, instead of creating a bunch of hodgepodge tags that might get you a desired result.

Most posts in starter_pokemon gen_2_pokemon really have Gen 2 starters. I think you found a few rare exceptions that have G2 non-starters together with non-G2 starters.

Do you have any opinion as to keeping or deleting other tags for members of groups like gen_2_pokemon, legendary_pokemon, and mythical_pokemon? Maybe gym_leader and elite_four? If we delete starter_pokemon, will we keep starter_pokemon_trio? Or maybe the pool #4223 (Pokemon - Starter Trio)? (My opinion would probably be: keep both starter_pokemon and starter_pokemon_trio, and delete that pool.)

Although there is a similar tag on Pixiv, it's also not applied to every post there.

One of the problems with this tag is that it gives more information than is actually there. Posts with Dande_(Pokemon and his Charizard are tagged as starter pokemon when it really shouldn't be.

pool #4223 has a more focused purpose than the starter Pokemon trio tag as the tag is being applied to any post with a trio in it, even if that's not the point of the image. I don't see the tag as a suitable replacement.

I'm also really exhausted by all of these implications making me worry about every sub-compartmentalization of Pokemon and exasperated that it's been lionized by a single user. I'm really burnt out on Pokemon posts.

DreamFromTheLayer said:

One of the problems with this tag is that it gives more information than is actually there. Posts with Dande_(Pokemon) and his Charizard are tagged as starter pokemon when it really shouldn't be.

I honestly couldn't care much less about this tag one way or the other, but doesn't this statement make it problematic in and of itself? Either Charizard is a starter Pokemon or it isn't, it shouldn't matter who's with it or which Charizard it is. If we have the tag, it should fit cleanly, if it's highly context dependent that's a strong argument to not use it, or at the very least not to tie it down with aliases and implications that could go wrong.

Shinjidude said:

I honestly couldn't care much less about this tag one way or the other, but doesn't this statement make it problematic in and of itself? Either Charizard is a starter Pokemon or it isn't, it shouldn't matter who's with it or which Charizard it is. If we have the tag, it should fit cleanly, if it's highly context dependent that's a strong argument to not use it, or at the very least not to tie it down with aliases and implications that could go wrong.

I think Dream's point isn't that it's Dande's Charizard, but rather that it's a Charizard. I wouldn't mind a starter Pokémon tag, but Charizard isn't one of them. Neither is Wartortle, Ivysaur, Meganium nor any of the other evolved Pokémon on this list. A majority of people who know the term "starter Pokémon" use it for the Pokémon you receive at the start of each game. You don't get a Charmeleon or a Charizard, you get a Charmander.

DreamFromTheLayer said:

pool #4223 has a more focused purpose than the starter Pokemon trio tag as the tag is being applied to any post with a trio in it, even if that's not the point of the image. I don't see the tag as a suitable replacement.

I also feel that a pool is better for this tag. The point of both is to showcase posts featuring trios of starter evolutionary lines, but as a tag it's more intuitive to assume it should apply to any post with three starter Pokémon/their evolutions, which isn't why it exists. The somewhat arbitrary rules as to what should and shouldn't count are far better suited for a pool.

DreamFromTheLayer said:

I'm also really exhausted by all of these implications making me worry about every sub-compartmentalization of Pokemon and exasperated that it's been lionized by a single user. I'm really burnt out on Pokemon posts.

@Danielx21 I've told you this a number of times on Discord, but it bears repeating here: this is Danbooru, not Pokébooru. Tagging different forms is fine, but a lot of the sub-tagging of content that only hardcore fans will be looking for or even know about (such as individual moves, berries, locations and vague groupings of Pokémon) is too series-specific for an imageboard featuring content from thousands of different copyrights. A lot of these things would actually make for good pools, but as tags they are fractured to the point where 50 posts can easily have the same number of different tags for the same umbrella category of thing.

In saying that, however, two examples that could actually work as tags would be berries and locations. For berries, instead of tagging each individual type, have a tag like pokemon_berry for all of them and instead use a wiki page to keep track of which posts each individual type of berry shows up in. As for locations, since in-game locations are common enough in posts from many franchises and we already have a real_world_location tag, it would be a much better idea to create a catch-all tag such as in-universe_location for all fictional locations, be they from games, films, anime etc.

It is this kind of thinking you need to bring to the table when you want to create a new tag. Could this tag apply to more than just Pokémon posts? If it won't, then is it too specific of a tag? Would it be better as a pool instead? I appreciate your enthusiasm for improving Danbooru's tags, but you need to take off your Scope Lens and try using a Wide Lens instead.

AngryZapdos said:

I think Dream's point isn't that it's Dande's Charizard, but rather that it's a Charizard. I wouldn't mind a starter Pokémon tag, but Charizard isn't one of them. Neither is Wartortle, Ivysaur, Meganium nor any of the other evolved Pokémon on this list. A majority of people who know the term "starter Pokémon" use it for the Pokémon you receive at the start of each game. You don't get a Charmeleon or a Charizard, you get a Charmander.

Maybe this could work, but then again the pool #4223 (Pokemon - Starter Trio) has been used for evolved forms as well.

It also seems common to say "evolved starter" for mons such as Charizard.

DreamFromTheLayer said:

One of the problems with this tag is that it gives more information than is actually there. Posts with Dande_(Pokemon and his Charizard are tagged as starter pokemon when it really shouldn't be.

I think I see what you mean. The term "starter Pokémon" could be used to mean the first Pokémon of any given character. For instance, Poliwag is the starter Pokémon of Red in the manga Pokémon Special. Similarly, Onix is the starter Pokémon of Brock (Takeshi) in the anime.

Still, "starter Pokémon" is a really common term to mean the elemental trios. I think this tag fits well with this sense, and is also what is said in the wiki. If you ask people: "What is your favorite starter?", it doesn't seem very likely that Poliwag or Onix would be proper answers. We can also say that Ash Ketchum has had a variety of starter Pokémon (Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, Chikorita, etc.), even though his starter in the former sense would be just Pikachu.

DreamFromTheLayer said:

pool #4223 has a more focused purpose than the starter Pokemon trio tag as the tag is being applied to any post with a trio in it, even if that's not the point of the image. I don't see the tag as a suitable replacement.

I created the pool #4223 (Pokemon - Starter Trio) years ago, and the tag starter_pokemon_trio recently. I think I was even the person who wrote the pool description saying it's for images focused on the trios, which can have more characters and trainers to some extent but not any image.

But somewhere around these last few years, it has been bothering me that these images without a specific focus on the starters wouldn't get added to the pool (post #3801962, post #3772909, and post #3583492, etc.). Again, it could be just me. I understand if other people think differently.

Any way... That pool is pretty underpopulated. Most starter_pokemon_trio images really are focused on the trios as the main point of the image, but the current count is:

• starter_pokemon_trio = 1615 posts
• pool #4223 = 801 posts