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2 months ago
Jolly Jack recently posted a journal annoyed with FA new tag rules.
https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/11211731/
Many folks replied that he was over-reacting ("over_reacting" as according to The New Rules dashes are not legal).
To the contrary, he thought the "at least three tags" rule was unnecessary authoritarian BS. He was told to grow-up (sorry, "grow_up") and get_over_it .
Sorry, but no, these new rules are ill-formed ("ill_formed").
This was my reply :
This policy has some major flaws. I have just spent 90 mins “correcting” my tags – time i could have spent inking and painting – and that only took me back three years.
1. Finding “misleading, inaccurate, or false” Tags To Fix So That You Don’t Get Banned
If you go to your gallery looking for where you have sinned you will not find your infractions of the new rules until you click on “update info” on each picture – only then will you find if you have violated the new rules or not. But if you go to “stats” all your "bad" tags will show as darkened fields. Open each in a new tab to find out what you did wrong. Over and over and over and over. Hour after hour.
2. Dash vs Underscore
i have been posting here for fourteen years and during those years i have consistently used a dash to connect related words – as has been literary practice for centuries! The underscore mark as used now only came along with Unicode in 1988 ! In Unicode the underscore does mark the separation of words, but the literary use of the dash has been established for centuries to connect words. That FA prefers code over well established English usage strikes me as uneducated and vulgar.
As seems likely that FA cannot write code to allow the traditional English dash, then can they not remove the dash from banned Unicode symbols in tags? In FA’s own description of allowed Unicode symbols the say “a-z, 0-9” – They used the forbidden dash in their own rules!
The dash also appears in names such as the classical composer Rimsky-Korsakov; i have a character named tia-fal – she is not Tia Fal as the underscore would make her, but every post i have made of her over the years now says that my tag of her name is not allowed.
3.Two Letter Abbreviation
FA prefers at least three letters per tag, with a few two letter tags allowed. But “sf” (SF) isn’t one of them. I just wasted time okaying FA updated tag system to remove sf from a couple dozen posts. Apparently SF is not a common term and it was stupid of me to have pictures with that.
4. No Jokes Or Emotions Allowed
People have used tags to make little jokes since the get-go (sorry, the get_go). You are no longer allowed an whimsical or humorous tag. Also no emo tags. We are not allowed to share feelings in tags when someone else decides that that doesn’t describe the picture according to them.
5. Three Tags
i had a number of pictures with the single tag “op-art”. I was required to change the tag to “op_art” then add two more obvious and useless tags. I went with “black_and_white” and “distortion” which is utterly redundant as the vast majority of “op-art” is in black and white and uses distortion.
6. Gender
Add another click box for landscapes, abstract, etc etc
- and i could go on. This is Bad Policy, and they need to correct it rather than requiring all of us to "correct" our tags.
https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/11211731/
Many folks replied that he was over-reacting ("over_reacting" as according to The New Rules dashes are not legal).
To the contrary, he thought the "at least three tags" rule was unnecessary authoritarian BS. He was told to grow-up (sorry, "grow_up") and get_over_it .
Sorry, but no, these new rules are ill-formed ("ill_formed").
This was my reply :
This policy has some major flaws. I have just spent 90 mins “correcting” my tags – time i could have spent inking and painting – and that only took me back three years.
1. Finding “misleading, inaccurate, or false” Tags To Fix So That You Don’t Get Banned
If you go to your gallery looking for where you have sinned you will not find your infractions of the new rules until you click on “update info” on each picture – only then will you find if you have violated the new rules or not. But if you go to “stats” all your "bad" tags will show as darkened fields. Open each in a new tab to find out what you did wrong. Over and over and over and over. Hour after hour.
2. Dash vs Underscore
i have been posting here for fourteen years and during those years i have consistently used a dash to connect related words – as has been literary practice for centuries! The underscore mark as used now only came along with Unicode in 1988 ! In Unicode the underscore does mark the separation of words, but the literary use of the dash has been established for centuries to connect words. That FA prefers code over well established English usage strikes me as uneducated and vulgar.
As seems likely that FA cannot write code to allow the traditional English dash, then can they not remove the dash from banned Unicode symbols in tags? In FA’s own description of allowed Unicode symbols the say “a-z, 0-9” – They used the forbidden dash in their own rules!
The dash also appears in names such as the classical composer Rimsky-Korsakov; i have a character named tia-fal – she is not Tia Fal as the underscore would make her, but every post i have made of her over the years now says that my tag of her name is not allowed.
3.Two Letter Abbreviation
FA prefers at least three letters per tag, with a few two letter tags allowed. But “sf” (SF) isn’t one of them. I just wasted time okaying FA updated tag system to remove sf from a couple dozen posts. Apparently SF is not a common term and it was stupid of me to have pictures with that.
4. No Jokes Or Emotions Allowed
People have used tags to make little jokes since the get-go (sorry, the get_go). You are no longer allowed an whimsical or humorous tag. Also no emo tags. We are not allowed to share feelings in tags when someone else decides that that doesn’t describe the picture according to them.
5. Three Tags
i had a number of pictures with the single tag “op-art”. I was required to change the tag to “op_art” then add two more obvious and useless tags. I went with “black_and_white” and “distortion” which is utterly redundant as the vast majority of “op-art” is in black and white and uses distortion.
6. Gender
Add another click box for landscapes, abstract, etc etc
- and i could go on. This is Bad Policy, and they need to correct it rather than requiring all of us to "correct" our tags.
I used to love being snarky and tag things with random thoughts and quips but now... now that's not allowed... any WHY IS THAT?
Oh right... Because the current iteration of the on_site search engine uses "Tags" to filter the results, so making nonsense tags just clogs the process...
bummer...
don't you think you're being a bit overdramatic
There's no other real reason to push all old uploads to be relabeled. The legacy tags would otherwise be fine for anyone but queerphobic porn cops, and FA as a whole cannot be that. It doesn't follow, even with their history of screwups and bans.
Sure, they want tag blocking to WORK, and it should, that's just respectful. But that's not enough to take a hard line on all at once for the entirety of FA's history.
Oh my god your user profile is the best thing, the end is somehow like a punchline
Anti-AI is pro-artist rights and antitheft. And there are no "mandatory political views" here, just bans of hate speech and bigotry, which tells me what's actually going on in this subthread.
I completely get your concerns over all of the censorship. I just wanted to provide my own experience with what I've learned, overtime.
About a decade ago, I used to watch a few youtube channels that covered current topics in media. At the time, it felt cathartic. Overtime, though, it felt like I was addicted to watching those kinds of videos. Similar to how one might watch a bunch of true-crime videos in hopes to be more "informed". The thing, though, was most of them deliberately fed on people's fears/concerns since that kind of content can give someone dopamine. Long story short, for the sake of my mental well-being, I had to pull back from that stuff. Through doing other things outside of doomscrolling, I was able to focus more on things that made me actually happy. Overtime, I realized a lot of the channels I watched were rage baiters who did little to no research into their stuff.
I ended up mainly focusing on my hobbies and art, also trying to hang with friends. Especially IRL friends; it helps to get out of the house. They've helped me realize things in a different light. Though it's helped that I've always been curious about learning and actually looking into stuff, even if it might go against what I might believe.
You want a way out? Do what you're doing now. Focus as much a possible on art and hobbies and enjoy life as much as you can. No. Politics and war will not ignore you so you can't ignore it all. You must stay informed as much as possible and trust no one source of anything. But your decision to value what makes life worthwhile is the smartest thing anyone has said all damn day. 🫴👏👏👏
why? just why?
I just do not get it...
I've got 1.5k submissions... fewer than most here...
but going over them all will take FOREVER...
hrn... well.. I guess I'll get it over with...
Plus, as far as I know Jack got in trouble for, it seems, having art tagged "Three" "Mandatory" "Keywords". Which, for me, still puts a good deal of fault on his shoulders.
On the other hand some aspects of the tag rules do seem inconvenient, although I'm not sure what is meant by "emotions" given that there is art where the theme is emotions. Jokes... I'm fine with jokes if it's in combination of proper keywording, and not just the tag itself being a joke.
Overall, beyond some inconveniences this isn't a policy I can really stand against.
I fear the next push won't be as nice ...
Also Jack did tag some art with "Three", "Mandatory", and "Keywords". He was kinda asking for trouble.
Here's what I don't get. Why do artists object to tagging their work at all? Don't you WANT potential new admirers (and new commissioners)?
I can understand why artists didn't tag before; laziness was understandable. But I really don't understand not wanting to put at least a few relevant tags on things.
You can't have working tag blocking on a site without requiring tags. Another site I use requires gender, species, and 'the main theme' of the illustration. Another one requires a minimum of ten tags, which I think is too many.
And now your points one at a time.
1) You do not have to fix old posts. That would be entirely unreasonable. You only have to keyword after the policy came in.
2) Standards change. I've been using underscore to indicate 'there should be a space here but a space isn't allowed' for a very long time. It wasn't codified until Unicode, but its use was common well before 1988.
3) SF is a pretty terrible thing to tag. Off the top of my head I can think of several things SF might be used to tag that would make some sense in a tag here. And there are a lot more I can think of that wouldn't make sense here. So yeah, tag sanfran instead of sf. Or whatever.
4) Emotions are allowed. Emoticons are not. These things. 🚀 💐 💔
5) Okay, some images literally won't necessarily have three relevant tags. That said, op art should probably be tagged 'geometric' and 'abstract'. At least, that's how I'd tag them.
6) Gender has always been a required field on here. It used to be a dropdown, then they removed the dropdown and said 'type it in as a tag', then people threw a fit so they put it back but now it just sets a keyword.
What they need to do next is add the ability for people to suggest keywords. Let posters turn it off on an account-wide or per-image basis, but it really can make life a lot easier. You tag the bare minimum, various other people suggest tags, you go 'yeah okay' and allow it.
“The no silly keywords has always been the rule.”
- - A rule with no mandatory consequences, AFAIK. So more like a rule with a wink when poster made joke tags, cuz joke tags are cool. Not too often, cuz that would ruin the novelty. If you have 23 watchers some joke tags are prolly not a big deal.
“Here's what I don't get. Why do artists object to tagging their work at all? Don't you WANT potential new admirers (and new commissioners)? “
- - ASFAK all artists have not been poled as to if they like tags or not, so i have no data other than the number of artists who are extroverts and post online, and the populace of artists who are introverts and rarely if ever show anyone their art.
“I can understand why artists didn't tag before; laziness was understandable. But I really don't understand not wanting to put at least a few relevant tags on things.”
- - I’ve always tried to put helpful tags on my posts so that anyone looking for an OC, fan art, style, etc could find it in a search. I would think that an artist who is only posting to share with their friends and who doesn’t want strangers gooning on them.
“You can't have working tag blocking on a site without requiring tags. Another site I use requires gender, species, and 'the main theme' of the illustration. Another one requires a minimum of ten tags, which I think is too many.”
- - In no way am i against tags. My post was about how to make tags better. I have always put tags on my art and have found new artists to follow using tags.
“And now your points one at a time.
1) You do not have to fix old posts. That would be entirely unreasonable. You only have to keyword after the policy came in.”
- - I wish i had known when i posted this, it would have saved me a couple hours. I Will post a journal correcting this.
2) Standards change. I've been using underscore to indicate 'there should be a space here but a space isn't allowed' for a very long time. It wasn't codified until Unicode, but its use was common well before 1988.
- - The underscore started as a key old manual typewriters and was only used to move the paper backwards and so underline a word or sentence, etc. As i recall – and _ were a traditional upper and lower case key on old manual typewriters – carried over to modern keyboards ?
3) SF is a pretty terrible thing to tag. Off the top of my head I can think of several things SF might be used to tag that would make some sense in a tag here. And there are a lot more I can think of that wouldn't make sense here. So yeah, tag sanfran instead of sf. Or whatever.
- - There are Genres. RomCom, Action, Horror, Fantasy, and, yes Science-Fiction – commonly know as SF. ‘Science-Fiction’ is a very broad genre, and one of the other names for the genre is ‘Speculative Fiction’. As in ‘1984’, ‘Brave New World’, ‘Animal Farm’,’The Hand Maid’s Tale’, etc These days sf tends to refer to techy stuff. The pictures i tged ‘sf’ were some of my “Kitties In Space” series, a group of nostalgic pin-ups referring back to the sf magazine illustrations of the 1920’s – 1950’s – when nobody had a clue what spaceflight would be like – Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon. ‘SF’ encapsulates that past, the new speculitive fiction, and, yes, the lame movies. A genre. A fandom. And alot of modern furry stories and art came out from SF – “Little Fuzzy”, “Chanurr”, “The Uplift Wars”, etc
4) Emotions are allowed. Emoticons are not. These things. 🚀 💐 💔
- - Thank you, but i didn’t think we were talking about emoticons.
5) Okay, some images literally won't necessarily have three relevant tags. That said, op art should probably be tagged 'geometric' and 'abstract'. At least, that's how I'd tag them.
- - Call me crazy, but I’d tag op art ‘op-art’, or, the code being legacy, ‘op_art’.
6) Gender has always been a required field on here. It used to be a dropdown, then they removed the dropdown and said 'type it in as a tag', then people threw a fit so they put it back but now it just sets a keyword.
- - There are languages in which every object, action, and letter is masculine or feminine. Thankfully English is not one of them. Mountains and lakes do not have gender, abstract animal illustrations might not have gender, and some people may not identify as this that or the other or no gender – and if they make pictures of characters who also has no gender identification ?
- - I don’t feel like i should be mandating that asexual people have to assign gender to their characters.
- - And before Unicode forced the underscore upon us only cultists and sycophants succumbed to it’s stultifying miasma. I’m sorry you were an early convert to the modern underscore. I cannot save you. But you have my deepest sympathy.
There is an Olde Adage/Saying that goes something like this- "Shooting yourself in your own foot."
This, to me, is exactly what FA is doing, and like ohsomanyother Policies/Rules, the building mountain of bullshit is going to destroy this site, eventually.
People don't like this kind of totalitarian nonsense, and FA seems incapable of realizing/understanding, much less accepting of this very simple fact.
My best hopes, now, is that someone, somewhere, is already creating an Anthro-centric (Kiss my ass, FA Mods, if you don't like HYPHENS!) site/platform, where people can actually think, write and create/share art, freely.
I can only hope...
I AM all-for 'Tags' that help people CHOOSING TO FIND '?'.
I am 100% against any platform/'Agency' (Of Govt. OR Private Enterprise) collating and then selling/harassing and as you stated: CENSORING (Or worse, and I'm staring right at YOU, U.K. Govt./Courts/Law ENFARCEMENT!), BANNING, and also as you said, if 'They' don't LIKE '?' actively persecuting anyone that DARED PRODUCE IT!
Trust Govt./Agencies/Data Collection anything? Why would I/anyone? By every measure, 'They' have taken this data/information, and then used it for nefarious purposes, and I am never going to support, condone or fund it (If I have a choice. What 'They' waste my Tax $$$'s on seems to be untouchable by me/us simple Peasants?!)...
I'm witnessing Orwell's "1984" being built right before my very eyes, the bricks and foundation of this evil laid down while the idiot masses applaud.
wtf happened to people having the FREEDOM to think write, draw, create music, w/o being hounded/corralled/RULED OVER by anyone or anything?
I'm so damned close to shutting down ALL casual interactions that involve the internet.
I spent many decades (STILL enjoy doing it!), as a 'Penpal' with folks, and writing/sending actual letters/cards to those I WANT TO STAY IN CONTACT WITH.
When 90% of everything appearing in my emails/mail box is SHIT, that was gathered by 'X' so they could then spam it onto me?
Yeah, I'm dour, and pissed-off about it.
:-/
"It's an elite club, and I/We ain't in it."
Not quite what you're saying, but I'll happily choose THIS 'Club' over what the 'Elites' are doing/trying to do, every day of the year.
On one paw, I'm a guy who always tags. In my case, I use tagging to help me indentify which device my drawings were done on (because I'm weird like that). I also kinda find it frustrating when there's a drawing I like but can't determine what species it is.
On the other paw, my fursona is named Tai-1...and I recently had to fix the tags on (hopefully) all his appearances on FA....now I don't even have close to the amount of uploads you do, but it was frustrating to have to change them nonetheless.
Of course I feel that the reason this has blown up is that improper tags can be reported, and I don't like that...like at all.
On a lighter note,
I'm pretty much doing the same, aside from the replies/Journals I do post.
My writing/art? I'll never upload any of it, here.
:-/
But if they really think I'm going to go through several hundred submissions and update all the tags...
E6, however, also has user tagging, and tagging history, which FA doesn't have.
So it is deifnitely good practice going forward at least so you can get more eyeballs. I did actually find some new aritsts due to the tags since I looked for the subject matter.
1. i am not against tags. Tags allow us to find what we like, and, if someone feels it necessary, to block what they don’t want to see. The General, Mature, and Adult tags keep the site safe for young furs and adults who don’t want to view erotic art and so can block it. I have always tried to make useful tags.
2. In noting the changes to the tag policy as poorly formed i was in no way attacking FA staff; it was posted as hopefully useful criticism. Without FA staff there would be no FA. Whatever flaws FA has it has allowed me to post my art for fourteen years and to discover thousands of other incredible artists! The staff has made this possible. If you have a problem with them then try to help them create better policies.
3. The ban on joke tags such as “wtf” “sotierd” “derp” etc – yeah, old policy. But AFAIK it couldn’t get you banned. Good joke tags are a delight and art-form.
4. Excluding the dash (-). This is likely written into whatever Unicode they’re cutting and pasting for processing tags. I would like them re-write that code, but the staff may not have access to someone who could do that. Hyphenated names and words are common in English and many other languages, and using an underscore (_) which according to Unicode which splits the term into two or more separate words defeats the point of the hyphen.
5. Sometimes one tag is enough. Three tags should be recommended policy, not mandatory. In general, the more tags you add to a picture the more people will find your picture in a search. Some folks don’t want to see some fetishes - horror, vore, violence, scat, BDSM, military/war, crime, etc. - and want to tag block... There are some artists i watch who mostly post stuff I’m not into but who occasionally post incredible art. I don’t mind seeing stuff I’m not into, but some folks just flat-out don’t want to see art on some topics. If an artist you are watching posts stuff you don’t want to see then try tag blocking – and if they post stuff without the tags then just stop watching them.
6. Censorship. Pros and Cons. Art glorifying murder, rape, war, racism, slavery, pedophilia, fascism, hate-mongering, self-harm, suicide etc can influence people with pre-existing mental health issues. Some artist will say that such art is just Fantasy, as when we cheer for the Heroes to kill Enemies in fiction. But there those who post such images with real hatred and violence in their hearts hoping to recruit others to their beliefs. There has always been a grey area between fantasy and reality and the vast majority of people can tell the difference between fantasy and reality. And we can usually tell who is into Conan and who wants to kill people IRL. I’m okay with trusting FA staff to censor murderous psychotics. If you’re not a murderous psychotic i think they would listen to an appeal.