help:tags

Tags are keywords used to describe posts, allowing you to easily search and explore posts based on their content. Consult the cheat sheet for a full guide on searching posts. See the tag groups for existing tags.

This article covers the technical details of tags. For guidance on how to tag posts, see howto:tag.

Tag format

Replace spaces with underscores

Spaces in tag names become underscores, while tags themselves are separated by spaces. For example, maria-sama ga miteru becomes maria-sama_ga_miteru.

Tag name restrictions
  • Must not be blank, i.e. must contain at least one character
  • Cannot contain any asterisks ( * ) or commas ( , )
  • Cannot begin with a tilde ( ~ ) or dash ( - )
  • Cannot begin or end with an underscore ( _ ), or contain consecutive underscores
  • Must contain only printable characters
    • !"#$%&'()+-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~
  • Cannot begin with a metatag and ":"
  • "and" and "or" are reserved names for search operands and thus cannot be used
  • *_(cosplay) tags must have an existing character tag
    • E.g. chen_(cosplay) must have a chen tag

Tag categories

There are five types of tags: artist, character, copyright, general, and meta. Artist tags are red, characters are green, copyrights are purple, general tags are blue, and meta tags are yellow.

Artist

Prefix: artist:, art:

Artist tags identify the creator of a post. This means the creator of the individual artwork, not the author of the copyright the post belongs to.

Character

Prefix: character:, char:

Character tags identify the characters in the post.

Copyright

Prefix: copyright:, copy:

Copyright tags identify the anime, manga, game, or novel that the post is associated with. More generally, copyright tags identify the source material that the characters are from.

Copyright tags should not be used for trademarks or brand names. A rule of thumb: if something doesn't have characters, it probably shouldn't be a copyright tag.

Meta

Prefix: meta:

Meta tags generally describe things beyond the content of the image itself. Examples include translated, copyright request, duplicate, image sample, and bad id.

General

Prefix: general:, gen:. New tags without a prefix are general by default.

General tags are used for everything else. They should objectively describe the contents of the post.

Changing tag categories

You can change the category of the tag by prefixing it when tagging a post. For example, tagging a post with artist:sakura would change the sakura tag to an artist tag.

You can also search the Tags listing and use the "edit" link next to the tag to change its category.

Large tags can only have their category changed by users of a sufficient level - see help:users for the specific thresholds. Any large changes should be discussed on the forum first. Make a bulk update request to create a forum topic requesting that a tag category be changed.

Deprecated tags

Some tags are marked as "deprecated". These tags cannot be added to new posts and can only be removed from existing posts. Deprecation allows tag gardeners to clean out an invalid tag, replacing it with more suitable alternatives.

Situations where deprecation is used include:

  • Tags with ambiguous names. Such tags often turn into a mix of different interpretations of its name, making them useless for searching. Examples include:
  • Redundant tags; tags that are too wide in scope to be useful for anything.
  • Invalid tags that are repeatedly remade.
  • Subjective tags.

Tag aliases

Main article: help:tag aliases

Tag aliases are used to redirect different spellings or names of a tag to a single main tag. For example: clavicle → collarbone.

Tag implications

Main article: help:tag implications

Tag implications are used to automatically add another tag when a certain tag is used. You can think of it as putting tags into subcategories of one another. For example: denim shorts → denim, shorts.

See also