Guidelines for Tagging, Flagging, etc...

Here are some pointers I've put together after seeing certain things come up repeatedly. They're not rules, just recommendations for folks wanting to know specifics. As usual, post any questions or suggestions and I'll try to keep this up to date.

Anime, General or People:

• If it's depicting anime or manga, or is done in anime style, it belongs in Anime.
• If it contains a photo or photo-realistic art of a person, it belongs in People. Cosplayers also go here (they're apparently human).
• Everything else goes in, you guessed it, General.

SFW, Sketchy or NSFW:

• This isn't so much about what's safe or not in your or any workplace. It's more about broadly dividing up how explicit images are (and upsetting everyone).
• If an ass is technically clothed but more or less bare (usually when thongs are involved), make it NSFW.
• Men with bare chests are not Sketchy. We're all for equality but man boobs just aren't the same as lady boobs. Blame the patriarchy.
• About tag purity: the rule of thumb is that tags are not flagged based on whether or not the term itself is offensive in some way, but on the walls under it. This means that a tag with mostly NSFW walls is itself NSFW, regardless of the name of the tag. Users can probably tell how offensive a term is at a glance, but can't know what the walls under it might be like.

Reports:

• Do report if something breaks the rules (be sure to actually read them first), is wrongly categorised, or to alert staff to meddling kids.
• Don't report if you find something offensive unless it also breaks the rules (or violates US law, which is also kind of a big deal).
• Duplicates: make sure that you're reporting the more recent upload unless you have a good reason (e.g. if the watermark was removed), and that the resolutions are identical or essentially identical (e.g. 1920x1200 vs. 1920x1280). If the resolutions are different, report it under Other and ask for it to be grouped. Also remember to actually include the ID/URL of the original wall (yes, this is something people don't do).

Putting new tags in the right category:

• Artists can go in Artists, not in Art & Design. Artists also includes individual musicians, but bands/producers/acts can go in Music, unless they perform under their own name (Bob Dylan).
• Specific buildings can go in Locations, not Architecture. The same goes for natural sites like national parks, instead of being in Nature.
• Fictional characters, including non-human ones, can go in the category just for them in People instead of wherever in Entertainment.
• If a franchise spans multiple mediums (like comic books and movies), the tag can go in the relevant category of the original work (The Hobbit in Literature).
• If a character is also the name of a franchise, count it as such and put it in the relevant place (Superman in CB&GN).
• Fictional creations like fantasy races, vehicles etc. can go in the same category as the work they're from (Batmobile in CB&GN). We'll add Fictional Places eventually, but same goes for them too for the time being.
• Branches of armed forces (US Air Force) can go in Military & Weapons.
• Companies & Logos includes websites, magazines, etc.
• The root of People should be for generic things like body parts and similar (piercing), postures (lying down) and occupations (model). Named individuals should go in one of the subcategories. Remember to use the official or most common names people go by according to sources like IMDb.
• Demonyms (Japanese for Japan) can go in Countries because it can apply to things other than people.
• To keep them all in one place for now, Pokémon can go in Fictional Characters. Bite me.
• Vehicle manufacturers can go in Vehicles instead of Companies & Logos.

Why we're strict about official spellings:

On most sites, tags are just strings of text so consistency is less important. On WH, every tag exists in a database, and since we want users to find things, it makes sense for everything that can go under a single tag to do so instead of being spread across several different ones. Since there are usually several ways to shorten/refer to something, it's easier to just go for the original/official spelling, which you can find straight away in a web search anyway, so we have just The Lord of the Rings instead of 'lord of the rings' and 'lotr' as well. Of course people aren't going to search for the full title, but that's what aliases are for.

What aliases are for:

Think of it as the 'also known as' field. Don't put in the series a character is from or any random relevant words that come to mind. Use it for terms that could be mistaken for the one in the tag, like spelling mistakes or alternative names ('Daenerys Stormborn', 'Dany' and 'Khaleesi' are all aliases of Daenerys Targaryen). Note that aliases are not case-sensitive and that searching for one (should) return the relevant tag.

Tags for different things sharing the same name:

Use brackets to describe what something is if it's likely to be confused with something else, e.g. kiwi (fruit) and kiwi (animal). Be consistent and use (movie), (TV series), (character), etc. When it's even more ambiguous, like characters with the same name but from different franchises, use the franchise name, e.g. Kaga (KanColle). Don't add brackets for the hell of it.

Other tag stuff if you don't hate me yet:

• Don't put hash tags before the actual tag, combine multiple terms into one tag ('women beach sexy girls bikini'), or otherwise behave like you're tweeting.
• science fiction is best used when it's actually a wall of a work of science fiction. futuristic is fine the rest of the time.
• Sun is the name of our star, so anything you'd call 'a sun' should be tagged stars. Sun should also probably be reserved for images specifically of it in space, since you can use sunlight in most other cases.
• universe isn't a fun tag to throw at any space wall. Please use it for walls that actually depict the universe.
• Breed names for dogs and other animals are proper nouns so don't need to be pluralised (German Shepherd).
• Don't just slap abstract on anything that looks arty or neat. It means 'not representing real or physical objects', mmkay?
• Simple doesn't equal minimal. Seriously, look up minimalism. It's, like, nothing. Most walls can just be tagged #simple but only some minimalism.
• topless is for ladies, as you've surely noticed, and shirtless is for dudes. It's a bit inconsistent but people tend to think of women going topless and men shirtless.
• Illustrations are images that accompany text, usually in a book. It's not a fancy word for artwork, so please don't piss about with illustration.
• Don't tag a wall of an actor with the name of a film or series they're in unless the wall actually depicts it.
• Do use accents (like é) and other diacritics if a word is supposed to have them (Champs-Élysées). To be safe, add the tag with normal characters as an alias.
• Vehicle models should be in full and include the manufacturer's name (BMW M5) to make searching and sorting easier.
• Only use fantasy art for actual examples of the fantasy genre. Fictional doesn't equal fantastical. It also doesn't mean weird or arty.
• Don't tag descriptions of the format of the image, such as 'HD' or 'widescreen' as they're redundant. multiple display is the exception because it has a use.
• Don't tag photos with the device that took them. It doesn't mean much and the tags are better used for images of the actual device.
• Portrait photography and photos of people in general can use closeup rather than macro.

You totally lost me at some points, but it's also worth noting, that people throw #[n6qy74] around a lot. If the picture is drawn, and depicts any fictional character, location, whatever, it's tagged #[n6qy74], when it's not. Not everything that is fictional is automatically fantasy. Fantasy art is "inspired by, or illustrating, fantasy literature." where "fantasy literature is the body of written works that utilize the motifs, themes, and stylistic approaches expected in the fantasy genre."

• Wikipedia

So,

1493 x 20489

1920 x 108016

etc.

Thanks - not sure how I managed to miss that when it's one of the most common misuses.

I suppose this is the best place to ask the opinion of all users:

What category do you think anime cosplay belongs in?

There are some who advocate that (A) anime cosplay interferes with their browsing of drawn anime and so should be in People category. Some say (B) we have an entirely separate category for anime and anime cosplay mostly caters to anime fans, so anime cosplay should be in Anime category.

What do you guys think? (A) or (B)? I say (B).

=============

Giving my two cents on ass/crotch closeups,

The way I handle them, if panties are on, but labia/anal-rose (dunno the formal term for it; the wrinkled area around the anus) or cameltoe is visible, then NSFW. Else, Sketchy. Usually happens with thongs, but sometimes happens with regular panties too. Edit: If genitals are not visible but most of the ass cheeks are, it still goes in Sketchy.

anime cosplay -> anime, so (B)

By the way, if we are on topic already, I didn't quite understand why wallbase had an anime category besides general/people. Why is anime so special, that it has its own category while nothing else does (maybe Yotoon was a fan)? Don't get me wrong, I'm a sucker for numerous anime like Akira, Appleseed, and the likes (if it's urban fantasy, I'm in!), even some series like Code Geass, Elfen Lied, Daughters of Mnemosyne and countless others, but I've never understood why anime deserves its own category.

Anyway, since apparently it does, everything related to it should be in there.

WB always had a big following of anime fans and it's the same here, which means anime content making up a good chunk of the total. Just now 11% of walls are in Anime. Maybe there are other potential content categories out there which would have more than the 24k walls in Anime, but I'm not aware of any. It's also pretty broad since it includes manga, visual novels, original art in anime style and so on. The short answer is that it suits our needs just now.

Nice to have such detailed explanation. Thanks for that. The example for grayscale has only one tag: monochrom. I will correct that.

EDIT: Holy ****! Have someone looked at the monochrom tagged walls lately? Nearly every one is wrong.

EDIT 2: Are walls like this also monochrom? [4xygwv] It has greyscale plus a color not only a color in diffrent shades.

monochrome may contain black-and-white, which is not wrong. We're not going to jump on that whole “well technically black isn't a color” argument. People search for monochrome when they mean black and white so that's what the tag means.

Deus that wallpaper is not monochrome, it's selective coloring.

Gandalf then someone should change that in cfunks post. (Maybe I simply missunderstand the post , english isn't my nativ language, but I interpreted it that way that black and white isn't monochrome)

I meant that B&W photos are technically grayscale, not that they aren't also black and white as such, but I can see how it could've been confusing. Anyway, I looked at how monochrome and #grayscale were used and discussed it with Gandalf and we figured it would be safe to merge them.

Afternoon Gents,

First time poster, long time lurker. Just wanted to have a chat about the recent tagging that has been happening. The amount of tags some things are receiving are ridiculous. Mainly it's regarding things slightly related to " topless is for ladies, as you've surely noticed, and shirtless is for dudes. It's a bit inconsistent but people tend to think of women going topless and men shirtless."

If a post is tagged nude, surely it doesn't need to be tagged topless, and bottomless as well. Curvy women appears to be getting tagged on just about every post.

http://alpha.wallhaven.cc/wallpaper/248812 - Sideboob is tagged, in addition to nude and labia. Surely sideboob is for when they are not nude! Otherwise you will just get tainted searches when using that tag.

http://alpha.wallhaven.cc/wallpaper/248811 - This one uses women, with one woman. Shadow, for some unknown reason, and both boobs, and big boobs.

I'm sure i sound like a NARC, but some good tagging guidelines would be awesome - This is an awesome start, but we need to dig down into a bit more specificity.

Apologies for such a downer first post, I hope I was helpful.

There is this line from the rules page, that should ideally prevent over-tagging, but I suppose enforcing it may be a problem in current scenario, where there are too less taggers as is. Banning over-taggers from tagging does not feel like a good solution. Suggestions?

Tags are for categorizing images so users can find them, not needlessly describing them or to show off. Consider how useful a tag is before adding it, and how you would search for the image.

Cmon man, it's the internet! I don't have anything useful to actually help with, I just wanted to complain!

Jokes aside, I guess it will just need to be education and community modification of tags as we see them. Maybe something that flags on images with >X tags? The tag system is already fairly robust.. perhaps a limit to the amount of tags from each category? Perhaps a double authorization tag system? where 2 people have to tag the image before it confirms? Probably not ideal given the lack of active taggers.

I'll think on it, and see if I can come up with anything better.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for all the hard work behind the scenes guys.

I don't see any weaknesses of limiting the overall amount of tags (maybe arround 10?), excluding tags like artist/characters. Usually more than 10 tags do not help to find the image at all, as they are probably describing details of no importance. And to get on the complain train, it's really horrible to see tags used that wrong. Topless, bottomless and nude in one wallpaper or strategic covering, when it's actually not.

The problem with limiting tags is that wallpaper like these will feel grossly under-tagged.

[4yolxx]

Double-auth sounds good in theory, but turns out impractical when implemented. The easiest answer is to ban the over-tagger from tagging. That is just not practical currently as the community is still growing.

Another idea might be to have a feature for staff to override tags, i.e., wipe all tags from an image in one go and start over. That should be fairly easy to implement. Maybe we can discuss pros and cons of this further.

I've been thinking about limiting tags on several occasions. Too many tags take up a lot of space, which is really what annoys me most (from a design perspective).

But there are many wallpapers like the one lezboyd linked, with many people/characters, group shots etc. Even the examples mentioned above, nude and topless, can make sense if there are multiple models in a single picture. So I don't think introducing technical limitations would solve this. Cleaning up tags really needs to be a community effort.

One thing we can do is make sure surplus tags are deleted. Composite tags like “women outdoors” are actually against the rules and completely pointless.

I am not sure about limiting tags. In some cases you only need three or four tags and in others 15 might not be enough. (theoretical)

The question is what do you want to archive with tags and how specific you want people to search for wallpapers? I don't know the system behind it and I don't know how the search engine is working (faceted search ?). Does it make a difference if someone wants to find, let's say shoes or red shoes? Does the system combine different tags?

The main goal should be, as far as I understand it, that people find exactly what they search for. Isn't that part of a site like this and the reason people are coming here?

Bottom line is - My impression is that this is more like a social project, where people work together, even when it comes to tags. That's the ideal. And it's in the nature of things that there are always people that do more than others. But I am not sure if the best solution is to get out the ban hammer and kick everyone who's not as perfect as others. What kind of community will behavior like this end in? One mistake and you're out? The best way should be, that everyone's working together and try to help each other. I know that's not always as easy as it might sound, but in the end it might be a better way than building a police state. (melodramatic/ no offense!)

I mean tagging in the end is subjective and people are different. Don't get me wrong - It's not okay to not tag your images or place them in a wrong category. But in my opinion over-tagging is another thing. At least people are tagging their images, which is half the battle, right?

Also - How can you tell who added those tags? As others can do it too, it does not always has to be the uploader, who added the tags. Some of my wallpapers recieved six, seven or more tags after I uploaded them. Can you see in the backend who added them?

What I am trying to say here is - Don't be too hard with your users. Intead of judging and banning - try to help them. That beeing said - If someone won't understand the rules and what people try to tell them, than you still can kick/ban or whatever.

That's just my opinion. I am a community manager since more than 10 years and have been working as a CM for game companies, and my experience is, that the end result is always better, if you work with someone together, than working against him.

Again - I don't have your experience. Some of you have been part of wallbase. You know what can happen and I don't want to be too brisk. I trust your experience.

stolichnaya80 said:

Maybe something that flags on images with >X tags?

Straight off the bat, I apologise if anything said has sounded direct, or harsh. I don't want people banned or restricted, especially given the lack of current taggers. Pheaton nailed it. We have to work with everyone, rather than make examples of people. I think my quote might be a bit of a stopgap. It will allow monitoring of pics that get "lots" of tags, without restricting pics like lezboyd linked getting the tagging they deserved. Pheaton raises a good question, how specific are you looking to get? should it be straight tags, or adjective tags, or even adjective adjective tags.. (boobs, #big boobs, #big natural boobs respectively) ((was the first example that came to mind, excuse the boobs :P))

I'm also a fan of the staff tag wipe option. Pushes the image back to tagless, encouraging tagging, but eliminates all of the redundant tags.

Education looks like it will be the winner.. Ergh.

Gandalf, I don't see any rule against compound tags. Like we discussed elsewhere, because of the way subscriptions work, for legit cases like 'women being outdoors', we can't get by with the tidier separate women and outdoors. I think we'd need to redo parts of the site if we want to ditch compound tags without losing some functionality. I do admit a lot of them are a bit daft, 'red bra' and the like, where the wall isn't even tagged with just bra as well.

Pheaton, staff can see who added which tags and when. Otherwise, we'd be screwed when it came to bad taggers. You're absolutely right about working with the community, but what we've also been trying to do is strike a balance where we enforce a policy that we believe works best for the site we'd like to have, which has meant firm rules and drawing lines.

About limited tags per wall, sometimes there are simply more than 10 or whatever perfectly reasonable tags applicable, and we warn users who abuse tagging, so it seems counter-intuitive to enforce limits with this. We have a shortage of tags most of the time, after all. As for wiping all tags on a wall, the problem there is that from my experience, a heavily tagged wall almost never has zero useful tags, i.e. there'll be at least one tag that isn't ridiculous. We also can't guarantee that a wall being wiped of tags will be re-tagged by the one who wiped it or anyone else. At least when something has bad tags, we can find it and 'fix' it.

cfunk said:

Pheaton, staff can see who added which tags and when. Otherwise, we'd be screwed when it came to bad taggers. You're absolutely right about working with the community, but what we've also been trying to do is strike a balance where we enforce a policy that we believe works best for the site we'd like to have, which has meant firm rules and drawing lines.

Hey cfunk. The fact, that you are able to see who added tags makes a big difference. And you are absolutly right, when you say, that it is important to find a balance between working with the community and to accomplish your goals and visions of what wallhaven should look and work like. I guess with the tools you've been given, you can find people who aren't willing to learn. If people won't listen it goes without saying, that you have to punish them, to keep up your rules and the overall quality.

Maybe it's the fact, that I am more happy about people tagging their wallpapers, instead of doing nothing. I never recognized over-tagged walls that much, but got more bugged by people not adding any tags, or upload their walls into wrong categories, or people who use wallhaven more like a photo album, where they upload images which never will work as a wall, because of their wrong dimensions.

But I wanted to add another thing - We all know that people are lazy. Not all of them, but most people are. There's nothing bad about it, not in general. But if you check the first post and add all the other information and rules on wallhaven, than it might be just too much. What I am trying to say here is - Most of the people won't read everything and they won't know anything about good or bad tagging. Yes, you might say, that it is their problem and that they have to accept all of this, if they want to upload anything. That is true. But on the other hand, maybe it is possible to summarise a few infos and megre them together. A more concise collection might ensure, that people actual read what is important.

When I first came here I read all the infos and checked out the forums. But you can't kepp all the infos in your head. So what I did was, I checked out the way other people did tag their walls. And what can I say - I learned some bad behavior, which I wasn't aware of until I got more involved what you guys discuss on the forums. I am pretty sure that this is the way most people will do it. They check out what others do and think that it is the right way. That's the reason I said, that it is important to help each other and to warn/inform people before you kick them. I am pretty sure, that people will learn the right way. And those who won't - Well, they won't add much to the community anyway and you can warn/kick/ban/whatever them.

Even if most taggers follow the rules page, it will help a lot. Cannot get more compact than the rules page, IMO, without increasing ambiguity.

Pheaton, these guidelines aren't obligatory, just strongly recommended if we're trying to put together something to make organising content consistent, which is why they're really drawn out. We can't expect people to remember it all since it's more for reference/discussion. Even the rules need referring back to and they're a lot shorter and simpler. About keeping it concise, though, we're actually in the process of reformatting the rules - not changing them, just figuring out a new layout that'll be easier for everyone (hopefully).

Please don't get me wrong here. I don't want to be disrespectful in any way. I know that you guys are doing everything possible to make this site as accessible as possible for new user. And I know that it is a fine line between communicating everything important and to overstrain someone. I just try to add my thoughts to the discussion, knowing that you guys are having your experiences and also that you are familiar with what is needed for a site like wallhaven.

I am just asking myself what can be done to help people to better understand how tagging works and what the best way is to learn it. That being said - Sometimes I am having problems myself. Sometimes I am watching a wallpaper and ask myself what tags would fit that image and what would people expect if they search for that kind of wallpaper? But maybe sometimes I am just thinking too much.

Again - No offense and hopefully you're not taking my comments the wrong way. I know, I added a lot to the forums lately. But thats just because I like the project and I am interested in what is going on. I do respect your work. As I said before I am a web developer and a community manager myself. So I know how much work things like this mean and I do appreciate your effort!

Anyhow - If I can think of anything else, I will add it to the discussion. :)

Hi there,

sorry for the double post. I'll merge it, if you want me to.

Today i asked myself, how we should handle colors or if you have a guideline for it? Let me explain what I am talking about:

Lets say there's that wallpaper, where you see a girl who's wearing a red top, blue shorts and green shoes. How should one tag those things? Would it be green shoes? Or green shoes and shoes? Is there a priority? Those things might go a bit crazy. For example: A woman in lingerie, who's wearing a bra and panties. Would it be lingerie? Or lingerie, bra, panties? Or even better: lingerie, red lingerie, bra, #{red bras}, panties, red panties? Another one: lingerie, red lingerie, bra, #{red bras}, panties, red panties, red clothing?

I checked a few walls and my impression is, that everyone handles it different. One day I thought - Well it's a pink bra, so tag it pink bra and leave bra away. What happened was, that it took 10 minutes, and someone added the bra tag.

Maybe a consistent guideline or way to handle those kind of tags would be good. There're a few questions coming with it: Are colors for clothes even necessary? Does it make a difference, if someone searches for bra or red bra, also for the search engine? When should we use color tags and when are they just over-tagging?

I'm not a fan of the current tagging system. The fact that a tag has to created by someone before you can use it is very annoying. Tagging shouldn't be a chore, i should be able to write down what i see and maybe separate it by commas and boom, it's tagged(check youtubes tagging system if you don't understand what i mean).