Danbooru

Looking to the side vs Side glance

Posted under Tags

Among the other variations of side glance we have glance and sideways glance, none of which have (or had) a wiki definition of how we should use them in relation to the looking to the side tag.

Only recently did I attempt to give side glance a wiki which was brought up to me as conflicting with the way we've used looking to the side for years. A quick Google image search of "side glance" mainly agrees with the definition it has currently, which is when a character looks to the side but without adjusting their head in the direction. However Danbooru has never made that distinction and so looking to the side is used whenever the character looks to the side "generally". For example, with its current definition, post #2898906 would still be looking to the side but post #2899073 would not and be tagged with only side glance.

The main goal of this topic post is to work out what we should do with side glance and its other forms. Should we say simply that looking to the side covers side glance and that the latter should not be used? Distinguish the two tags by separating the two cases from looking to the side? Generalise the case of side glance to glance and use it along with other "looking" tags when it applies? I personally would think the last option since one could glance in any direction, but it might be hard to tell with say like looking down.

Any opinions on the case?

Some of the contents of the below overlap directly with things said by kiyah123 above. It is something I typed out during PM discussions with kiyah123, before this thread was made, setting out my own views on the topic, and has received only minimal edits before posting.

The different things that could be covered:
1 - The head facing more-or-less forwards, the eyes looking to the side
2 - The head turned to the side, the eyes looking forwards relative to the head
3 - The head turned to the side, the eyes looking to the side relative to the head in the same direction. A lot of these (but not all) are looking back
4 - The head turned to the side, the eyes looking back in the opposite direction (so forwards from the characters perspective but to the side relative to their head). This is the rarest of the four.

Currently looking to the side, sideways glance and side glance are all used for all four of these, though not in the same proportions. There is also a glance tag.

3 possible solutions:
- sideways glance is aliased to looking to the side, and side glance updated into it as well. This is then used to cover 1, 2 and those cases of 3 that are not looking back. This is the simplest solution, requiring very little tag gardening, but leaves #4 without a home.
- side glance is aliased/updated into sideways glance, which is then used for 1, 3 and 4. looking to the side is used on any image where the character is looking to the side relative to their position, so 1, 2 and cases of 3 that aren't looking back, with both being used for 1 and for looking to the side cases of 3, which are actually fairly similar to one another as cases of #3 which are significantly different from #1 would generally fall under looking back instead. This gives good searching flexibility but would require a fair amount of tag gardening.
- A somewhat more radical alternative would be to make another tag for head turned to the side (or other wording to that effect), which could also include facing to the side images. Then leave looking to the side as direction of the character's gaze relative to their body, and sideways glance as the direction of their gaze relative to their head. Again side glance gets aliased/updated into sideways glance. This provides the ultimate flexibility as:
#1 gets tagged with looking to the side and sideways glance
#2 gets tagged with head turned to the side and looking to the side
#3 gets tagged with head turned to the side, sideways glance and either looking to the side or looking back as appropriate
#4 gets tagged with head turned to the side and sideways glance but not looking to the side
However it would require all three tags to be applied accurately across the site in order to work, and would take a lot of tag gardening.

Another one I considered was if side glance is aliased/updated into sideways glance, which is then used for 1, 3 and 4. looking to the side is then reserved for #2 only. I don't really like this one myself, though, as there is no way to distinguish between #1, #3 and #4 and having a tag like looking to the side just for that seems confusing and, at the end of the day, wrong to me.

Of those 3 solutions, as you go from the first to the second to the third the end result gets better, but the amount of effort increases markedly as well. I personally like the third one the best, but honestly it may just be too much effort (and I'm not volunteering to do it all myself either), in which case the second is probably the best compromise.

As for the glance tag, I'd question whether it really warrants existing at all. Except in animated stuff, how can you really tell whether someone is looking there permanently or just glancing? Before someone brings it up, sideways glance makes sense because the key part is the sideways bit, and it's as good a term as any for the described action.

kuuderes_shadow said:

Of those 3 solutions, as you go from the first to the second to the third the end result gets better, but the amount of effort increases markedly as well. I personally like the third one the best, but honestly it may just be too much effort (and I'm not volunteering to do it all myself either), in which case the second is probably the best compromise.

Agreed, while idyllic it would take a lot work to tag the posts already uploaded and future posts where they are tagged incorrectly or not at all (since the theoretical new tag would be unknown). Though I'm not ruling it out as an option since I also prefer it.

kuuderes_shadow said:

As for the glance tag, I'd question whether it really warrants existing at all. Except in animated stuff, how can you really tell whether someone is looking there permanently or just glancing? Before someone brings it up, sideways glance makes sense because the key part is the sideways bit, and it's as good a term as any for the described action.

I don't think that glance can be tagged accurately in static images if we were to use the actual definition of "glance". Glancing could be created to cover animations with that definition. Otherwise I think that the mention of "glance" in the other tags would raise the same question. I agree with you on specifying "sideways" as well if we are to use it.

One thing we need to think about with regards to tagging here is how these relate to some of the tags discussed in topic #14409. Would #1 also be eligible for facing viewer if they are facing forward towards the viewer? (I think it should because looking at viewer doesn't apply). And it does have me thinking of just how looking away and looking to the side are differentiated. I tagged post #2876818 as "looking away" because of the alias from "averted eyes". I'm not entirely sure if she's looking far enough to the side for this to be a similar case to the #1 being discussed here.

EB said:

Would #1 also be eligible for facing viewer if they are facing forward towards the viewer? (I think it should because looking at viewer doesn't apply). And it does have me thinking of just how looking away and looking to the side are differentiated. I tagged post #2876818 as "looking away" because of the alias from "averted eyes". I'm not entirely sure if she's looking far enough to the side for this to be a similar case to the #1 being discussed here.

I've only used facing viewer in regards to its wiki (when the character's eyes are closed), so in the case of #1 I don't think that it would. Unless we change its wiki according to what was brought up in the topic, i.e. when the face is turned to the viewer regardless of where the eyes are looking then I think it would apply then. But then what about facing away? I think that all images would need one or the other if this would be the case. Unless we also limit it to when their body also faces the viewer but I think that would be subjective.

I think it's natural that there be overlap between looking away, looking to the side and the other looking tags. Looking away only requires the character to be looking at something out of the image, i.e. not limited to direction. The "looking up/back/to the side" tags are relative to the character while "looking away" is relative to the viewer. In the case of your example, perhaps looking away along with sideways glance? Because relative to her head she's looking to the side, but relative to her body it's not 90 degrees in the direction like post #2900717.

Facing away doesn't have a wiki definition right now. I kind of think it would be best for it to fit what I was looking for here, in that it would apply only when the character is directly facing away from the viewer and we only see the back of their head. facing to the side/facing side tags exist, but are underpopulated. The intent in the former tag generally seems to be when the character is facing the side but you cannot see their eyes (so you can't say that they are "looking") because they are closed (post #2862231) or not visible (post #2871451). The single current instance of the latter tag (post #2900432) has the character facing the side but eyes turned toward the viewer in the front.

I suppose that that definition of facing away makes sense given facing viewer and the other tags. Or would that definition require creating a new tag like facing back? Regardless, with the way facing away is currently used, which seems to be an inconsistent mixture of the body not directly facing the viewer (i.e. slightly turned), from behind while looking back, (from *) with eyes covered/closed etc. it needs cleaning. Facing side, I think, isn't needed since we have from side.

So if there aren't any objections to the definition, I went ahead and gave facing away a wiki (feel free to change the wording or anything) and I'll leave cleaning up the tag for another time. Should we define facing to the side similarly to facing viewer, i.e. facing the side (relative to the viewer) with eyes closed/covered?

Also though none of the previously suggested solutions would effect the population of facing to the side, choosing one of them prior to it would be good. In particular if we go with the third, the proposed new tag head turned to the side could be populated along with facing to the side.

kiyah123 said:

So if there aren't any objections to the definition, I went ahead and gave facing away a wiki (feel free to change the wording or anything) and I'll leave cleaning up the tag for another time. Should we define facing to the side similarly to facing viewer, i.e. facing the side (relative to the viewer) with eyes closed/covered?

Not relative to the viewer but relative to the character so it's used the same way as looking to the side.

create alias side_glance -> sideways_glance

Link to request

As mentioned above, the side glance tag is used for when a character 'glances' to the side. Specifying 'sideways' instead removes ambiguity. I doubt that we'd want to just get rid of both tags by going with the first solution suggested, though if we do then this alias can be rejected.

EDIT: This bulk update request has been rejected because it was not approved within 60 days.

EDIT: The bulk update request #1375 (forum #138949) has been rejected by @DanbooruBot.

Updated by DanbooruBot

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