Applicability of solo tag for non-humanoid characters

Continuing from a discussion at topic #14603/p3, since it seems there is inconsistency in whether animals, creatures, Rensouhous, etc. are considered or not in tagging an image as a solo. Just to pick out how one example is tagged at the moment, kero solo has 11 pages of results of him, the vast majority with Sakura, the implication being that his presence doesn't really disqualify an image from solo. Actually none of the images of Kero-chan alone (kero chartags:1) have the solo tag, not even the one with him given a humanoid body (which I think would qualify for tags like 1boy and male focus as well). But there are just as many pages of results for kero kinomoto_sakura chartags:2 -solo indicating a high degree of inconsistency in how this situation is tagged. So, any opinions on what kind of rules we should establish for cases like this?

I'd say as long as something has a char tag it should be considered as a character.
Might seem intuitive at first, but only like that we can ensure that a simple black cat isn't considered a character while Sakamoto or Jiji is one.

My opinion stands the same as forum #138312: as long as the non-human character has a character tag and they're with 1boy or 1girl, I wouldn't tag those as solo.

I agree with the above 2 posters.

I agree with the two three above, if it's a copyrighted character it doesn't matter if it's humanoid. And the same situation goes for Pokemon unfortunately. pokemon_(creature) solo ~1girl ~1boy -personification -humanization -cosplay -no_humans -gardevoir

Boko, the Big E, and Raising Heart are just a few examples of character tags but shouldn't count towards solo considerations.

How minor characters interact with the solo tag has been brought up multiple times in the past but never clearly resolved. See topic #2331, topic #2413, topic #6655, topic #7553, topic #9062 (keep in mind that solo focus didn't exist until this last topic).

Just counting everything with a character tag doesn't always work. Consider some more examples:

• Dolls: Alice Margatroid + Shanghai Doll / Hourai Doll, Medicine Melancholy + Su-San.
• Robot sidekicks: Shimakaze + Rensouhou-chan, Mei + Snowball.
• Non-human "accessory" characters: Konpaku Youmu + Myon, Suwako + Pyonta, Kogasa + Kogasa (umbrella).
• Named pets and animals: Sakamoto as mentioned above, Ein from Cowboy Bebop, etc.
• Human characters in animal form: Kaenbyou Rin (cat), Reiuji Utsuho (bird).
• Human characters in non-human form: Yukkuris, Sukusuku Hakutaku, Takoluka, etc. Sometimes these are chartags, sometimes not.
• Pokemon creatures.
• Mecha: Asuka + EVA 02 (a chartag), D.Va + Meka (not a chartag).
• Completely inanimate "characters": Weighted Companion Cube

Some of these cases are more debatable than others, but the point is that some characters are less significant than others.

The suggestion in the past was that when one of these minor characters is not doing anything of significance or acting independently, then they don't count towards solo. This is what many taggers seem to be doing intuitively, but it's not easy to enforce consistently.