Danbooru

create alias alternate_costume_(official) -> official_alternate_costume

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Damian0358

Honestly, we should probably have a wider discussion about alternate costume as a whole. When the tag was created long ago, its first wiki in 2008 (and second, more definitive version, in 2009) would ultimately say that it is for those "wearing a costume other than the one they are typically depicted in. For a game character, this is a costume other than the standard one that can be unlocked within the game." It wouldn't be until 2013 that a regular member would add the "a (typically fanmade/unofficial) costume," after the discussion had in topic #9102, and with the creation of official alternate costume in 2019 (presumably born from topic #15975, 9 years after such a tag was originally proposed in topic #7217), the wiki would be refined to emphasize the unofficial aspect that wasn't originally there when the wiki was created (especially after topic #17206).

What does this ultimately mean? Even if the tag was intended for unofficial costumes since the very beginning, even if most used it as such, just as many just slapped the tag on official costumes too, to the point where someone even proposed aliasing official alternate costume to alternate costume in topic #17247 (and of course, having it be official_* by default makes people think it is a subset of the latter, when it isn't). As such, as long as the tag appears on so many posts with official alternate costumes, people will just default to using alternate costume instead, especially if they, say, don't bother to check the wiki (which most don't). Obviously then, the solution is to tag garden it, but then you face the logistical issue of just how massive the tag is, at 187782 posts and counting, one alias in alternative_costume and one implication in enmaided. You'd have to get a massive task force in order to do something like that, and they are rare to get these days.

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I think there's a fairly easy solution here.

mass update -official_alternate_costume alternate_costume -> unofficial_alternate_costume (optional)
imply official_alternate_costume -> alternate_costume
imply unofficial_alternate_costume -> alternate_costume

The only thing that would be needed then if you want to go forward with the first line would be a gardening effort, but if that is a logistical nightmare then just leave it as it is.

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HeeroWingZero

Username_Hidden said:

I think there's a fairly easy solution here.

mass update -official_alternate_costume alternate_costume -> unofficial_alternate_costume (optional)
imply official_alternate_costume -> alternate_costume
imply unofficial_alternate_costume -> alternate_costume

The only thing that would be needed then if you want to go forward with the first line would be a gardening effort, but if that is a logistical nightmare then just leave it as it is.

I think the other logistical nightmare is that there's a metric fuckton of official alternate costume posts of vtubers and gacha characters that aren't tagged with either tag that'd have to be added.

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RaisinBread

HeeroWingZero said:

I think the other logistical nightmare is that there's a metric fuckton of official alternate costume posts of vtubers and gacha characters that aren't tagged with either tag that'd have to be added.

for some gacha like arknights and azur lane which have a naming format for the official alternate costumes by searching

*_(*)_(arknights) -official_alternate_costume -alternate_costume -cosplay

could probably weed out a good chunk of them

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nonamethanks

That's the main issue with these tags though: they're not used. Certainly not enough to be useful. If you want to see a specific design you're better off either using the specific chartag for gacha skins that have them, or just searching for a feature in the costume (compare inugami_korone bamboo vs inugami_korone official_alternate_costume).

alternate costume might have worked great ten years ago but with the surge of vtubers and gacha characters that change clothes monthly I can't see it ever being a useful tag again. It requires high maintenance and the average user is not going to bother waiting for whichever builder to do their monthly tagging run to make the tag usable.

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