Tag discusion: Epic

Fred1515 said:
Btw why do you think subjective pools aren't better than subjective tags? The only argument I've seen is about the huge bar, and that's an issue for all pools and parent and child posts, and not really an argument about what should be a pool and what shouldn't.

To quote the help page for pools again, "They are similar to favorites with three important differences: public pools allow anyone to add or remove from them, you can create multiple pools, and posts in a pool can be ordered." The only one of these characteristics not shared by a normal tag is ordering, and my argument for 'what a pool should be' is that if the grouping doesn't contain sequential images, it shouldn't be a pool. As you say, the tangible advantage to this definition is that it removes the upper bar, which in the case of subjective pools is a good thing, as one rarely needs to use the bar to traverse the pool in 'order' and it is large enough to get in the way of things.

For current pools of non-sequential art, a simple and (I believe) easily implemented solution would be adding a new tag type for subjective tags and migrating current pools to those. This does leave the problem of huge names wrapping around in the small space of the tag list, but I think that's relatively minor compared to getting rid of the pool bar.

estragon said: For current pools of non-sequential art, a simple and (I believe) easily implemented solution would be adding a new tag type for subjective tags and migrating current pools to those. This does leave the problem of huge names wrapping around in the small space of the tag list, but I think that's relatively minor compared to getting rid of the pool bar.

That's basically what スラッシュ suggested, although again there's the need to have them be in the same place all the time (to facilitate scrolling through them) and yes the wrapping issue can be pretty significant.

Just making the header smaller really solves a lot of this.

Alas, the words epic and truth have been milked to death by internet entities such as 4chan.
I'm jumping the wagon that declares them simply subjective and encourage getting rid of them. Just as OP clarified, if someone is not aware of a character or an event that is being depicted in such an 'epic' picture it's just futile.
If something fits in the category of epic, there should be rather a group than a tag for it. Or something.

If I may have a word about this, I think the current (bulky) pool layout has a pretty good pro in the way it discourages users to stack pools on the same images. Because it takes so much space on the page. I feel that way anyway.

So far I've only encountered posts with up to 2 pools, mostly with one of them being an ordered pool, and I guess it's pretty much the limit to stay reasonnable, before people feel invited to pool everything just as if they were tagging.

To me Slash example (no more black skin anymore?) feels like it'd give the green lights to spam pools at heart content, because it allows the space to, and could spawn a wider range of pools as another result.
Maybe this can easily be avoided by warning users that this process is strongly deprecated, I dunno.

Anyway the pool concept in itself is quite flawed already besides for ordered stuff imho. Subjective pools pretty much lose their meaning as soon as they grow more than a few pages large, as the definition of what's relevant to the pool can only expand, given what's already inside.
If anything there should be a way to gradually refine pools contents over the additions made, so that they'll always firstly display the top and seeked material, or maybe let the users pool stuff for their own view as if they were pooling their favorites if it's really too subjective (but it sounds too obvious not to have been discussed already).
The latter has to be quite a burden to impliment and with minimal priority, but the former could be done with minimal efforts I guess (just have the trustful users to sort pools between top material and the rest, and two display groups). And assuming the pools would be of better quality we could also get rid of the current subjective tags.

Sorry if I sound rude but I just like the idea of improving pools contents.

Cyberia-Mix said:
Sorry if I sound rude but I just like the idea of improving pools contents.

This is a more general comment on forum participation: don't apologise for taking part in threads.

The forum is open by design and everyone is welcome to chime in when they feel like they can contribute something. Unless there are some very specific rules laid out for a particular thread (such as the deletion appeal thread, or "this is a summary thread, please don't reply directly" ones), you should assume you can and are encouraged to have your say. Moreover, you shouldn't treat mods with any special reverence, just the common courtesy you'd apply to anyone else is all that's needed. Thus you shouldn't be afraid of sounding rude, unless you, y'know, are actually being rude.

That doesn't mean endless rehashing the same thing, or "me too"ing ad nauseam is what you should do. But if you do have something to say and it hasn't been said yet, just do it without apologising for the fact.

It's less about fearing mods and stuff than getting people hostile as I tend to sound like a nazi when expressing opinions.
While lurking around before posting I came across the records page and the trac, and figured out I'd been completely unsuspecting about the amount of work going on backstage (not frankly obvious as a user juding by the minimalist interface and all, but I suppose I could say the same about google). I browsed a few major threads then and I went positively surprised seeing how strongly the staff was feeling concerned about the site quality and discussing issues in a mature way, as much as I'm glad to learn this is actually not a porn site (heh).
So I don't want to sound like I know my job better than caring people who've been involved for years.

Cyberia-Mix said:
It's less about fearing mods and stuff than getting people hostile as I tend to sound like a nazi when expressing opinions.

So do I, and look where it got me. Don't worry about it too much, in most cases an intelligent post will help, even if we don't agree/don't end up going that way. It's always good to bounce ideas back and forth.

I had a thought, since we do have tag categories, we could in theory make a "subjective" tag category as well. I still think subjective tags, even if especially labelled as such, are inherently drama magnets, whereas subjective pools are not. We can give it a try though, at least. (If someone already suggested this, sorry, I must've missed it)