ljhkhjkghjybtvhyt said:
Situation: searching for human photos is hard
Searching for photo_(medium) yields mostly photography of illustrations, which is fair enough
Preliminarily trying to conjure a search for cosplay photo_(medium) would still yield illustrations due to the very literal presence of cosplay in a photo
Then realizing there is a tag for traditional media in this case we could arrange the search cosplay photo_(medium) -traditional_media which finally would yield something closer to the desired results.
However aside from exceeding the 2 tag limit search by subtraction is fairly gnarly for users, not even necessarily because it requires them to know the '-' operator but because it is considerably harder to search for what is not a desirable find than to put in the field what they want in particular, it also requires a posteriori knowledge of what the search would yield otherwise.
Another issue is a very interpretative notion of what makes photography the medium, occasionally an image with a photo in the corner or in a mere panel may also get the tag photo_(medium) and that would mean our hypothetical user still finds things like post #4330769 even with their 3 tag search.
Proposals
off-topic status:deleted photo_(medium) -no_humans
Or for non off-topic stuff:
photo_(medium) cosplay -traditional_media -reference_photo_inset -no_humans (for cosplays)
photo_(medium) real_life (for non cosplays)
Anyway... the more pertinent issue is that photos are generally not... encouraged to be uploaded. Danbooru "is primarily for original anime-style or anime-related artwork," in other words. So most photos are kinda off-topic unless it's related to artwork in some way. Like, say, photos of artwork and reference photos used for (uploaded) artwork.
Photos of people cosplaying specific characters (unlike say, generic meido cosplay) aren't off-topic, but they might be perceived as borderline (and hence risk not being approved). Regardless, uploading piles of cosplay pictures (of the same cosplayer in similar poses and background) will probably also rankle a few feathers.
Photos of some real-life people connected to "original anime-style or anime-related artwork" may also be allowed under certain circumstances (basically if they 'represent' said copyright in some fashion, and are frequently drawn as a 'character' for such related copyrights), such as, say, Zun (zun photo_(medium)) and Yagoo (yagoo photo_(medium)), but trying to upload massive piles of such real-life photos (even of people who already have photographs uploaded and approved here) will probably be considered off-topic and swiftly deleted.
Otherwise, well... photos of real-life people will generally be considered off-topic, because they aren't anime-related. You'd probably have better luck looking on other boorus dedicated to 'real-life'photos, such as on Behoimi (AKA 3Dbooru).
I suppose cosplay of fictional "anime-style or anime-related artwork" characters are on-topic, and we do host a considerable number of such photos, and perhaps a dedicated tag for that might help people find those. But then again if somebody wants to look up cosplays, a dedicated booru like Behoimi is probably a better idea anyway. Boorus deidicated to 3D content will have tags and other features to make it easier to look for, well, 3D content, because that's what they are specced for.
Overall, I'm ambivalent on this matter (the proposal to crate a new tag specifically for real-life people in the flesh). Though... maybe we could use the real life copyright tag more 'aggressively' for this? If a post contains a photo of a real-life person, 'mandate' tagging it real life even if the person is cosplaying a character from a specific copyright? Currently posts with photos of real-life people don't (usually) get the real life tag if they are "in-character".
...Though, I'm not sure whether this approach will cause issues for people who are currently relying on the real life tag. Anyone has any opinions on this, or can shed some insight?