Clarification on the "morning_star" tag

Posted under General

NNescio

I ran into this issue when I stumbled across post #4185758, which has (well, had) the mace held by Haguro tagged as morning_star but not spiked_mace.

Currently, the morning_star tag is currently defined in its wiki as "a flail weapon with a spiked ball at the end of the chain." This fits with what a lot of people would think of as a "morning star" . Most taggers would appear to agree, with morning_star having very few false positives (cf. morning_star ~mace ~spiked_mace).

However, the morning_star wiki also acknowledges a more 'technically-correct' definition of "morning star" (as used by medieval historians and HEMA practitioners and fantasy tabletop gamers etc):

Morning_star wiki said:

The term "morning star" more accurately refers to both the flail and mace-like weapons that have a ball or spherical end with spikes on it. Although preferentially the term refers more to the mace/club-like weapon, as opposed to the flail weapon.

This seems slightly confusing as it would appear to suggest that tagging spiked_mace with morning_star is also acceptable. But doing so will leave mace and spiked_mace untagged.

Meanwhile the spiked_mace wiki defines itself such:

Spiked_mace wiki said:
A mace-like club weapon with a spiked ball head.

The weapon is better known as a "morning star" (after the shape of head), but for tagging purposes the morning_star tag refers to the flail weapon that uses spiked ball weights.

This implies that the morning_star tag shouldn't be used for spiked_mace then. Which... isn't exactly made clear by the morning_star wiki.

Overall, the issue is this:

  • If a ball-and-chain flail with a spiked head pops up in a post, most people will tag it as morning_star. No problems here.
  • If a 'mace-like' weapon with a spiked ball head pops up in a post (like in the aforementioned post #4185758), , some people will tag it as spiked_mace (and mace too, sometimes), while some will instead tag it as morning_star, leaving spiked_mace untagged.
    • Some people might be unsure and look up the morning_star wiki, only to find that it seems to give the go-ahead on tagging the 'mace-like' weapon morning_star, so they go ahead and tag it morning_star anyway, again leaving spiked_mace untagged.

Currently this is still a minor issue, and most examples of morning_star and spiked_mace are tagged 'correctly' (given their current definitions on their respective Danbooru wikis, never mind what is more technically correct). So, I think both tags can stand on their own, and there's no need to change their definitions. But the current definition for morning_star can still be potentially confusing and lead to the issue mentioned above (spiked_mace not being tagged because people just tag morning_star) . As such, I think the wiki for morning_star need to be rewritten slightly to:

  • Prohibit tagging 'mace-like' non-flail examples as morning_star.
  • Mention the existence of the spiked_mace tag (preferably under the "See also" header and also within the general body of the text itself), so people would know of a more 'appropriate' tag to use.
    • e.g. Add this line to the end of the current morning_star wiki: "...but for tagging purposes morning_star refers to the flail version of the above. The mace-like club weapon with a spiked ball head should instead be tagged spiked_club."

This helps clarify the tags and keep it in line with current usage practices. If there are no objections, I can go ahead with these changes.

On a related issue, why does spiked_mace not imply mace? Is there some subtle distinction or possible corner case involved? The spiked_mace wiki itself appears to be careful in deliberately using the term "mace-like club weapon" instead of just mace. Though that itself might potentially cause confusion issues with club and spiked_club (oddly, spiked_club does imply club).

I suppose I can... remember reading somewhere that some fantasy "spiked maces" are not technically maces or some such, but does this distinction matter for Danbooru's purposes? If not then implying spiked_mace -> mace would seem appropriate.

Updated by NNescio

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NNescio

(Separated into a 2nd post instead of edited into the above to avoid flooding the mention)

Wait, did a search and found topic #15194 from three years ago. Specifically, this post:

nonamethanks said:

The morning star and spiked mace wikis both refer to morning_star as to use only for flailed maces, while the latter should apparently be used for the rigid ones. Imo this should be reworked because it's pretty unintuitive to have a weapon known in way use a different name here.

We also have ball_and_chain by the way, which seems to have a lot of posts similar to the ones tagged under morning star.

So basically in reworking this we should use three different tags:
- morning star should unimply flail, and it should be used to denote only rigid spiked maces (so then it should imply both spikes and mace);
- ball and chain should be used for, well, weapons consisting of a ball and chain;
- a tag subset, named perhaps spiked ball and chain, should contain what is currently described in the morning star wiki (which will be removed from there), and should imply both ball and chain and spikes.

Anything I'm missing?

nonamethanks said:

That implication seems to have been made too hastily. Or rather, back then there was no problem with this since I imagine there were pretty few posts under all these tags. But as danbooru grows we have to address this in order to make tagging more intuitive - it helps nobody and it's confusing to have tags follow a definition directly in contrast with how terms are actually used.

BTW a quick google search will clarify to anyone with doubts that flails are only incorrectly labeled as morning stars, since that term only applies to rigid weapons.

@nonamethanks
So we instead proceed with these changes then? Unimply flail from morning_star, rename morning_star to spiked_ball_and_chain, imply spiked_ball_and_chain to both ball_and_chain_(weapon) and spikes, alias spiked_mace to morning_star, in that order?

If this is more appropriate, then I'm fully in support of doing this instead. I would much prefer using the correct terms for these. Though as this would involve more work rewriting the wikis and gardening the tags (instead of just keeping the status quo with one or two clarification lines added)... I don't think I will volunteer for this (especially since I have my hands full currently). But I will fully support this instead if you think it's more appropriate.

Updated by NNescio

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nonamethanks

BUR #5755 has been approved by @evazion.

remove implication morning_star -> flail
create implication spiked_mace -> mace
create implication spiked_mace -> spikes

Looking at spiked mace there's not a single post that is not a morning star or a mistagged ball and chain (weapon). I think the two terms should just be aliased.

We also have spike_ball btw.

I volunteer to clean up this mess and create a spiked ball and chain tag, but this implication has to go through first, otherwise it's impossible to fix.

Also I find it ironic that the wiki says "for tagging purposes the morning_star tag refers to the flail weapon that uses spiked ball weights".
Imagine if our wiki for car said "for tagging purposes this tag refers to bicycles".
Despite this nonsense in the wiki, a lot of results are for the true morning star, which proves once again that nobody reads wikis.

Updated by nonamethanks

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Talulah NNescio Nacha user 770645 SSJG BrokenEagle98 NWF Renim
NNescio

nonamethanks said:

BUR #5755 has been approved by @evazion.

remove implication morning_star -> flail
create implication spiked_mace -> mace
create implication spiked_mace -> spikes

Looking at spiked mace there's not a single post that is not a morning star or a mistagged ball and chain (weapon). I think the two terms should just be aliased.

We also have spike_ball btw.

I volunteer to clean up this mess and create a spiked ball and chain tag, but this implication has to go through first, otherwise it's impossible to fix.

Also I find it ironic that the wiki says "for tagging purposes the morning_star tag refers to the flail weapon that uses spiked ball weights".
Imagine if our wiki for car said "for tagging purposes this tag refers to bicycles".
Despite this nonsense in the wiki, a lot of results are for the true morning star, which proves once again that nobody reads wikis.

I agree that we would need to deimplicate morning_star -> flail first, yes. Otherwise this is completely unfixable.
But shouldn't we move out all the "flail with a spiked ball at the end"/"spiked ball and chain" examples out first before proceeding to the morning_star -> spiked_mace alias? Ideally to a spiked ball and chain tag, before gardening it later. Otherwise this will introduce all the "spiky flails" into spiked_mace, which does sound like it would require additional gardening to remove. Though... maybe I'm misunderstanding things, and if doing it this way (alias first, gardening later) would be easier for you, then I'm all for it.

nonamethanks said:

Looking at spiked mace there's not a single post that is not a morning star or a mistagged ball and chain (weapon). I think the two terms should just be aliased.

There was post #4409977 (spiked_club mistagged as spiked_mace). Fixed it earlier while looking for examples. Though, yeah, probably shouldn't be an issue then.

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NWF Renim

nonamethanks said:

BUR #5755 has been approved by @evazion.

remove implication morning_star -> flail
create implication spiked_mace -> mace
create implication spiked_mace -> spikes

Also I find it ironic that the wiki says "for tagging purposes the morning_star tag refers to the flail weapon that uses spiked ball weights".
Imagine if our wiki for car said "for tagging purposes this tag refers to bicycles".
Despite this nonsense in the wiki, a lot of results are for the true morning star, which proves once again that nobody reads wikis.

It'd probably be better to leave morning_star empty and ambiguous. You can blame me for that "nonsense in the wiki," but that was purely written reflecting the common usage of the tag, which means that the majority of people were (and still are) tagging it for the flail weapon which is reflected in the fact the bulk of the posts under the tag are of the flail weapon. Doing the alias would mean adding in the common usage of it by people tagging it for the flail, which would result in spiked_mace frequently being mistagged.

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nonamethanks

NWF_Renim said:

It'd probably be better to leave morning_star empty and ambiguous. You can blame me for that "nonsense in the wiki," but that was purely written reflecting the common usage of the tag, which means that the majority of people were (and still are) tagging it for the flail weapon which is reflected in the fact the bulk of the posts under the tag are of the flail weapon. Doing the alias would mean adding in the common usage of it by people tagging it for the flail, which would result in spiked_mace frequently being mistagged.

Removed. I'll start sorting it out manually then.

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NNescio

NWF_Renim said:

It'd probably be better to leave morning_star empty and ambiguous. You can blame me for that "nonsense in the wiki," but that was purely written reflecting the common usage of the tag, which means that the majority of people were (and still are) tagging it for the flail weapon which is reflected in the fact the bulk of the posts under the tag are of the flail weapon. Doing the alias would mean adding in the common usage of it by people tagging it for the flail, which would result in spiked_mace frequently being mistagged.

Does seem like a good idea. Also, another consideration:

The 'equivalent' モーニングスター ("morning star") tag is used on both Pixiv and Nico to refer to both flailed and mace variants. Rem being the main contributor to both when she's depicted with her flail. Nico uses it more consistently for spiked maces (with spherical head) instead of flails, but still has quite a few Rem posts. Overall, I'd say this is another case of 'canon tagging'. Though IIRC I don't think it is referred to as a morning star in canon, but promotional and marketing materials like those for figurine sometimes will use モーニングスター.

Anyhow, the Pixiv wiki article defines モーニングスター into two main types, one "flail-like" and one "mace-like". The Nico one just conflates them all without clear separation. The Japanese Wikipedia article defines it as a mace, but also mentions that fantasy works may have ones that appear more like flails. As for general usage among Japanese people (well, for those who are aware of the loanword), while I'm not 100% sure, I believe most of them just conflate both terms, except for those who regularly consume Western media (Western fantasy games and tabletop RPGs, in particular. And I think they also have a HEMA club called "Castle Tintagel" or something).

I don't think we necessarily need to follow their use of the word (though we had, kinda), but leaving morning star in as an alias might also cause issues with people following suggested autotranslated tags, leading to more mistagging. Perhaps another point in favor of retiring morning_star entirely by leaving it empty, I guess?

Updated by NNescio

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nonamethanks

BUR #5758 has been approved by @evazion.

create implication spiked_ball_and_chain -> ball_and_chain_(weapon)

Created this tag for the specific spiked balls on chain.
Also cleared out morning_star, I'll fix the wiki now.

Another issue: we have spike ball, which seems to be a mix of the above and spiked mace. What to do with it? Clear it out like morning star? There's a few random weird posts like post #4417840 in it too. There's also the option of using spike_ball as a combo tag to use with ball and chain (weapon) and just get rid of spiked ball and chain, but I'm not a fan of it because it's too generic a term and the fact that people have used it for spiked mace too doesn't give me much confidence in its potential.

And there's also flail with a lot of these posts in it. Perhaps ball and chain (weapon) should imply flail? There's 100+ posts of rem from re:zero under flail re:zero.
I can understand the argument of keeping flail for balls & chain with a handle and ball and chain (weapon) for both with and without handle, but in real world usage the two tags will probably have 99% overlap if gardened.

Updated by nonamethanks

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NNescio

nonamethanks said:

BUR #5758 has been approved by @evazion.

create implication spiked_ball_and_chain -> ball_and_chain_(weapon)

Created this tag for the specific spiked balls on chain.
Also cleared out morning_star, I'll fix the wiki now.

Another issue: we have spike ball, which seems to be a mix of the above and spiked mace. What to do with it? Clear it out like morning star? There's a few random weird posts like post #4417840 in it too. There's also the option of using spike_ball as a combo tag to use with ball and chain (weapon) and just get rid of spiked ball and chain, but I'm not a fan of it because it's too generic a term and the fact that people have used it for spiked mace too doesn't give me much confidence in its potential.

I think it's for the "spiked ball" at the end of a spiked mace or ball and chain flail. And as a general purpose 'catch-all' tag for other spiky balls in general, whether used as a weapon or not. It was probably created to describe the, well, "spiky ball bit" of the mace or flail (or chain without handle). Which may be useful if the chain or handle gets broken, or in scenes where only the spiky head is visible, I guess? Can also probably be used for, like, spiky ball traps.

Don't see anything wrong with keeping it though. Other than maybe causing additional complexity in tag relationships if people requests a BUR later. And maybe people tagging naval_mines with it.

nonamethanks said:

And there's also flail with a lot of these posts in it. Perhaps ball and chain (weapon) should imply flail? There's 100+ posts of rem from re:zero under flail re:zero.
I can understand the argument of keeping flail for balls & chain with a handle and ball and chain (weapon) for both with and without handle, but in real world usage the two tags will probably have 99% overlap if gardened.

Oh right... ball and chain (weapon)'s wiki states that it for handle-less ball and chains instead (i.e. not flails). Though it gets 'mistagged' all the time for flails. Ugh, more complications. I'm... not sure, at this point. Obviously the distinction matters a lot to the people who wrote the wiki, but currently it's a mess, with many examples being actual flails instead of handle-less ball-and-chains (266/541 of ball and chain (weapon) also tagged flail).

I'd probably say don't touch it for now. Also avoid implicating spiked_ball_and_chain -> ball_and_chain_(weapon) for the moment.

As for ball_and_chain_(weapon) -> chain... could be an issue if the chain isn't visible but the rest of the weapon is enough for a tagger to determine that it is a ball_and_chain. And I guess we can have potentially have spikey-ball flails that are attached to the handle with sinew or rope, or thread or magical ectoplasm...which could be problematic if people tag spiked_ball_and_chain and have it propagate down the implication chain to chain. That said, both such issues are just... highly theoretical right now (I'm just coming up with weird corner examples) and I don't think they will occur often in real world situations to matter too much. And those weird flail combos can probably be handled with a combo of flail and spike ball (ironically enough).

--

Anyhow, going to mention those who have contributed before to the ball_and_chain article before:

@mario1277 @henmere @NWF_Renim @BrokenEagle98
What do you think about the current state of ball_and_chain_(weapon), and the current proposed changes in this thread?

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NNescio

nonamethanks said:

Ah, wait, I just added those to ball and chain because I didn't even notice the wiki said to only use it for non-handled weapons. Lemme remove it from the posts I added it to.

I didn't too. My bad for not mentioning it earlier and causing you to go through all that extra work. Sorry.

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NNescio

nonamethanks said:

No worries. But then this means spiked_ball_and_chain is the wrong name. For now I'll remove the flails from it and tag them accordingly.

Yes, it would be ambiguous then. My bad for not checking things properly when following the thread posts from three years ago.

Edit: Hmm, call the other 'morning star' flail a ball-and-chain_flail instead then? No need to distinguish between spiked and unspiked variants; they are likely to come spiked in "99%" of cases anyway.

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nonamethanks

NNescio said:

Yes, it would be ambiguous then. My bad for not checking things properly when following the thread posts from three years ago.

Edit: Hmm, call the other 'morning star' flail a ball-and-chain_flail instead then? No need to distinguish between spiked and unspiked variants; they are likely to come spiked in "99%" of cases anyway.

That was shot down in topic #17972, because we define flail as having a handle. Of course, often it's not visible whether there's a handle or not.

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NNescio

nonamethanks said:

That was shot down in topic #17972, because we define flail as having a handle. Of course, often it's not visible whether there's a handle or not.

No, I mean keep ball_and_chain_(weapon) as it is, and use ball-and-chain_flail for spiked_ball_and_chain (the flail with the spiky ball at the end previously tagged as morning_star).

Edit: Or maybe... morningstar flail for the-weapon-formerly known-as-morning_star? The kind that Rem wields? This helps keep the names different, and let people use the tag more intuitively if they were previously using it as morning_star.

Updated by NNescio

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nonamethanks

Ok, so to recap:

  • flail -> currently for a mix of smooth and spiked balls & chain with handle

The fact that post #4533814, post #4342197 and other similar were tagged with "flail" suggests to me that this distinction is purely fictional and in our head, and something like post #4313097 having to be a flail and not a ball & chain just because of the tiny handle that's often not even used doesn't seem right.
Also a large amount of ball & chain posts are probably just flails with the handles inside wide sleeves. There's also cases where we can't see the handle (or lack of) because it's off-screen. Compare ball_and_chain_(weapon) re:zero with flail re:zero.

The fact that googling "ball and chain weapon" suggests "flail" also doesn't help. I honestly think they should just be merged. Wikipedia defines "flail" as having a handle simply because not a lot of people were stupid enough historically to... flail... a ball and chain around without a solid handle in real combat. I'm not sure why we even bother keeping a distinction. It would make sense to me if we were making a distinction between polearm-like weapons with a ball and chain attached at the end and normal flails, but most of the flail posts have a really small handle.

And then there's things like post #722079. Does that count as a handle? The mecha is not handling it, so I guess not. And yet it looks like a flail as much as any other post under that tag without a long handle.
And what about post #4413853? Why is this a flail if the handle might as well just be a dead weight?

I think we should just create a spiked flail tag, merge it with spiked ball and chain, and merge ball and chain (weapon) with flail.

Updated by nonamethanks

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NNescio

nonamethanks said:

Ok, so to recap:

  • flail -> currently for a mix of smooth and spiked balls & chain with handle

The fact that post #4533814, post #4342197 and other similar were tagged with "flail" suggests to me that this distinction is purely fictional and in our head, and something like post #4313097 having to be a flail and not a ball & chain just because of the tiny handle that's often not even used doesn't seem right.
Also a large amount of ball & chain posts are probably just flails with the handles inside wide sleeves. There's also cases where we can't see the handle (or lack of) because it's off-screen. Compare ball_and_chain_(weapon) re:zero with flail re:zero.

The fact that googling "ball and chain weapon" suggests "flail" also doesn't help. I honestly think they should just be merged. Wikipedia defines "flail" as having a handle simply because not a lot of people were stupid enough historically to... flail... a ball and chain around without a solid handle in real combat. I'm not sure why we even bother keeping a distinction. It would make sense to me if we were making a distinction between polearm-like weapons with a ball and chain attached at the end and normal flails, but most of the flail posts have a really small handle.

And then there's things like post #722079. Does that count as a handle? The mecha is not handling it, so I guess not. And yet it looks like a flail as much as any other post under that tag without a long handle.

It's... mostly because that's how people define flails? Among medieval historians, medieval weapon enthusiasts (HEMA practitioners included), and gamers (tabletop and video) who care about the distinction. I suppose it can be hard to tell in images and will lead to mistaggings, but if we're going to change rename morning_star because it technically only refers to rigid weapons (another distinction deriving from the same source as flail vs non-flails), it would be kinda shooting ourselves in the foot to then turn around and say handles don't matter.

So maybe this:

edit:

nonamethanks said:

And then there's things like post #722079. Does that count as a handle? The mecha is not handling it, so I guess not. And yet it looks like a flail as much as any other post under that tag without a long handle.

I wouldn't call it a flail as it's not quite a handle. Usually, personally speaking, it has to be somewhat stick-like to count as a handle for a flail.

nonamethanks said:

And what about post #4413853? Why is this a flail if the handle might as well just be a dead weight?

Well, I guess... that's clearly a flail? With the handle being quite visible. There are some flail techniques that rely on grasping the chain end (and using it more like a ball and chain). I do acknowledge that anime-style weapon design (and usage) can be... impractical at times, with many parts of the weapon being rendered superflous, but the same issues are probably also present in some other weapon tags.

nonamethanks said:

I think we should just create a spiked flail tag, merge it with spiked ball and chain, and merge ball and chain (weapon) with flail.

Okay... um... I suppose I don't feel particularly strong about this issue (yet), so I wouldn't object in any case with them all being merged together... if you think it works out to be more intuitive tagging. And it is far simpler than the solution I mentioned. That said, I feel that some people would most likely object strongly to this, especially those I mentioned above who contributed to the ball_and_chain_(weapon) article, so maybe it might be a good idea to wait for their opinions before we proceed.

Updated by NNescio

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NWF Renim

In terms of distinctions, a flail weapon should be a melee weapon. It's usage is one that would be one used at melee range, like a sword and club. A ball and chain weapon is a ranged weapon in the same sense as a whip is commonly used in fiction. If the chain is long enough that it'd be used as a ranged weapon, then it's a ball and chain.

ideal flail depictions: post #660676, post #212735, post #1868720

In general, if you could think of the weapon as a whip using a chain, then it's a ball and chain and not a flail.

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nonamethanks

In the end I don't mind keeping them separate but I don't have much hope for these tags to be actually used properly.

As for creating a morningstar flail, the vast majority of flail fit under that, so that tag would basically be equivalent with its parent.

NWF_Renim said:

In terms of distinctions, a flail weapon should be a melee weapon. It's usage is one that would be one used at melee range, like a sword and club. A ball and chain weapon is a ranged weapon in the same sense as a whip is commonly used in fiction. If the chain is long enough that it'd be used as a ranged weapon, then it's a ball and chain.

ideal flail depictions: post #660676, post #212735, post #1868720

In general, if you could think of the weapon as a whip using a chain, then it's a ball and chain and not a flail.

That makes more sense to me, but then it begs the question of what to do with the majority of posts under flail, which are not flails under that definition.

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