For some background: This is an attempt to rectify some issues caused by a lack of nuance with the current filtering and tagging system in regards to blacklisting, and to balance the desires of both people who want to search for all posts with furry characters, and people who want to blacklist furry-centric content.
Our current system does not account for instances of coincidental furry characters, such as in post #2999857 or post #6837845, or furry characters who are out of focus, such as post #9029932 when it comes to filtering, which causes issues with images either not showing up in searches they are relevant to, or images being filtered by people who don't want them to be filtered because of coincidental non-focus characters.
Adding a tag for coincidental/background furry characters would be the most ideal way to fix this, by allowing users who want to see all furry content to simply search "furry", those who only want to see furry-centric content to search "furry -background_furry", those who don't want images with background furry characters filtered to filter "furry -background_furry", and those who don't want to see any furries to simply filter "furry".
This would allow me to get posts like the aforementioned post #6837845, which I would like to see, in my furry search, without hiding it from users who don't want to see something like post #10084816 but aren't bothered by a background Melusine or Palico or whoever else.
My favgroup contains all the relevant images I could find from furry solo_focus, and I'll add any more that I find as well.
The only real issue I can see here is with the name, as some of the posts have characters who aren't technically background characters while still not being a main focus, like post #4458470. This is mostly a matter of semantics though and I think the name works fine for the intended purpose. Alternative suggestions are welcome if anyone is bothered by this technicality in the name.
TL;DR: This would be the ideal solution to strike a balance between furries and people who want to blacklist furries without getting images hidden for having a background furry character.
I'm not going to pass judgement on the idea of background_furry as a concept, but I can't unvote this regardless because the favgroup has a ton of stuff like post #8167672post #8059408post #3745050 where I'd hardly call the character a "background" or "incidental" figure.
I guess hypothetically the counter-tag to this proposal would be something like human focus (extremely stupid) or furry focus (still kinda stupid but maybe less so, previously manually nuked as a result of topic #27651). Not against the tag as a concept but rescinded my vote for now since based on the above responses it looks like the favgroup might need some cleanup.
I'm not going to pass judgement on the idea of background_furry as a concept, but I can't unvote this regardless because the favgroup has a ton of stuff like post #8167672post #8059408post #3745050 where I'd hardly call the character a "background" or "incidental" figure.
Tied up the favgroup and I thought of another naming option, which I kind of like more because it avoids the literal issue of if a character is technically in the background or not.
maybe there could be a tag for furries as major characters in an image alongside humans/humanoids in non-romantic/sexual contexts for stuff like those pics zetsubou and zapdos mentioned? i know there's furry with non-furry for romance/sex but i don't think there's any equiv for platonic/simply both being the equal focus of an image
maybe there could be a tag for furries as major characters in an image alongside humans/humanoids in non-romantic/sexual contexts for stuff like those pics zetsubou and zapdos mentioned? i know there's furry with non-furry for romance/sex but i don't think there's any equiv for platonic/simply both being the equal focus of an image
I think someone once suggested or created that but it was shot down? Can't remember.
Honestly I still don't get why it was suddenly decided that things like post #9212745 qualify for furry. Yes I get that strictly speaking they are, but this completely nukes the idea of furry as a blacklist tag.
Keep in mind furry -rating:g is still in the default blacklist, and this worked because it keeps posts like post #10088406 out, but now things like post #6956106 are also removed under the default blacklist (which is also the one people without an account have). Just because it's strictly correct in the most autistic reading, doesn't mean it's necessarily the best use of the tag.
This feels like an issue somewhat related to the one that lead to animal sexualization, except in that case a new tag was added to encompass all the concepts. Expanding the use of furry and then bandaiding fixes onto it to keep blacklisting intact feels like if bestiality was expanded to encompass what animal sexualization does, and then a new tag was made for what was originally bestiality. In this case, furry definitely served its purpose as a blacklist tag quite well, but now that utility is los and we need to go back and fix it again.
Honestly I still don't get why it was suddenly decided that things like post #9212745 qualify for furry. Yes I get that strictly speaking they are, but this completely nukes the idea of furry as a blacklist tag.
Keep in mind furry -rating:g is still in the default blacklist, and this worked because it keeps posts like post #10088406 out, but now things like post #6956106 are also removed under the default blacklist (which is also the one people without an account have). Just because it's strictly correct in the most autistic reading, doesn't mean it's necessarily the best use of the tag.
This feels like an issue somewhat related to the one that lead to animal sexualization, except in that case a new tag was added to encompass all the concepts. Expanding the use of furry and then bandaiding fixes onto it to keep blacklisting intact feels like if bestiality was expanded to encompass what animal sexualization does, and then a new tag was made for what was originally bestiality. In this case, furry definitely served its purpose as a blacklist tag quite well, but now that utility is los and we need to go back and fix it again.
But it doesn't only exist as a blacklist tag, it also exists as a search tag, and I like to see posts like the ones you linked. The suggestion balances these two differing uses of the tag, blacklisting and searching.
It wasn't strictly decided, really, and I honestly wouldn't argue if it was decided posts like those shouldn't qualify, but I like to be able to find them in a search.
But realistically speaking: All blacklisting catches false postives, especially when ratings are involved. Like, blacklisting 1girl -rating:g would block male NSFW posts with a background woman. It's a thing that happens and is hard to avoid, but tags like male_focus exist to mediate the false positives, which the suggested addition would also do here. Posts like the ones you linked also aren't that particularly common in the first place - they don't even make up the majority of my favgroup, which is mostly things like palicos and "ZZZ girls and Von Lycaon is also there in the background". Out of 700+ posts in that favgroup, only 44 of those are tagged chibikemo.
Now, all that being said: In posts like the ones you linked I honestly wouldn't mind removing the tag if we also choose to leave chibikemo and person and furrification unimplicated, since then posts like that could still be found that way without affecting the blacklist at all.
But it doesn't only exist as a blacklist tag, it also exists as a search tag, and I like to see posts like the ones you linked. The suggestion balances these two differing uses of the tag, blacklisting and searching.
It is fundamentally a blacklist tag though. Not only because of its usage in the default blacklist, but also because furry isn't Danbooru's primary focus, and a majority of users probably just don't want to see or think about it at all (hell, it used to be straight up banned).
Now, all that being said: In posts like the ones you linked I honestly wouldn't mind removing the tag if we also choose to leave chibikemo and person and furrification unimplicated, since then posts like that could still be found that way without affecting the blacklist at all.
As tags like chibikemo aren't treated as implying furry, and some gardening is done, that'd be fine. Having the granularity is fine, and unlike with animal sexualization you probably don't even need an umbrella tag for it all, but as it stands the value and effectiveness of the default blacklist rule has definitely been reduced.
As tags like chibikemo aren't treated as implying furry, and some gardening is done, that'd be fine. Having the granularity is fine, and unlike with animal sexualization you probably don't even need an umbrella tag for it all, but as it stands the value and effectiveness of the default blacklist rule has definitely been reduced.
I'm fine with that if others agree with it. I think there could still be reasonable places where it overlaps, but it definitely doesn't have to inherently have both tags if that's better overall.
I'll remove most of the chibikemo posts from my favgroup since like I said, that's only a tiny fraction of the posts, so there's still a potential benefit to be had.
Thank you for taking the time to clean up the favgroup, it more or less represents your vision for the tag now right?
This is basically aiming to be reverse male_focus and other_focus correct? If we think of those tags as "background_girl" then we have baseline examples of what would be expected in posts like post #9973459 and post #9156562 the character is a background detail or an inset. How you're supposed to approach it is "Is this character important to the composition?" and in both those cases the girl is not. If you remove her the image is roughly the same, that's what the "focus" tags are for.
However! That does not appear to be your vision for the tag based on the examples in your post. For instance I assume post #8972870 is an intended image for the tag, but both the Palico and the girl are equally important. This leaves me a little confused about tag usage.
There are also a ton of ones which are more "mascot-y" character, kind of like what @ANON_TOKYO was saying above which are important to the image, but not what most people seeking furry would want and stuff that people who hate furry wouldn't mind seeing. I wouldn't even call them furry, but if they are they'd be both in-focus and incidental. post #7925415post #7016524post #8305805post #8903789, post #8044293
So in summation, I'm still not exactly sure how you're defining this. It's not a matter of naming, I understand that you don't literally mean background but also it's way broader than our other "focus" tags permit and I don't understand how something like post #3399487 where the character is in-focus, in the foreground, and important to the image is "Coincidental."
I think this is just going to be a difficult thing to do overall based on people's varying viewpoints, it's difficult for me to gauge when something is truly in-focus in cases like these for purposes of a tag like this, since the more I think about it, everyone has differing levels with that stuff. It reminds me of how a user in the Discord the other day was talking about how they wanted a way to only see particular kinds of "human-like" furries but couldn't express what exactly their criteria was, and it was explained how that was a personal line that would differ for others - which I think is the core issue of all of this.
The more I think about it the less I think this is the solution and the more I'm leaning towards what ANON TOKYO was talking about earlier about chibikemo existing as a delineated tag that can still be used for search without necessarily inherently falling under an umbrella tag that others might not view as accurate in the same regard. My view was thinking about how to balance the complaints of images being blocked for having a character like a Palico standing there while the girl was the one in suggestive clothing causing an image to be caught by the "furry -rating:g" filter - and "background/non-focal" isn't necessarily the correct way to go about dealing with that issue since the issue isn't what character is in focus, but another character existing independent of the reason the post is rated a certain way causing a filter trigger designed to block images rated higher for sexy furries.
I'm not sure how much that makes sense (my apologies - I'm always a bit scatterbrained), but overall I'm hesitant to think there's really a way to fix those false positives, even when mascot-types aren't involved. Not to mention many of these posts wouldn't even be caught by the filter in the first place since they're rated G. I'm gonna reject these BURs, since I really don't think now that this is the way to go about this, if there even is a way to go about this. It might just have to be an unavoidable flaw in the same way that blacklisting any other tag can cause false positives.
As for the other concern, out of the posts you linked - I removed furry from two of them (and replaced it with chibikemo on one), and the other three are rated G to begin with, but I probably wouldn't contest their removal (barring Indeedee, who I don't quite think fits chibikemo) if chibikemo was left, since that accounts for searching just fine.
If we're going to mention that Discord discussion from the other day, we may as well also highlight what inspired said user to discuss their stance on furries to begin with. The discussion of bestiality and animal sexualization's inclusion into the default blacklist had once more popped up, and evazion had given a response where he expressed he would only do so if doing so were simple, prompting him to suggest the idea of an umbrella tag which encompasses those two tags, furry, chibikemo, and interspecies, i.e. basically anything that could contain sexual content with animal(-esque) characters [and said umbrella tag could be injected in place of furry in furry -rating:g], as anything other than that would require having to figure out an elegant solution to updating literally everyone's blacklists, not just the default. In the process, he considered tags such as chibikemo (and animal sexualization, strangely enough) as blacklist-evading because they aren't already fully under furry to begin with.
Which then inspired discussion on what actually constituted furry and in what ways people disagreed.
While evazion here is talking about explicit content, given past tagging practice decisions being influenced by how said tags relate to NSFW content first for consistency purposes, to me this implies that the site position on furry featuring mascot characters like Hello Kitty and Chiitan. Whether that's actually the case (it probably isn't, even if I do feel like, if a character in something like post #9280503 [rating:e] counts for furry they should count for SFW content too), and whether it should be the case, is a greater debate that warrants its own separate thread. Such a debate would probably also do wonders in figuring out whether or not they've counted in the past too.
