How does dark_skin interact with tanlines?

At present, the wiki page for dark skin states that sometimes characters may have dark skin due to a tan, implying that tans qualify under the tag. I understand that much.

But does this apply only to when a tan cannot be distinguished from naturally dark skin if you don't have outside knowledge of the character not usually looking so dark, e.g. post #4241904? Or, does it also apply to tans with very clear tanlines which distinguish between the character's natural skin and their tanned skin, e.g. post #10835046 (Q)?

Both lines of logic, "The dark_skin tag goes on any image of a character having any dark skin for any reason" and "The dark_skin tag ideally goes only on naturally dark skin but when a tan is indistinguishable from it TWYS means tag as dark skin", seem viable.

related topic #35550

trapster77 said in forum #432781:

related topic #35550

So, to paraphrase Obstkuchen's paraphrasing of the answers they got, dark skin and tan shouldn't be used for the same character because the latter is used when tanlines make it clear that the tan isn't the character's natural skin color.

But that would mean that tan is redundant with tanlines. Should I create a BUR aliasing tan to tanlines? Might be worth it just for the feedback.

StarfishAtLarge said in forum #432806:

So, to paraphrase Obstkuchen's paraphrasing of the answers they got, dark skin and tan shouldn't be used for the same character because the latter is used when tanlines make it clear that the tan isn't the character's natural skin color.

But that would mean that tan is redundant with tanlines. Should I create a BUR aliasing tan to tanlines? Might be worth it just for the feedback.

before you suggest an alias, take a look at posts in the tan tag and see if you would tag ALL of them with tanlines and if the answer is "no" then you don't suggest an alias

trapster77 said in forum #432810:

before you suggest an alias, take a look at posts in the tan tag and see if you would tag ALL of them with tanlines and if the answer is "no" then you don't suggest an alias

Good point. Perhaps a better solution would be just to eliminate tan entirely.

I also wouldn't mind going through images manually and for each one switching tan to either dark_skin or tanlines before suggesting an alias, but I'd rather first have confirmation that it won't all be undone.

I've always assumed that tan without tanlines was for skin lighter then what would count as dark skin but darker then typical anime skintone, something like post #11139433 but just from browsing tan -tanlines most of the images seem to fit dark skin or very dark skin anyway.

StarfishAtLarge said in forum #432811:

Good point. Perhaps a better solution would be just to eliminate tan entirely.

I also wouldn't mind going through images manually and for each one switching tan to either dark_skin or tanlines before suggesting an alias, but I'd rather first have confirmation that it won't all be undone.

Don't do this. If you think tan should be replaced, submit a BUR to deprecate it.

StarfishAtLarge said in forum #432811:

Good point. Perhaps a better solution would be just to eliminate tan entirely.

we probably shouldn't open the door to diluting dark skin even further.

BUR #57871 is pending approval.

deprecate tan

Blank_User said in forum #432826:

If you think tan should be replaced, submit a BUR to deprecate it.

All right.

I don't think characters like Asahina Aoi or Nagatoro Hayase should be in dark skin, but we definitely need a tag to indicate they're tanner than most characters. Unless you have a replacement for tan I can't support deprecating it.

zetsubousensei said in forum #433657:

I don't think characters like Asahina Aoi or Nagatoro Hayase should be in dark skin, but we definitely need a tag to indicate they're tanner than most characters. Unless you have a replacement for tan I can't support deprecating it.

My question is: How can tan be tagged if no tanlines are visible? Without tanlines, how can you tell the difference between a tan and natural dark skin?

How does one look at post #4241904 and determine that it is a tan?

StarfishAtLarge said in forum #433742:

My question is: How can tan be tagged if no tanlines are visible? Without tanlines, how can you tell the difference between a tan and natural dark skin?

How does one look at post #4241904 and determine that it is a tan?

You would agree that visually that character is lighter than Shihouin Yoruichi right? To me the usage of tan isn't to indicate a character is actually "tanned" in the sense of tanlines, but to indicate they are darker than a typical anime character yet not in the range of Yoruichi and friends. If you think tan is erroneous I think we still need a tag for this distinction.

zetsubousensei said in forum #433747:

You would agree that visually that character is lighter than Shihouin Yoruichi right? To me the usage of tan isn't to indicate a character is actually "tanned" in the sense of tanlines, but to indicate they are darker than a typical anime character yet not in the range of Yoruichi and friends. If you think tan is erroneous I think we still need a tag for this distinction.

Sounds good. But in that case, the wiki page for dark skin probably ought to be changed to indicate that it and tan shouldn't overlap, as the page currently describes the latter as a possible cause of the former.

Plus, and maybe this is more of a stretch, tan could be renamed to tan skin to more clearly have it in a spectrum alongside pale skin & dark skin.

tan skin would sound a little awkward with tan tanlines, in which case it should be "tanned skin" instead. rather than renaming the tag, it probably helps to think of tan as shorthand for "either tanned skin, or a tan skin tone", it all pretty much boils down to twys.

wingdings said in forum #433759:
it probably helps to think of tan as shorthand for "either tanned skin, or a tan skin tone", it all pretty much boils down to twys.

This is even more reason to do tan skin instead of tan.

Part of my confusion stems from how tan as a tag can be read as referring to "a tan" since that's often the case with these tags, like how hat really means "a hat" and how mole really means "a mole". The article "a" is simply excluded.

I agree that TWYS means that artifically-tanned skin and naturally-tanned skin should be grouped together under the tag. But "tan skin" is a better neutral descriptor for that than "tan" is. Plus, again, this would put it right in line with pale skin & dark skin.

Yeah, I think that renaming it to tan skin and removing posts like post #9995121 where it's just padding alongside tanlines is a good idea.

BUR #57909 is pending approval.

create alias tan -> tan_skin

Actually, I'll throw up a bur for it. Making the main tag "tan skin" makes it clearer that it's to be used for a specific skin tone instead of any case where the character has possibly tanned.

Thanks. Here's hoping.

I don't really understand how this is going to help us. tan already means tan skin (and it should be tanned skin, if anything).

The problem is not that people don't know what "tan" is. The problem is that:
1. we don't distinguish between natural dark skin and tanned skin.
2. dark skin is so polluted that it's for anything darker than pale skin
3. there are cases where a tanned skin is not dark but is noticeable due to tanlines: see for example pink_skin tan

We had to make very dark skin because we figured out dark skin was to broad and useless to find people with actual dark skin, but if you open very dark skin and scroll a bit you'll find that even that one has been sporadically polluted by pedants who think that post #11256942 is somehow "very dark".

At this point I would just suggest to just rip the tooth off, unimply tanlines to tan and alias tan to dark skin.
An additional problem is that "tan" and "tanlines" are also interchangeable in common parlace, so people would end up mistagging dark skin too, but if we're currently ending up with shit like post #4664462 under tan then we're not losing anything of value.

nonamethanks said in forum #437196:

I don't really understand how this is going to help us. tan already means tan skin (and it should be tanned skin, if anything).

Well, the idea is that renaming tan to tan_skin would make it clearer that it refers to skin color rather than specifically having a tan. A rename to tanned_skin would make the problem worse, as it strengthens the notion that the tag is for when the skin has been altered by a tan rather than for any time the skin is tan. This would, in practice, make the tag function identically to tanlines.

1. we don't distinguish between natural dark skin and tanned skin.

3. there are cases where a tanned skin is not dark but is noticeable due to tanlines: see for example pink_skin tan

I think we're just saying the same thing with different words. Since it often isn't possible to determine whether tan skin is natural or the result of a tan, tan refers directly to skin color rather than to a tan having occurred, and those posts with the pink skin are best tagged as tanlines and not tan. But:

At this point I would just suggest to just rip the tooth off, unimply tanlines to tan

I, uh, didn't realize that tanlines currently implies tan, and I very much agree with you that removing the implication is ideal. Regardless of whether tan gets renamed or aliased or left alone, it objectively does not refer to a tan skin color if tanlines on skin of any color causes tan to be added.