Idea: Mutually exclusive tags

Danbooru needs to detect mutually exclusive tags, because there are tags that are as such:

• #girls tags with other #girls tags (because you can't have an image with 1girl and 2girls, and etc). Same thing with the #boys tags
• male with any of the #girls tags
• solo with 2girls+ and 2boys+

I noticed that I'm able to tag an image with both 1girl and 2girls. I think it'd be a good idea if such tags are entered (or any other tags) then one of them is automatically discarded. Think of it as the opposite of an implication.

Opinions?

This has been suggested before; it's too problematic compared to policing those tag meanings manually like all the other tags.

Putting gender count tags aside, mutual exclusion just doesn't happen with danbooru's tags. Images inside images, comics and large, multi-character images mean any tag can appear alongside any tag.

As for gender count tags, there's not enough of them to implement a database rule. Even then, a system like the rating option wouldn't work. Go take a look at some of your suggestions and you'll be surprised. Characters like konpaku_youmu_(ghost), shanghai_doll and filia_(skullgirls) cause problems by themselves, but so do characters that aren't quite in the picture, like disembodied limbs, shadows, etc.

Serlo presents some good counter points and here's another.

thebackup said:
then one of them is automatically discarded.

Which one? It would be an arbitrary decision any way you slice it, and you'd have no way of knowing that it would ever be right.

Manually handling this is the only way to make sure it's right. Automating it would be wasted effort that came to nothing at best.

ShadowbladeEdge said:

Which one? It would be an arbitrary decision any way you slice it, and you'd have no way of knowing that it would ever be right.

That could be partially solved with the gender count tags by somehow storing the gender of the character in the character tags. But then that could present even more problems, such as with genderswap characters (like kaname_madoka genderswap).

Never thought that this would have more cons than pros. Unless someone comes up with something better then I won't be pressing this further.