Some questions about tags

There are a few tags on the site that I think need some clarification as to whether or not they should be used.
 
First off, are we using the “solo” tag? I think it’s something that needs to be used, since we don’t have any sort of exclusion function for searches. And even if there was, it’s much more efficient to type “X character, solo” than to exclude every possible character they could be in an image with. Furthermore, should the tags “solo male” and “solo female” be kept, or should we just replace them with “solo”?
 
Second, there’s some confusion with the tags “roseluck”, “rose”, and “rose (flower)”. I take it “roseluck” should be the one officially used when referring to the character, but which are we using when referring to the flower?
 
Next, is the “simple background” tag used?
 
I have some more questions, but most of them seem to have slipped my mind. I’ll put them on here when I think of them again. If this is still open anyways.

“Solo male” and “solo female” should NEVER be removed; they are excellent searching tools. Regarding the “solo” tag, I guess you’re right, though I really don’t care much about it
 
Simple background tag is being used properly and regularly from my point of view.
 
“Roseluck” should be the tag that refers to the character, and “rose” the tag that refers to the flower, simple as that.

We do have exclusion in searches:  
trixie, -twilight sparkle, -celestia  
trixie, (NOT (twilight sparkle OR celestia))
 
Both those searches will display images that contain Trixie but do not contain Twilight or Celestia.
 
 
Anyways, solo is generally used for SFW art, while solo male/female are used for NSFW art. I personally never tag solo, but that’s just because I forget (and never search for it). Still, add if you can, and never remove (unless it’s wrong).
 
I’ll look into the whole Rose thing to see what’s popular before deciding on what to do.
 
As for simple background, please no. I’ll never get the point of it and it seems pretty unnecessary. I imagine people tagging it are just copying tags from some other place or heavily used to other tagging rules, but here it’s overtagging; users should be able to determine what’s going on in an image via a quick scan of the tags, not being subjected to a 300 word description of it.

Speaking of tags, where did the option to watch a tag by clicking on the “+” symbol next to it go?

@Crusier  
That’s gone atm as we’re reworking tag displays a bit. Hopefully we can make it so you can easily add a tag to your filters and not just the watchlist.

If the logical operations AND and NOT worked in fliters, that would be cool.

Just asking, will the tags be fixed again since they’re backwards now?

I meant “operators”. Yeah… no edit option.

Also, what happened to the order of tags? They used to be in alphabetical order, now they’re in reverse alphabetical order.

Tag order is fixed now.
 
 
@Crusier  
That is something that will be worked on, requires some backend magic to do neatly.

Another thing I wanted to ask about: any chance of being able to filter combinations of tags anytime soon? I really really wish I could do that sometimes.

@DoucheClop  
Planned, yes, and has had some thought put into it; unfortunately I don’t really have an estimate on when it’ll happen.

@The Smiling Pony  
I have some more questions if you don’t mind.
 
Given your response to the “simple background” tag, should we (or I) start deleting it? I concur that I don’t see much use for it, but I’m unsure what your ultimate plans are when it comes to having a consistent set of tags (if we’re striving for one).
 
Also there are a few other tags I don’t see the point of, one being the “older spike” tag. I’d think that the “older” tag would be more than enough to suffice, but again I wanted an official “yea” or “nay” before removing an entire tag.

simple background I can just nuke myself.
 
As for older spike, given we don’t currently have compound filters, there’s a chance that there are people watching (or filtering) that tag, so for the time being I’d leave it alone. If people end up not tagging it for a while due to disuse, I can nuke it and verify the images all have the normal older tag

@The Smiling Pony  
Oh good, I was worried I’d broken something with my hyper-paranoid web control addons and settings.
 
Any word on when they’ll be working again? It has been a week after all.

I never really understood the need of Female Solo and Male Solo tags. I never use the solo tags but I understand it makes it easier if you want to search for just one character without filling out a list of exceptions. Then why do we have specific solo tags for each gender? The solo tag should cover gender all the spaces. The only reason that those tags might be needed if you wanted just groups of females or males (Those sexist bitches. I kid I kid). Smiling did say that the Solo Male and Solo Female was mostly used for NSFW images. I Would suggest using gay or lesbian tags for that.

@Dr Outback  
The “solo male” and “solo female” tags are usually used for pics involving masturbation.

@soundtea  
That strengthens my point that we only really need the solo tag. IF your going to search for one character most likely you get pictures of them as their own sex. If you want to be sure just exclude rule 63 and or futa in your search.

Okay, here’s one:
 
Ditzy Doo.
 
Is this mostly used for the unnamed pony in Winter Wrap-Up? Because we’ve got well over 12k pics tagged as Derpy and only 30 with Ditzy Doo, though it’s said both are “common names” for her.

@Itsthinking  
Some artists prefer the name “Ditzy Doo” over “Derpy Hooves”. Given that thanks to retcon shenanigans Derpy is still an unnamed pony, artists are free to call her whatever they like.

The tag disparity is pretty astounding, though. It also just seems to be one artist.
 
Whatever. As long as both names are tagged.

@Itsthinking  
They should all be tagged Derpy Hooves, yes. If an artist wants to add an alternative name, that’s fine (as long as it’s not insulting, etc.).

@Dr Outback  
Unless you also want to start tagging images to indicate gender, people are going to want to keep solo female and solo male as separate tags. Few people are going to be happy with a system where they have to make a complex query naming every female character they can think of just to find all the porn that contains one female on her lonesome.

@Background Pony  
you saying that there are people that want to see pictures of all the female/males in individual solo pictures? that is a lot of pictures to go through.

@Dr Outback  
There are people that want to filter out “solo male” because they don’t want pictures of dudes hanging out with their cock out.
 
And people that want to search just for said pictures.