Booru Tagging Guideline

## Read this first

I want to stress that you don't need to read this whole page to tag in the Booru. **Just tag whatever you see in an image.** If you make a mistake, someone will eventually correct it. This page is basically a description how the "main stream" tagging works. And for the time being, that means how Ayutac is tagging, because barely anyone else does it. We welcome more taggers! You can ignore the rest of the page if you want to, if it encourages you to tag more!

## How to tag

* Please in lowercase.
* Please in singular, with some notable exceptions.
* Use space/blank to separate tags.
* Tags consisting of more than one word are separated by an underscore: "\_"
* Artist names are prefixed with "artist:", but usually aliases are in place so you can forego the prefix. Some artists even have abbreviations available, like "lechat" for "artist:lechatdemon" or "auspi" for "artist:auspiciousoctopi".
* Character names are prefixed with "character:", but usually aliases are in place so you can forego the prefix and the last name. Some even have nickname aliases in place, like "fierre" for "character:serafierre\_val\_lischelle-drakle".
* Spoilers are prefixed with "spoiler:", but there are aliases in places as well. The spoiler categories are:
	+ by volume, e.g. "vol5" becomes "spoiler:volume5"
	+ by book, e.g. "book8" becomes "spoiler:book8"
	+ "the\_last\_tide" becomes "spoiler:the\_last\_tide"
	+ "grave\_song" becomes "spoiler:grave\_song"
	+ use "tagspoiler" if the correct spoiler tag isn't known to avoid spoiling people

### Safety rating

Safety ratings are not directly in the tag field but specified under it. There are four kinds:

* Unrated: placeholder for the other three, should be changed when encountered
* Explicit: if genitalia, anuses, obvious sex toys or female nipples are visible (also under tight clothing); also for very gory images, like decapitations or guts spilling out
* Questionable: if naked ass is visible, sex is implied, underwear is presented (with their wearers) or someone is presenting themselves in a sexual way; also for not too gory images like maining and torture
* Safe: Everything that is not Explicit or Questionable. Things like scars, blood or killing, kissing (even with tongue or gay) and holding hands are fine.

### Colors

Tags having to do with colors should use one of these 11 colors to keep things simple:

* black, grey, white, pink, red, orange, brown, yellow, green, blue, purple

## What to tag

### Bare Minimum

* When you upload a new image without intending to fully tag it, please add "tagme".
* If you add no tags at all, it will be added automatically.
* What we would *like* to see on new uploads are:
	+ the artist
	+ the depicted characters (or "tagchar" instead)
	+ their races and
	+ appropiate spoiler tags (or "tagspoiler" instead).
* After uploading, *please* also edit the image to add
	+ the safety rating (see above)
	+ the source of the art (like a Discord message or social media link)
	+ a title for the art if you like
	+ parent art index if applicable

### Appearance

* Clothing:
	+ What kind? E.g. "shirt", "pants", "shoes", "dress", "armor"
		- "shirt" means any cloth worn over the chest area with short sleeves and no option to open it
		- "sweatshirt" is the same with long sleeves
		- "top" is the same for no sleeves/bare shoulders
		- "jacket" is short or long sleeves, but can be opened/closed via zipper or buttons
		- "vest" is the same for no sleeves/bare shoulders
		- "pants" means any cloth worn over the individual legs, covering most of them
		- "shorts" are pants that cover only half the legs, don't use the "pants" tag for them
		- Beware: The differences between "dress", "robe" and "toga" are currently very muddy; dresses are for ladies, robes are for mages? DON'T MENTION IEKA!
		- If nothing is worn, we have "nude", "topless" and "bottomless"; only use the latter two if "nude" doesn't apply
	+ What color? To avoid 11 tags for each kind of clothing, the colored tags are simplified to the following 5 (in the example with black only):
		- "black\_headwear", "black\_chestwear", "black\_handwear", "black\_legwear", "black\_footwear"
		- color of sleeves that are part of chestwear count towards chestwear color, not handwear color
		- sock color counts towards legwear color
		- apron color is currently completely ignored
		- Exception: "robe" and "dress" have their own color tags (this should be corrected at some point)
		- Exception: "cape" has its own color tags as well, but this should stay so
* Complexion:
	+ fur and scales can have any booru color, e.g. "black\_fur", "black\_scales"
	+ same for feathers, although there is also a separate "feather" tag that should be used in these cases
	+ we DO NOT use black, brown, yellow or red for skin colors; the acceptable skin colors for humans and human-skin-colored folk are, in order from brightest to darkest:
		- "pale\_skin", "bright\_skin", "toned\_skin", "dark\_skin"
		- "yellow\_skin" and "red\_skin" are only acceptable if the characters in question have a seriously strong coloring in that direction, like The Simpsons. "white\_skin" only like if the skin was not colored on white paper but everything else was
	+ chitin is not skin and chitin colors are currently ignored
	+ if the character is painted (like redfangs or ulvama), use tags like "red\_paint" for example
* Expression:
	+ open eyes and closed mouth with tongue contained is considered the norm, don't tag that
	+ "closed\_eyes", "wink" (at least one eye closed and one eye open), "open\_mouth" and "tongue\_out" are okay
	+ neutral expression is untagged, but there is "smile" and "frown"
	+ other examples: "blush", "sweat\_drop", "vein"
* Hair:
	+ "medium\_hair" is between ears and shoulders long, longer is "long\_hair" and shorter is "short\_hair"
	+ hair can have any booru color as well, except that there is no "yellow\_hair", only "blonde\_hair"
	+ haircuts can be tagged, e.g. "ponytail", "mohawk", "dreadlocks", "braids", "twin\_tails"
* Eyes:
	+ always use plural
	+ come in all booru colors; one of the color is enough, e.g. Teriarch is usually tagged with "blue\_eyes" and "purple\_eyes"
	+ when eyes are just dots (in a colored image), color of the dots (often black) qualifies as eye color
	+ direction of looking: "looking\_at\_viewer", "looking\_down", "looking\_up", "looking\_back" (i.e. over the shoulder or something)
	+ "no\_pupils" when pupils (and maybe iris) are missing; often the case with pictures of Pirate
* Boobies: don't get tagged, especially not their size
* Sex and gender: e.g. "male", "female", "sexless" (like Antinium)
* Other body parts that are not human
	+ e.g.: "beak", "wing", "tail", "sharp\_teeth", "sharp\_nails", "long\_ears", "tentacle"
	+ centaurs don't get their horse body tagged though
* number of people
	+ e.g.: "solo", "duo", "trio"
	+ "group" is used for 3 people or more
	+ named animals may count as people for these tags
		- e.g. Apista and Laken's animals are usually counted
		- Tyrion's horse is not
* Cropping:
	+ full body is not tagged and considered the default
	+ e.g.: "upper\_body", "lower\_body", "head\_only", "disembodied\_hand"
	+ might need some rework and more tags like e.g. "bust"
	+ absence of clothing may be interpreted, e.g. a "upper\_body" without any clothing can be tagged as "nude" instead of "topless"
	+ the reverse does not hold: a "upper\_body", regardless of clothing, must never be tagged with "bottomless"
	+ although please don't tag "head\_only" with "nude" when they don't wear a hat
* Posture, e.g.: "standing", "sitting", "kneeling", "crouching"
* Perspective
	+ e.g.: "front\_view", "back\_view", "side\_view", "bird\_view"
	+ might need some overworking for more perspectives

### Profession

* the (generalized) class
	+ it doesn't make sense to tag a class that is synonym with a character
	+ for example, Erin gets only tagged as "innkeeper", Flos only as "king"
	+ Beware: since classes can change, only tag the new class if the image is spoilered correctly
		- Erin only became a "witch" in "vol9"
		- Mrsha only became a "druid" in "vol5", "book7"
		- Mrsha isn't currently tagged with her other classes
		- Jecaina only became a "queen" in "vol8"
	+ noble titles can come in all (gendered) forms, like "duke", "princess", "lord", etc., but they are united by the additional tag "nobility"
	+ since necromancers are a common appearance, they got their tag "necromancer"; there currently aren't tags for other specializations though, except "enchanter"
	+ rulebreakers like ryoka are tagged "classless"
* the profession: some people have jobs that are not reflected by their class
	+ Ryoka is a "runner" and became a "courier" in "vol7"
	+ an Antinium soldier is usually a "soldier"
	+ the modern archmages of Wistram are eligible for the "archmage" tag
	+ "child" has been recently introduced, as well as "leader"
* family names
	+ if more than one person of a family has art, you can tag the family name
		- e.g.: "veltras", "imarris"
	+ also useful if a family has a crest or something, then tag their family name and "heraldry"

### Background

* "simple\_background", alias "sbg" means the characters are not displayed in a location but more of a (maybe quite colorful) void
* if the background has a color scheme, there are tags like "yellow\_background", or "yellow\_bg" for short (in all booru colors)
* there is also "transparent\_background" for PNG images that make use of that

## Tips and Tricks

* "text" is used for all kinds of text, but artists' watermarks/signatures are usually not tagged
* about spoilers:
	+ "vol1" is the same as "book1" and "vol2" is the same as "book2"
	+ Ryoka and Erin both appeared in "vol1", but only meet each other in "vol2"
	+ Ceria with her skeletal hand is currently tagged as early as "vol2"
	+ Wistram Days is "vol3", "book4"
	+ Apista became a full bee in "vol4", "book5"
	+ generally, get clues for spoilers from Arc Overview
* Nerrhavia, Az'karesh, The Putrid One and Toveilouka are the only "undead" tagged as "immortal", including vampires
* Belavierr counts as "immortal", the Griffin Prince does not
* elves (not half-elves), djinni, dragons and whyrms are "immortal", gnomes probably too
* Pirate and pirateaba are not tagged as "human"
* Pirate is "female", but pirateaba has no specified gender tagged
* Belavierr is not tagged as "human"
* Niers and Folia are not tagged as "adventurer"
* "bow" is the clothing thing, "bow\_(weapon)" (or aliased as "boww") is the weapon
* Sserys possessing Erin's body is tagged with his classes, not hers