Sankaku Channel/Introducing Tag Relationships

The tag system now supports hierarchical relationships between tags, allowing for them to be linked, grouped and organised explicitly.

Both child and parent tags can be added to a tag as a space separated list in the tag edit page:

http://chan.sankakucomplex.com/tag/edit?name=suzumiya_haruhi_no_yuuutsu

It has been implemented as parent and child relationships between tags, with tags allowed both multiple parents and multiple children.

The most obvious usage of all this is tying characters to their respective franchises, as well as organising types of clothing, postures, art styles and other post tags into logical groups, but much more besides is possible:

series tags => studios
artists => studios
original characters => artists
clothing => clothing types
parodies => objects of parody
acvitities => types of activity
sex acts => types of sex act
character cosplay => character

And plenty more besides for the community to establish.

A tag can be linked to multiple tags irrespective of type - so, for example, a crossover franchise can belong to all the franchises featured, as well as to a "crossover_franchise" tag as desired.

It is also perfectly permissible to have empty category tags not intended for use on posts in this role (e.g. clothing > lower_body_clothing > skirts > miniskirt, etc). A tag type specifically for these category tags may be introduced to better support this usage.

In the case of large franchises with many characters or other sub-elements, it would also likely be preferable to introduce sub-groupings of tags rather than have large flat groups - "touhou_characters" for example, rather than linking hundreds of characters to the "touhou" tag.

Linkages are visible on the tag index pages, the wiki pages, and will be displayed on and around post pages in various places as well.

The wiki would certainly be the best place for clarifying definitions and tag group structure.

A full history of all edits - including type, translation and relationships - is being recorded, so anyone can monitor the process and revert changes as needed.

The tag implication system will remain independent of all this as it essentially applies only to tags describing visual characteristics of posts, and it would more often than not make no sense to apply tags to a post based on tag relationships (a post featuring "long_hair" would not want a "hairstyles" tag, for example).

Feedback and bug reports are most welcome as always.

Since this represents a major addition to the site's tagging functionality we can hopefully maintain an active discussion of how best to employ it and establish best practices on the forum and wiki, so everyone will be able to edit with confidence and consistency.

What effect does it have if you link specific tags to its appropriate parent?
In other words. What is the difference between Haruhi parented characters and Pokemon non parented characters?

Because of my lack of insight to these changes it just seems like an encyclopaedian approach to sort the tags on a metalevel.
Which doesn't mean I don't like these changes. But I would like to understand these fully so I can proper use and appreciate it.

There is no effect other than the link.

What it is possible to do with those links is where things get interesting.

What are the child/parent tags currently ordered by? Seems kinda random, could they be alphabetically ordered? http://chan.sankakucomplex.com/tag/index?name=rance

It is by post count actually, though this is not displayed with them in the current implementation. Doing it by name is also possible, although it yields two completely different orders depending on language which seemed undesirable.

There was a bit of a mass population of copyrights<=>characters in case anyone was wondering, just to get things started. I don't think we'll try anything else.

Once the trees are a bit more developed the links will be displayed on post indexes and there will be various category displays with thumbnails and so on.

I attempted to add "automatic_tags" as the parent for "extremely_high_resolution". I went to http://chan.sankakucomplex.com/tag/edit?name=extremely_high_resolution, and entered "automatic_tags" in the Parent tags box, then clicked Save. This brought me to http://chan.sankakucomplex.com/tag/index?name=extremely_high_resolution, where "Parents" is showing as empty.

Obviously I'm doing something wrong; how do I create parent tags?

The problem is:
http://chan.sankakucomplex.com/?tags=automatic_tags

You can't add a tag as a parent/child if it is non-existant.
I don't know how System imagined it to be, maybe there is another solution aside from forcefully create that tag.
But I could imagine automatic_tags as a meta tag which implications.

I didn't envision automatic_tags actually being applied to any images. If it has to, we could add it to one inconsequential image, or to all images with any of its children tags, but both of these seem like messy solutions.

Relationship tags are not created on demand so typos and the like do not create vast numbers of invalid tags. Just add an empty tag and edit it as desired.

It is explained in the first post that:
"It is also perfectly permissible to have empty category tags not intended for use on posts in this role (e.g. clothing > lower_body_clothing > skirts > miniskirt, etc). A tag type specifically for these category tags may be introduced to better support this usage."

@razat:
http://chan.sankakucomplex.com/tag/edit?name=automatic_tags

I think I've done it, so feel free to add parents and children.
System, can you please add a japanese translation?

Steinkauz said:
http://chan.sankakucomplex.com/tag/edit?name=automatic_tags

Wouldn’t “tall_image” make more sense than “long_image”? I was confused for a minute before I understood that a few images are wrongly tagged long_image.

Edit: or actually maybe they’re images where both “long” and “wide” apply…

Edit2: the explanation given by System in a different topic seems to contradict the long_image wiki. “A "long_image" is either wide or tall.”, but the wiki says that long_image is for tall images, and wide_image for wide images only.

I went to read the code and I understand now that the long_image wiki is wrong, and a wiki is missing from tall_image. I’ll see if I can fix that. Edit: I just noticed the code is a little more complex than simply pixel width/height, might have to edit the wiki even further.

Replying in the other topic.

I don’t seem to be able to add multiple tags as parent/child anymore. Trying elfen_lied and gokukoku_no_brynhildr here: http://chan.sankakucomplex.com/tag/index?name=okamoto_lynn

http://chan.sankakucomplex.com/tag/index?name=okamoto_lynn

Worked for me first go.

Maybe a fluke there?

I see what was wrong. I was typing the comma to separate the tags, when a space is necessary instead. Maybe it could be made so that both are ok? Using a comma ended up cutting off all parents/children but one, so it’s potentially dangerous behaviour.

I think we should keep things consistent with the post tags, which is strictly a single width space as separator. It is hard enough getting people to use this properly...

But here, when you read the parents/children, they’re separated by a comma. That’s why I tried adding them with comma separation in the first place. And like I’ve already said, the system deletes all but one tag when added like that, so it’s destructive behaviour that people wouldn’t even understand why it happens. Something should be done about this. You could add a warning in red text next to the parent/child fields saying that you need single space separation, maybe.

Isn't it deleting them when comma separated because they appear to be invalid tags? (a tag with a comma appended to it)

Does sound like some clarification and possible fixing is needed in any case.

System said:
Isn't it deleting them when comma separated because they appear to be invalid tags? (a tag with a comma appended to it)

Sounds about right. So it’s less dangerous than I thought, but still would be good to clarify it.

Hi there!
Looking at the similarities between the tag relationship system and the implication system has led me to a trail of questioning that may benefit one or both systems in a big way.

My starting question: At what point do implications and tag relationships differ in a logical sense? For example, is there any implication that wouldn't also benefit from existing as a tag relationship--and vice versa?

Well there’s this in the OP:

“The tag implication system will remain independent of all this as it essentially applies only to tags describing visual characteristics of posts, and it would more often than not make no sense to apply tags to a post based on tag relationships (a post featuring "long_hair" would not want a "hairstyles" tag, for example).”

ALAKTORN said:
Well there’s this in the OP:

“The tag implication system will remain independent of all this as it essentially applies only to tags describing visual characteristics of posts, and it would more often than not make no sense to apply tags to a post based on tag relationships (a post featuring "long_hair" would not want a "hairstyles" tag, for example).”

Those considerations (Thank you for bringing them up.) poke at the broader conversation of "What can each system do for the other?"

EDIT: I've realized that the first part of this post is invalid. (See the strikeout block below. ^_^;) Fully joining these two systems, I now believe has no real benefit. The 'new feature' I discuss doesn't need both systems--just relationships.

On one side, to join relationships -> implications can actually be very productive in a deeper context: For example, imagine a new feature that turns each "category" tag into a showcase page that displays a small sampling of images from each of the category's subtags (ex. the 'hairstyle' category showcasing long_hair, twintails, blunted_bangs, etc.) Of course, it's true that the visual tag list on the post page doesn't benefit from nonexpressive category tags like 'hairstyles', but who says such tags have to be visible? Now that's a fascinating idea that deserves some thought.

On the other hand, bringing over the implication data -> relationships would automatically generate huge amounts of helpful content--especially for tag wiki pages (see: parent and child sections.)

My last post brought up the idea that, for the purpose of sharing tons of helpful information between systems, mass-copying all implications to the relationship system might go off without a hitch. I have since found multiple cases in which this doesn't work. Anyone who's curious about this little idea adventure can send me a PM.

So I'm withdrawing this data-sharing idea. Looks like it's back to the drawing board for me. ^_^;