Danbooru

Should gemstone tags imply gem?

Posted under Tags

The_Bob said:

Why was that rejected?

Because gem is only for smooth, round gemstones. If the gemstone is cut (faceted) then it should be tagged crystal instead. I've updated the gem wiki to reflect this.

I'd support the creation of a parent tag for all kinds of gemstones regardless of whether they're smooth or faceted.

Unbreakable said:

Main reason was that people couldn't decide if we should keep the current tags or move them to colour_gemstone instead since it can be hard to determine what kind of gem it is sometimes.

Well, it's been a year and it looks like we decided to keep the tags we have now. So should they imply gem?

AngryZapdos said:

Because gem is only for smooth, round gemstones. If the gemstone is cut (faceted) then it should be tagged crystal instead. I've updated the gem wiki to reflect this.

I'd support the creation of a parent tag for all kinds of gemstones regardless of whether they're smooth or faceted.

Where are we getting that distinction from? Every definition of "gem" I can find says the word includes cut stones (e.g. Merriam-Webster). If that's the line we're drawing, I think we need to rename the tag.

AngryZapdos said:

Because gem is only for smooth, round gemstones. If the gemstone is cut (faceted) then it should be tagged crystal instead. I've updated the gem wiki to reflect this.

I'd support the creation of a parent tag for all kinds of gemstones regardless of whether they're smooth or faceted.

For gems that are polished and shaped, but not faceted, they're called a cabochon.

Everyone inherently knows what a "gem" is, we can't just have arbitrary definitions that nobody in the real world would take seriously. Imagine trying to explain to some random person who's not an expert in geology that "technically" a diamond (gemstone) (note the qualifier!) is a crystal, not a gem. It's laughable.

nonamethanks said:

Everyone inherently knows what a "gem" is, we can't just have arbitrary definitions that nobody in the real world would take seriously. Imagine trying to explain to some random person who's not an expert in geology that "technically" a diamond (gemstone) (note the qualifier!) is a crystal, not a gem. It's laughable.

This is doubly reinforced as our gem tag definitely doesn't match public perception, or even the dictionary definition. A Google Images search for "gem" overwhelmingly favors faceted gemstones, while the dictionary defines "gem" as "a precious or semi-precious stone, especially when cut and polished or engraved."

The reasonable way forth is to have a single tag for all shapes/kinds of gemstones. I suggest aliasing gem and crystal to gemstone, as it would match the qualifier we currently use for all the individual types of gems. Doing this would remove any possible issue with implicating those gem tags - even if we decide to use color_gemstone tags in the future, such an implication will still fix untagged posts in the meantime.

The other thing we should consider is whether we want to distinguish between smooth and cut gemstones with tags like gemstone_(smooth) and gemstone_(faceted). I'm much more interested in the faceted variety so it's something I'd like to see, but I'm not sure anyone would want to go through and check almost forty thousand posts to see which are which (I certainly don't).

AngryZapdos said:

It's from the crystal wiki.

Nothing in the crystal wiki says that faceted gems aren't gems. All it does is clarify that the ones without facets shouldn't be tagged as crystals. You're creating a dichotomy where there never was one.

I sure do long for the days when a crystal was something like this and a gem was something like this and nobody questioned it.

iridescent_slime said:

Nothing in the crystal wiki says that faceted gems aren't gems. All it does is clarify that the ones without facets shouldn't be tagged as crystals. You're creating a dichotomy where there never was one.

The wiki literally features the line "If the object is rounded and features no edges between surfaces, then the object should be tagged gem instead.". If that's not a dichotomy then I don't know what is. NNT's point about it being a bad dichotomy and the evidence I've presented regarding the term "gem" has me thinking that I shouldn't have been so hasty to edit the gem wiki, however.

The_Bob said:

That's not really what a crystal is either. I'm not a gemologist, but a crystal isn't the same thing as a faceted gemstone (see this site for a definition I kind of understand). Something like post #4740993 isn't a crystal.

The problem with your link and approach is that it's too technical and unreliable to draw visible divisions from. Not to mention it also has inaccuracies, such as calling crystals "pure solid substances." If that were true we'd have pretty much no colored crystals/diamonds, since it's the impurities trapped in them that give them their color.

The crystal wiki is somewhat derived from Wikipedia using what we could visible recognize to define them: Crystals are commonly recognized by their shape, consisting of flat faces with sharp angles. These shape characteristics are not necessary for a crystal—a crystal is scientifically defined by its microscopic atomic arrangement, not its macroscopic shape—but the characteristic macroscopic shape is often present and easy to see.

It's true they're not cut to shape, but for the average person I do not believe would really see nor care about the distinction between natural facets and manmade facets. If someone saw something like this, at first glance people would probably assume it's something artificial lodged into the rock instead of something natural.

AngryZapdos said:

The wiki literally features the line "If the object is rounded and features no edges between surfaces, then the object should be tagged gem instead.". If that's not a dichotomy then I don't know what is. NNT's point about it being a bad dichotomy and the evidence I've presented regarding the term "gem" has me thinking that I shouldn't have been so hasty to edit the gem wiki, however.

Perhaps it'd be clearer if the line was changed to read: "If the object is rounded and features no edges between surfaces, then the object should instead only be tagged gem"?

NWF_Renim said:
Perhaps it'd be clearer if the line was changed to read: "If the object is rounded and features no edges between surfaces, then the object should instead only be tagged gem"?

My point was that after editing the gem wiki I realised that's a bad definition for us to use, given that everywhere that isn't Danbooru uses "gem" to refer to faceted gemstones as well as smooth ones:

AngryZapdos said:
...our gem tag definitely doesn't match public perception, or even the dictionary definition. A Google Images search for "gem" overwhelmingly favors faceted gemstones, while the dictionary defines "gem" as "a precious or semi-precious stone, especially when cut and polished or engraved."

AngryZapdos said:

The wiki literally features the line "If the object is rounded and features no edges between surfaces, then the object should be tagged gem instead.".

That's the line I was referring to. Again, it's specifically telling you when not to use the crystal tag. It never says that the posts tagged as crystals can't also be gems.

Besides, that line only exists because someone proposed an extremely dubious crystal_earrings -> crystal implication which would have lead to the crystal tag being added to things like post #2991810. It was a band-aid to a problem that only exists because some users can't seem to resist requesting Obvious™ implications with zero regard for the way tags have been traditionally used. And if you read the forum post from when that line was added to the wiki, it's crystal-clear that gem was intended to be used for tags that are polished or cut.

iridescent_slime said:

That's the line I was referring to. Again, it's specifically telling you when not to use the crystal tag. It never says that the posts tagged as crystals can't also be gems.

Besides, that line only exists because someone proposed an extremely dubious crystal_earrings -> crystal implication which would have lead to the crystal tag being added to things like post #2991810. It was a band-aid to a problem that only exists because some users can't seem to resist requesting Obvious™ implications with zero regard for the way tags have been traditionally used. And if you read the forum post from when that line was added to the wiki, it's crystal-clear that gem was intended to be used for tags that are polished or cut.

Regardless of how or why I was wrong, do you have any thoughts on my proposed solutions?

AngryZapdos said:

Regardless of how or why I was wrong, do you have any thoughts on my proposed solutions?

You suggested aliasing crystal to gemstone, which I consider inadequate. There has to be some way of distinguishing naturally grown crystal, like in post #880290 and post #3799652 and post #4302710, from those that have clearly been cut, like post #4034833 and post #5205169. No, excluding jewelry from the search is not sufficient for this.

Also, there are hundreds of posts tagged crystal for stuff like crystalline ice, which is not a gemstone by any stretch of the imagination.

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