Use of bare_shoulders unclear

It seems that bare shoulders should not be used in the case of bikini (similar to underwear only), but the wiki doesn't currently reflect this. What's the correct usage?

The wiki is clear about this topic: Bare shoulder is perfectly compatible with bikini posts.

Unless you suggest it shouldn't be, which you did. But what's the reason for this?

It's currently being slapped on everything, but IMO a bare_shoulders tag that applies to every picture of a tank top, shoulder_cutout, or bikini, is much much less useful than a tag for pictures where the whole shoulder/collarbone area is bare (e.g post #3288034 or post #3396552)

Ah, just realized I misread the criteria for shirtless, no shirt, and topless. It was confusing at first, but it seems that bare shoulders should indeed apply to bikini posts. Whoops!

(I thought for a second that underwear only wasn't allowed, so therefore bikini should also apply, but I misread.)

I agree with fossilnix. I use this tag for things like strapless dresses and off-shoulder sweaters. Outfits that leave the shoulders completely bare (including no bra or bikini straps), but that cover the rest of the torso.

It's a contrast tag, the same way that midriff is about the contrast between bare stomach and clothed body. Midriff doesn't apply to bikinis because there's nothing remarkable about a bikini showing the stomach. The same is true for shoulders.

The bare qualifier implies that it's about the shoulders in particular being bare, not the whole body. That's why it's not used for nude or topless characters. It's a given that if a character is naked then their shoulders are bare. The same is true if they're wearing just a bikini or underwear only. Tagging it leads to every bikini post having a ton of redundant bare shoulders, bare arms, bare legs, bare <insert body part> tags.

It's not too uncommon to have a character wear a jacket over a bikini covering the shoulders and arms, the legs have nothing similar though.

My thoughts are basically the same as evazion's. Bare shoulders is essentially meaningless when used with bras or bikini tops. As for whether the tag applies to outfits with straps, I'd support restricting it to require bare skin all the way from the neck to upper arm, which would exclude garments like tank tops and camisoles and anything with a shoulder cutout, all of which are presently used alongside this tag.

iridescent_slime said:

My thoughts are basically the same as evazion's. Bare shoulders is essentially meaningless when used with bras or bikini tops. As for whether the tag applies to outfits with straps, I'd support restricting it to require bare skin all the way from the neck to upper arm, which would exclude garments like tank tops and camisoles and anything with a shoulder cutout, all of which are presently used alongside this tag.

This would reduce the tag by more than half and I wonder how many users are brave enough to help out with it. Not that I'm entirely against the idea, it would just take an enormous effort.

The way it's used now, basically any top that has straps instead of sleeves is tagged as bare shoulders. That includes swimsuits, dresses, tank tops, bras, as well as sleeveless outfits and outfits with detached sleeves. I think in the long run, fully tagging bare shoulders on all those things would be even more work than clearing it out.

evazion said:

The way it's used now, basically any top that has straps instead of sleeves is tagged as bare shoulders. That includes swimsuits, dresses, tank tops, bras, as well as sleeveless outfits and outfits with detached sleeves. I think in the long run, fully tagging bare shoulders on all those things would be even more work than clearing it out.

I think it works perfectly fine.
How else would you then distinguish bikini posts like post #3426485, post #3425704, post #3426366. All three os those are different.
And there is also a bikini -bare_shoulders search. That is specifically for images you want a bikini but no bare shoulders. If you say that bare shoulders and bikini are mutually exclusive then this search makes absolutely no sense.

I say we need this kind of information. And to make the -bare_shoulders tag/search useful we need both tags for post #3423834.

Regarding post #3425704, that one isn't really relevant to this discussion because she's wearing more than just a bikini. The question is whether to tag bare_shoulders on characters wearing a bikini alone. No one said anything about bikinis worn under other garments.

As for post #3426485, if you're relying on bare_shoulders for information about how an image is cropped, then you shouldn't expect satisfactory search results in the first place.

iridescent_slime said:

Regarding post #3425704, that one isn't really relevant to this discussion because she's wearing more than just a bikini. The question is whether to tag bare_shoulders on characters wearing a bikini alone. No one said anything about bikinis worn under other garments.

As for post #3426485, if you're relying on bare_shoulders for information about how an image is cropped, then you shouldn't expect satisfactory search results in the first place.

I think the main point is that there is no easy way of searching for images of character only wearing a bikini (unlike the underwear only tag that exists for underwear) unless the bare shoulders/bare arms tag can be used with it. The bikini under clothes tag exists but it seems to be used on and off for images with open jackets and jacket worn off shoulder, a bikini -bikini_under_clothes jacket solo search alone gives 3690 results, properly gardened this could make a difference.

Unbreakable said:

I think the main point is that there is no easy way of searching for images of character only wearing a bikini (unlike the underwear only tag that exists for underwear) unless the bare shoulders/bare arms tag can be used with it.

For this purpose, would it make more sense to have a bikini_only tag

Lacrimosa said:

I think it works perfectly fine.
How else would you then distinguish bikini posts like post #3426485, post #3425704, post #3426366. All three os those are different.
And there is also a bikini -bare_shoulders search. That is specifically for images you want a bikini but no bare shoulders. If you say that bare shoulders and bikini are mutually exclusive then this search makes absolutely no sense.

I say we need this kind of information. And to make the -bare_shoulders tag/search useful we need both tags for post #3423834.

Only 23k out of 150k bikini posts are tagged bare shoulders. It would probably deserve to be tagged on at least 100k+ more posts. So bikini -bare_shoulders doesn't really work.

It's like saying we need to tag everything with bare hands because sometimes people wear gloves or their hands aren't visible. It would be massive tagging bloat for something that's completely normal and uninteresting. It makes more sense to create tags for the exceptions than to spend enormous effort tagging the default case.

Unbreakable said:

I think the main point is that there is no easy way of searching for images of character only wearing a bikini (unlike the underwear only tag that exists for underwear) unless the bare shoulders/bare arms tag can be used with it.

There's no easy way to find things like post #3428168 or post #3412325 either when bare shoulders is used for things like post #3418585. If the definition of bare shoulders is "literally any time the shoulders are even partly visible" then the tag turns into another tag like hips, or the other body part tags mentioned in topic #14889. Tags that become meaningless because they're used on nearly anything.

evazion said:

There's no easy way to find things like post #3428168 or post #3412325 either when bare shoulders is used for things like post #3418585. If the definition of bare shoulders is "literally any time the shoulders are even partly visible" then the tag turns into another tag like hips, or the other body part tags mentioned in topic #14889. Tags that become meaningless because they're used on nearly anything.

I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm just trying to explain the other side of the argument, no matter how good or bad it may be.

evazion said:

Only 23k out of 150k bikini posts are tagged bare shoulders. It would probably deserve to be tagged on at least 100k+ more posts. So bikini -bare_shoulders doesn't really work.

Exactly.
And it's that exact mindset that prevents to have a search being completely unviable.
That's kinda a bad thing, don't you think?

No, I don't. The same reason it's not a problem that you can't use nude -bare_shoulders to find post #3412888. Bare shoulders doesn't exist as some kind of ass-backwards way to search for covered shoulders.