Q. Why is it that the particle は(WA) is spelled as は(HA)?
A. Over many centuries, when the current HA was used as a particle, it was often pronounced as a sound close to WA at present, being affected by the sounds of words before and after it.
In 1946, the writing system of Japanese was revised, and both Hiragana and Katakana have begun to be used to write words in a way closer to how they are pronounced. But at that time, it was decided that for the particles alone, the same letters that had been used should continue to be used even though they are different from the actual pronunciation. So, in addition to “はWA,” the same ancient letters are being used for such particles as “をO” and “へE”, though their spellings are different from how they are pronounced now.
Should any official romanization exist, they take precedence over this standard.
That at least makes this alias debatable, yes, but there are issues with it:
If you read the linked forum post, evazion's argument for the "official romanizations takes precedence" policy was that someone should be able to come to Danbooru, type in a character name or copyright name that they know in the search box, and find what they're looking for. Not being able to find Tohsaka Rin if the tag were "Toosaka Rin" and there were no alias is a good example of this.
Start typing "etra-chan" or the name of any character in it into the search box, and tell me what you see. The only situation in which the current etra-chan_wa_mita! tag impairs search usage is if someone types in "etra-chan_ha" (or the full tag name) without ever looking at the autocomplete for some reason.
Speaking of Google, using uncommon names kills us in search rankings. If someone searches Google for fanart of some popular character or copyright, they should at least have a chance of finding Danbooru. Not showing up in Google for popular characters because we use uncommon names really hurts us in terms of being able to bring in new users to the site. This is a major concern for me.
"etra-chan wa mita": 8070 Google hits (admittedly, some are search result pollution from us and other boorus) "etra-chan ha mita": 2 Google hits, one of which is this forum thread, another which is the forum index "etorachan ha mita" (as written in post #7517351): 0 Google hits
If that isn't sufficiently convincing, I've also got some more subjective arguments:
I don't think email addresses should be considered official romanizations, but this is a moot point because of post #7517351 (the other fanart post is irrelevant.)
I am immensely skeptical that whoever decided the official romanization should be "Etorachan ha Mita!" consciously considered spelling it "Etra-chan wa Mita!" instead and rejected that option. They probably typed out the same thing they would type if writing it in Japanese ("wapuro" style romanization) and gave it no further thought. I'm not omniscient though, so I can't say this is cold hard fact.
Consider the "search utility" argument from the perspective of hypothetical users who know Japanese, know the copyright is named エトラちゃんは見た! in Japanese, and know that は in this context is pronounced "wa". I think they're most likely to type in "etra-chan_wa_mita" (or maybe "etora-chan...", but we can't help them with that.) Admittedly, this is a minority of Danbooru users, but if they rival or outnumber those hypothetical users who are aware the official romanization is "Etra-chan ha Mita!" and search for that, they're worth thinking of.
Kinda splitting hairs because autocomplete should get both these hypothetical users to the correct tag, regardless of what it is.
Using the Japanese email address as the source of the "correct" romanization isn't the best or most reliable source for an official romanization of the title. We had similar in the past, such as with the Japanese artist of Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou translating Miia's name as Meer (the official translations used Miia).
Using "ha" simply runs counter to how anyone would normally Romanize it, and here are examples from various sites.
I am immensely skeptical that whoever decided the official romanization should be "Etorachan ha Mita!" consciously considered spelling it "Etra-chan wa Mita!" instead and rejected that option. They probably typed out the same thing they would type if writing it in Japanese ("wapuro" style romanization) and gave it no further thought. I'm not omniscient though, so I can't say this is cold hard fact.
I support this idea, doesn't make sense to use ha, but I'd like to mention it's not used in the e-mail alone. There's a wordplay in the Twitter username, one of the common readings of 8 in wordplay is は meant as ha, and the inactive etrachanhamita Twitter is apparently official as well.
I support this idea, doesn't make sense to use ha, but I'd like to mention it's not used in the e-mail alone. There's a wordplay in the Twitter username, one of the common readings of 8 in wordplay is は meant as ha, and the inactive etrachanhamita Twitter is apparently official as well.
That account basically serves as an official backup account just in case if the main account cannot be accessed.
The Youtube channel about page uses "wa", so tbh this looks like a case of lack of official romanization and different translators going their own way if anything.
