Pokemon critter naming policy

I should clarify that my suggestion was only for temporarily qualification until the actual names that we will be using have been revealed. An independent tag has the advantage of keeping the translated from the untranslated, temporary from permanent, and creatures from people.

Personally, I'm completely fine with the standard qualifier when it's the actual name if it's absolutely needed but using one for both temporary and permanent tags on a series we already consider a special case in tagging as it is doesn't feel right.

rantuyetmai said: That's what we have always been doing for Pokemon characters - adding "_(pokemon)" to the humans - and I was very happy with it.

We didn't add _(pokemon) only to the humans with the intention of distinguishing from creatures, but because we were using the Japanese names and thus there was greater chance for ambiguity.

rantuyetmai said: If naming the tags right can help with browsing experience, why do we NOT do it? Coming up with another qualifier is difficult? You can read several suggestions above again.

I'm not sure "rigth" is the word to use here... technically "pokemon" is completely correct.

Also, the suggestions given were either even longer than _(pokemon) or make an awkward distinction (pkmn vs pokemon?). I just want to make sure this is a common problem people and need a solution for, before we do weird or unwieldy things with qualifiers.

There's an option that I don't think anyone has brought up yet. (It doesn't address the human/pokemon distinction, but that's a side question from the original one.) Given:

• Danbooru policy is to use original Japanese names
• Pokemon is an exception (for the 'mons only, not the humans) due solely to the ambiguity of said Japanese names
• more recent Danbooru policy is to add copyright qualifiers to remove ambiguity in character names

then there is the possibility of removing the exception, and using the Japanese "name_(pokemon)" as the primary tag for each species.

Advantages:

• consistent with general site policy
• removes the confusion when we start tagging with Japanese names and have to switch to English when they're known later
• new tags can be aliased from the existing ones to minimise user confusion

Disadvantages:

• for older species, many users likely know the English name but not the Japanese one. Aliases should take care of that, though.
• it's a spitload of aliases for the mods to create: in most cases, two per species (unqualified EN -> qualified JP as well as unqualified JP -> qualified JP). However, the same number would be necessary if using qualified EN names as the primary tag instead.
• changing the base name for a character's primary tag is going to confuse people more than just adding a qualifier. Even with aliases, there's probably no way to completely avoid this.

It may very well be that this is judged too disruptive and shot down for that reason. If so, that's fine, but I thought it should at least be suggested.

(For what it's worth on the human/pokemon debate, I think we shouldn't make a distinction in the tags; we have the wiki to provide lists of human vs. 'mon Pokemon characters. However, if we must use one, I'd suggest _(pokemon) for the 'mons, and _(trainer) for the humans. Yes, I know that means changes to tags that would otherwise not be affected, but it's much less ugly than something like _(pkmn).)

kounishin said: then there is the possibility of removing the exception, and using the Japanese "name_(pokemon)" as the primary tag for each species.

As you mention later, it's a matter of the work involved. It'd probably be something 1000 aliases or whatever crazy amount we have at this point. If we'd thought to do it this way years ago, it'd have been ideal of course.

It seems like it should be reasonably scriptable given a list of English and Japanese names (such as this one ). I could certainly write something to (if run by you or Albert) make the changes directly in the database, although I haven't worked with the Danbooru API so that might be a concern for syncing between servers, and there'd be policy questions to iron out first.

However, that doesn't address the disruption aspect. Looking over that list, I realise how many of the "classic" species' Japanese names don't even sound "Pokemon-like" to me at first glance; I would imagine that even with aliases, a lot of people would be crying out "Why aren't my Bulbasaur/Charmander/Jigglypuff tags working?" if those were changed.

kounishin said:
(For what it's worth on the human/pokemon debate, I think we shouldn't make a distinction in the tags; we have the wiki to provide lists of human vs. 'mon Pokemon characters. However, if we must use one, I'd suggest _(pokemon) for the 'mons, and _(trainer) for the humans. Yes, I know that means changes to tags that would otherwise not be affected, but it's much less ugly than something like _(pkmn).)

I would like to point out that not all human Pokemon characters are trainers, and this is counterintuitive with how we use series titles in qualifiers. Again, it's a temporary solution until the localized names trickle in.

As for changing the Pokemon creature policy again, didn't everyone vote on it a long-ass time ago?

kounishin said:
It seems like it should be reasonably scriptable given a list of English and Japanese names (such as this one ).

The problem is that there are only official romanizations for about half of the new Gen5 pokémon, and that list is not without errors. Only recently was Hipopotas changed to Hippopotas and ナメケロ|Namekero|Namekero to ナマケロ|Namakero|Namakero. That means you would have to follow all the changes made to that list and update the aliases all the time whereas the English names never change.