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Nuke designated_marksman_rifle

Posted under Tags

BUR #19681 has been approved by @nonamethanks.

mass update designated_marksman_rifle -> -designated_marksman_rifle sniper_rifle
deprecate designated_marksman_rifle

Mymindservant said:
Regarding designated_marksman_rifle and sniper_rifle tags. Danbooru is an image repository, not an encyclopedia, and the purpose of tags here is to help people finding images. I understand that DMR and sniper rifle are technically separate things, but they are visually similar and the distinction between them is not maintained everywhere.
Also, from what I can see Danbooru uses the sniper_rifle tag in a more general way, not just for dedicated sniper rifles. That's why I think that designated_marksman_rifle would be better kept as a subset of the sniper_rifle.

Based on further consideration from forum #235384. While it was not me the one who first created this tag (post #5693489), I realized that I made a huge mistake that obsession with technicality is not always good when it comes to tagging. Decided to make this a mass update instead of simple nuking attempt, because there may be posts that miss the sniper rifle tag. There is no way this tag should be aliased into sniper rifle, for being a less commonly-known weapon class and unintuitive value.
Tagging should not be too difficult for average users.

  • Many bolt action sniper rifles do use the same caliber (standard full-power rifle round) as their semi-automatic counterparts, the so-called DMR. For instance, the Dragunov SVD and SV-98 that both fire 7.62*54mm. At least they serve similar role, and the point should be simple enough for most users to recognize. Modern military-grade precision rifles with scope for long-range use.
  • Many countries' military doctrine (such as the USSR) do not set clear distinction between designated marksman and sniper.
  • Inconsistency of classification despite using the same class of ammunition and same fire mode. DMR only applies to modern precision semi-auto rifles. Does not refer to their World War II-era counterparts (i.e. Gewehr 43 or M1 Garand) even with scopes on.
  • Even Wikipedia still call a lot of semi-automatic sniper rifles by the term sniper rifle. For instance, the H&K PSG1 and H&K MSG90.
  • For a similar reason we do not simply have separate tag "personal_defense_weapon" for subclass of submachine guns that fire smaller caliber, higher-velocity handgun rounds.

Updated

nonamethanks said:

Why is this a deprecation instead of an alias? Are there cases where a designated marksman rifle is not a sniper rifle?

Technically the DMRs are meant to provide the high rate of fire of a AR/BR and the precision of a Sniper Rifle so a lot of them tend to look an AR with a powerful scope on them. It really boils down the roll they are designed for, something that is not easily distinguishable by looks alone. You can compare the M110 to the Mk. 14/M39. Both Semi-auto rifles firing the 7.62x51mm but one is classified as a Sniper and the other a DMR
For the Mk. 14 you have images with a scope and a couple without a scope. So the couple with the scope could more easily be classified as a DMR but those without would be much harder from visuals alone. Ignoring that the Mk.14 is a battle rifle put into the DMR role

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