"solo" tag discussion thread

this was discussed on discord but for future reference a thread about when to tag a post as solo and solo focus

current solo wiki

An image containing a single person. No one else should be visible in the image.

That means only one copy of the character. These situations should not be tagged solo:

• Single characters being depicted from multiple views (post #12904)
• dakimakura which contain multiple views
• dual persona
• time paradox
• A character alongside an animal or creature with a character tag (talking or otherwise), such as post #9791130

These situations should be tagged solo focus, not solo:

• Pictures focusing on one character among a crowd of nondescript, less detailed people.
• Single characters engaged in sex acts with faceless or out of frame characters.

Situations that can be solo include:

• A single character with one or more inanimate dolls or photos of other characters.
• A single character with unnamed pet or object characters.

(omitted examples because of 5 embeds limit)

Non-examples

solo focus

multiple views

current solo focus wiki

An image containing multiple people, but focused on only a single person. The other characters are either unidentifiable or only a small part of the picture.

The secondary characters are usually anonymous people rather than named characters. Often they're faceless or mostly out of frame males, POV self-insert characters, or anonymous bystanders in the background.

If only one character is visible in the image, use solo instead.

Examples

Anonymous POV character

Faceless background characters

Out of frame characters

i tried organizing these and other rules such as from multiple views in tag group:character count (topic #34012)

the way it's currently written a post with an animal or creaturer isn't tagged solo if the animal has a chartag. basically this means all manjuu abuse (azur lane) posts aren't solo because Manjuu (Azur Lane) has a chartag. @evazion disagreed with this on discord and said that animals shouldn't count against solo since some characters are always together with their named pet/familiar so they would never have any solo posts.

by that logic konpaku_youmu is never solo because she's always with konpaku_youmu (ghost)

you should be able to search neuro-sama solo to get neuro-sama by herself without other people. you shouldn't have to do neuro-sama 1girl -1boy -multiple_boys -1other -multiple_others because sometimes there's a turtle there and that counts against solo even though it isn't doing anything

multiple views also not tagged solo and some users think that makes no sense.

my personal opinion on this is that if a character is with an animal/creature/whatever it should be solo focus instead of solo so solo means "there is only one character" and you don't have to worry about named animals, pokemon or goats. i also agree with solo being used with multiple views, because a comic would be tagged solo... i think... so rn a post with multiple views isn't tagged solo, but if you draw some lines to separate each view then those views are "panels" now and it's a "comic" so we can use the solo tag

i don't have any strong feelings about this but imo there should be a consensus and the wiki should be written to cover these cases in order for tagging to be consistent.

Images of one character and small things like expression changes should be solo in my opinion (i.e. post #10296208). This is still one Reimu by herself.

czernin said:

Images of one character and small things like expression changes should be solo in my opinion (i.e. post #10296208). This is still one Reimu by herself.

There's the chibi version on there as well so bad example?

I'm just stepping in here to give citations on evazion's comments from the Discord: saying creatures don't count, calling the existing wiki wrong, the Youmu quote, and the Neuro-sama quote.

Additionally:

if it's not something you would tag as 1girl or 1boy, then it shouldn't count towards solo
things like pokemon are a grey area because you can make the case that the creatures are as significant as the humans
but the normal case where it's just a creature that happens to have a name shouldn't count

skylightcrystal said:

There's the chibi version on there as well so bad example?

I've never been told there was an issue with chibi inset being tagged as solo, but here's post #8202170

czernin said:

I've never been told there was an issue with chibi inset being tagged as solo, but here's post #8202170

The way I was explained it the gender tags (1girl) count characters in the image whereas solo and multiple_x count bodies. By that logic Chibi and Multiple_views go against solo since they're multiple bodies even though they're a single girl.

I'd love if we could agree named animals/creatures don't go against solo though. It was quite the learning curve for me, and while I can see the logic since they're named characters I feel like we can all agree a girl holding a pikachu is still in the spirit of solo.

Damian0358 said:

I'm just stepping in here to give citations on evazion's comments from the Discord: saying creatures don't count, calling the existing wiki wrong, the Youmu quote, and the Neuro-sama quote.

Additionally:

@Damian0358 Can you screenshot those citations? Links aren't helpful for people that don't use Discord.

Not sure on multiple views, but as far as animals/creatures with chartags go I feel like species with chartags such as Pokemon should be allowed in otherwise solo pics, but individual animals with chartags maybe shouldn't? Maybe? I'm not sure?

Like if you wouldn't disqualify a picture of a girl with a fox sitting next to her if the fox isn't a major focus of the pic then I don't see why you'd disqualify one with a Vulpix in the same situation, idk

Pokemon_by_gender_ratio said:

Not sure on multiple views, but as far as animals/creatures with chartags go I feel like species with chartags such as Pokemon should be allowed in otherwise solo pics, but individual animals with chartags maybe shouldn't? Maybe? I'm not sure?

Like if you wouldn't disqualify a picture of a girl with a fox sitting next to her if the fox isn't a major focus of the pic then I don't see why you'd disqualify one with a Vulpix in the same situation, idk

imo the problem with any "..., but..." is that it's going to end up in a very complex set of rules for tagging solo that is going to end up in either

1. taggers needing to consult the wiki to make sure they are tagging solo correctly all the time which sucks because it's a very common tag
2. tagger not doing that and tagging it wrong which sucks because it makes the tag useless unless other people spend their time gardening the tag all the time which nobody is going to do because it's an insanely common tag with rules too complicated

like imagine saying "pokemon is okay if it's big like Machamp but not small like Eevee except that Pikachu counts, ghost doesn't count if it's hitodama but traditional youkai do, slime isn't okay, animal isn't except if it's 50% furry like a bipedal animal with intelligence, robot counts if it's humanoid like c-3po but not if it's r2-d2, living shadow isn't" blahblahblah it will be endless

that's why imo it would be better to have a very simple rule like either

1. it's solo if it's only 1 body
2. or it's solo if it's 1boy, 1girl or 1other
3. or it's solo if there is only 1 named character

because that would be very easy to maintain

Blank_User said:

@Damian0358 Can you screenshot those citations? Links aren't helpful for people that don't use Discord.

I genuinely do not think screenshots are necessary here. I will do it this one time, but in situations like this full quotations and links are often all that's needed, especially since screenshots are easily editable too.

Damian0358 said:

I genuinely do not think screenshots are necessary here. I will do it this one time, but in situations like this full quotations and links are often all that's needed, especially since screenshots are easily editable too.

Sorry, I read through the posts too quickly and didn't realize the relevant material was already included in the opening post. I thought the links were referring to something different. I admit I reacted too quickly to seeing mentions of citations in Discord links and agree a screenshot was probably not needed here.

trapster77 said:

i also agree with solo being used with multiple views, because a comic would be tagged solo... i think... so rn a post with multiple views isn't tagged solo, but if you draw some lines to separate each view then those views are "panels" now and it's a "comic" so we can use the solo tag

Multipanel comics don't qualify for solo and usually don't qualify for multiple views either.

Solo should be used for any picture that depicts a single humanoid character, doesn't matter if it's a comic or multiple views.
What counts as a humanoid character? That's another can of worms we've been kicking since the no humans discussions.

Huh, I'm pretty sure there was a similar discussion in topic #32051 seven months ago. Seems like there's still no clear consensus of this, huh?

There likely won't even be any semblance of progress until the no humans debaters wrap up their century-long war either.

I'm still of the opinion that multiple_views should be included in solo if the image depicts one singular character, as mentioned in topic #21174 and topic #32051.

BaiserLaVerite said:

Solo should be used for any picture that depicts a single humanoid character, doesn't matter if it's a comic or multiple views.

Hard disagree. By far the main use I get out of the solo tag is to find images with a specific combination, e.g. shorts tank_top solo. Without the solo tag these sort of searches are often flooded with images of multiple characters where one has one thing and another has the other, particularly for combinations that are more unusual than this example. Adding solo to multiple_views and comic posts would also flood these tags out - or they would if comics weren't often so undertagged.

I was also of the opinion that solo should be applicable to character count but it's more about body count and the entire image with everything taken into account. I argued it should be on a comic post and I got turned into a piece of charcoal and my ashes were fashioned into shovels to scatter the rest while some other people got to work on overwriting my memoir and last will. Happened just because someone pointed out solo on my post when I was sharing a post I thought was nice.

I kind of just gave up. Though with that now I developed a habit of not using solo for companion (creatures) et al so my use of solo right now is kind of a mess and it doesn't help that it's still an argued topic and consensus is slightly blurry - as in, there is consensus, but it's being contested, and I can't really follow the choices of people who add or remove it from my posts.

BaiserLaVerite said:

Solo should be used for any picture that depicts a single humanoid character, doesn't matter if it's a comic or multiple views.

The solo tag was created with a specific purpose in mind, and the wiki is clear enough about what that purpose is. Doing things like tagging solo on multi-panel comics would stray from that purpose. If we want a tag for indicating a single character with any amount of instances, we need to come up with a new tag. Given solo's long history, it might be better to nuke it instead of trying to change its function, but you'd first have to somehow convince others that solo as we currently use it is useless either way.

Blank_User said:

The solo tag was created with a specific purpose in mind, and the wiki is clear enough about what that purpose is. Doing things like tagging solo on multi-panel comics would stray from that purpose. If we want a tag for indicating a single character with any amount of instances, we need to come up with a new tag. Given solo's long history, it might be better to nuke it instead of trying to change its function, but you'd first have to somehow convince others that solo as we currently use it is useless either way.

Isn't the fact that so many people, including several Builders, oppose to the wiki definition of solo proof enough that it's seen as useless?
It would probably be better to make a new tag with the definition of "a single instance of a character with no panels or multiple views", and let people tag solo on the images that common sense tells them are solo.
We shouldn't be bound by a wiki written almost 2 decades ago like it's holy scripture.

BaiserLaVerite said:

Isn't the fact that so many people, including several Builders, oppose to the wiki definition of solo proof enough that it's seen as useless?

But are they opposing it because they think the idea itself is bad, or is it because they're having trouble remembering how to use it? And what about the users that rely on its current definition for their searches, like what was just described in forum #403889?

It would probably be better to make a new tag with the definition of "a single instance of a character with no panels or multiple views", and let people tag solo on the images that common sense tells them are solo.

We have at least two factions arguing about what should count as solo. That is the opposite of common sense.

We shouldn't be bound by a wiki written almost 2 decades ago like it's holy scripture.

The tag has been used frequently over those two decades and it's now on over six million posts. That's more than half the posts on this site. This isn't like an old tag that was thrown on a couple posts a long time ago and forgotten about. The current use of the tag has been constantly reinforced over those years. Changing its function would force the entire userbase to adapt. It would be like if we suddenly decided to use the gender tags for literal gender because some users think it makes more sense in current times to tag them that way.

On the other hand, if we can think of a name for a new tag for what some want solo to be, then they can use that instead without causing friction with those accustomed to the current use of solo.