Suggesting a "designer:" tag

UnderwoodART
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Twinkling Balloon - Took part in the 2021 community collab.
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Just Another Pink Pony
Much like artist: and editor:, I suggest you consider designer: for two reasons: to clearly show when an OC is not the artist’s, and to differentiate between multiple OCs of the same name. If you know an OC is a specific artist’s, you can search for those two tags already, but coming from fan art (particularly of an obscure character with a common name), you may struggle to find more of the correct OC. This might also be beneficial for those who are not artists and have only commissioned art of their OCs, giving a tag for all their designs to fall under.
This might also be used to differentiate canon characters that are shared between generations (eg. designer:lauren faust), sort of like the “G_” tag, aside from G4 never being tagged. But that is not my intention for this tag, and I expect you wouldn’t want that either, so a point should be made that this is for OC fan-art only. You might need to add a description to make its use clear, but I don’t know if you can dynamically apply descriptions based on tag contents (anything with “designer:” in it).
This tag also serves as the second half of what a oc:name (artist) would achieve to split up common names. I think the two options for that are to either imply the oc:name to all bracketed versions (so it doesn’t get lost in nuance), or remove all brackets and encourage people to search for “oc:name, artist:name” and “designer:name”. But that’s a separate issue. In that regard, it would also be nice if you could watch multiple tags as one, like “oc+artist” or “artist+safe”, but I’m getting off topic.
Background Pony #7124
Much like artist: and editor:, I suggest you consider designer:
I’m of neutral opinion here; I’m just replying with some thoughts.
How would you approach it when the OC design was made by someone other than the “owner” of the OC (such as is the case for “adoptables” or at times when a roleplayed OC changes hands?)
This tag also serves as the second half of what a oc:name (artist) would achieve to split up common names. I think the two options for that are to either imply the oc:name to all bracketed versions (so it doesn’t get lost in nuance), or remove all brackets and encourage people to search for “oc:name, artist:name” and “designer:name”. But that’s a separate issue.
Sometimes, OCs get tag descriptions. You’d need to either preserve bracketed variations in order to keep the descriptions contained to the correct tags, or otherwise, have all descriptions and the associated designer: tag in a big list within the description for a common name.
In that regard, it would also be nice if you could watch multiple tags as one, like “oc+artist” or “artist+safe”, but I’m getting off topic.
You already can, in Settings, using the Watch list search string field.
Ciaran
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Senior Moderator
友情は魔法だ
Right now we handle all of this with the OC tag descriptions. I agree that being able to search all the OCs designed by a specific person might be nice, but we already run into enough issues with ownership of OCs that having yet another layer of ownership might make it even more unwieldy.
Simply put, what rights would the designer have where takedowns are concerned?
UnderwoodART
Shimmering Smile - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of Equestria Girls!
Lunar Supporter - Helped forge New Lunar Republic's freedom in the face of the Solar Empire's oppressive tyrannical regime (April Fools 2023).
Crystal Roseluck - Had their OC in the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
Princess of Love - Extra special version for those who participated in the Canterlot Wedding 10th anniversary event by contributing art.
Elements of Harmony - Had an OC in the 2022 Community Collab
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Kinship Through Differences - Celebrated the 11th anniversary of MLP:FIM!
Twinkling Balloon - Took part in the 2021 community collab.
An Artist Who Rocks - 100+ images under their artist tag

Just Another Pink Pony
How would you approach it when the OC design was made by someone other than the “owner” of the OC (such as is the case for “adoptables” or at times when a roleplayed OC changes hands?)
I did think about this, and honestly I’m surprised people haven’t petitioned for an owner: tag yet. Personally I think the concept of selling “ownership” of a design is ridiculous and cheapens the art, but that’s not in question here. On topic, “ownership” is something that only the owner cares about, and as such should be categorised by galleries, not tags. People coming to Derpi want to search one of two things: more from the artist or more of the character; no one will be thinking “wow, I wonder what else this person bought”. The owner is, of course, allowed to comment that they own said character and link to their heart’s content.
Sometimes, OCs get tag descriptions. You’d need to either preserve bracketed variations in order to keep the descriptions contained to the correct tags, or otherwise, have all descriptions and the associated designer: tag in a big list within the description for a common name.
I’ve not personally noticed any OC descriptions, not that I’ve been trying, but I can’t imagine they’re all that important. Personally, I’d just delete them all, unless you can give me examples of why they’re important beyond vanity/jokes. I’m sure the number of unbracketed characters greatly out numbers the bracketed ones, and even more so the described ones. What I’m prioritising here is search clarity and equality between similar tags, and there is a lot of preferential treatment going on (which I can understand from when the site was smaller). As nice as it would be for every character to have oc:name (artist/AU) and imply oc:name, that’s a huge amount of work to backlog, and will realistically only be afforded to bigger artists/characters. Maybe very popular ones can be preserved as their own tag, if they have some specific meme or following and there’s some specific value to having them singled out… Honestly I’m only speaking in hypothetical here, I don’t have enough experience to give specific examples.
You already can, in Settings, using the Watch list search string field.
Huh, neat. I’ve never needed to do it myself, so I didn’t know it was possible. I just click the +.
UnderwoodART
Shimmering Smile - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of Equestria Girls!
Lunar Supporter - Helped forge New Lunar Republic's freedom in the face of the Solar Empire's oppressive tyrannical regime (April Fools 2023).
Crystal Roseluck - Had their OC in the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
Princess of Love - Extra special version for those who participated in the Canterlot Wedding 10th anniversary event by contributing art.
Elements of Harmony - Had an OC in the 2022 Community Collab
Non-Fungible Trixie -
Magical Inkwell - Wrote MLP fanfiction consisting of at least around 1.5k words, and has a verified link to the platform of their choice
Kinship Through Differences - Celebrated the 11th anniversary of MLP:FIM!
Twinkling Balloon - Took part in the 2021 community collab.
An Artist Who Rocks - 100+ images under their artist tag

Just Another Pink Pony
@Ciaran
As I wrote above (while you wrote yours), this is why I don’t give much weight to “ownership”. Even if I draw someone’s OC, I still consider the art itself to be mine that I can post freely. Maybe I’m alone in that feeling.
I’m approaching this from the perspective of finding art, not legality and who owns what, but let’s consider who the “designer” is here; they either designed something to be drawn by another (a commissioner), designed something to sell (an artist), or designed something for themselves and is being replicated (also artist). As far as I’m concerned, ownership is joint between the artist and the commissioner, though I appreciate that some artists “sell ownership” as well.
It’s hard to give a fair opinion when I am clearly biased towards the artist here, but let’s be frank, these are not NFTs. There is no way to verify that someone actually owns any piece of art less you get confirmation from the artist, or the original piece is signed with the owner’s name. If ownership is truly important for the sake of takedowns, anyone that cares enough to remove art from the public eye will not care about tags, and anyone that want tags is purely doing it for attention and “branding”. artist: collects together styles and gives exposure, designer: collects together ideas and characters, owner: collects together a personal gallery and gives said person a big red button to nuke what they own.
Was that all just rambling? Sorry. Let me specifically answer your question. Like I said, I don’t think a pony art gallery should be treated like a law firm, but I suppose the designer could call for all art of a specific character they created to be pulled. I can’t stress enough how much I think all art should be archived and never removed (as long as it is not being abused/sold). I think my point in the second paragraph was that the designer either owns the IP of the character by commissioning it, or is the artist anyway, so it shouldn’t add another layer to ownership (aside from when ownership is sold, but frankly that’s its own issue that I don’t think belongs on this website at all, re: proof). Let them have their “I own this” galleries and provide proof if and when they want something taken down.
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
Ciaran
ラ・ゼッタ - For supporting the site
Silly Pony - Celebrated the 13th anniversary of MLP:FIM, and 40 years of MLP!
Shimmering Smile - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of Equestria Girls!
Lunar Guardian - Earned a place among the ranks of the most loyal New Lunar Republic soldiers (April Fools 2023).
Crystal Roseluck - Had their OC in the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
Flower Trio - Helped others get their OC into the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
A Lovely Nightmare Night - Celebrated the 12th anniversary of MLP:FIM!
Princess of Love - Extra special version for those who participated in the Canterlot Wedding 10th anniversary event by contributing art.
Tree of Harmony - Drew someone's OC for the 2022 Community Collab
Elements of Harmony - Had an OC in the 2022 Community Collab

Senior Moderator
友情は魔法だ
@UnderwoodART
On this site, your rights are retained.
Even if someone commissions you to create a work, and uploads it themselves, if they ask for it to be deleted we will check with you first. Conversely, if you ask for one of your own works to be deleted, we delete it without even checking with the uploader.
Because your rights are retained.
We do have an unofficial concept of ‘designer’ or ‘owner’ outside of this, so that for example when a convention has a trademarked logo or their own registered OC, or when a team is working on a project (penciler/inker/colorer, etc) we do work to make sure we observe all of those layers of ownership. But we usually ‘make those work’ by shoehorning them in as ‘artist’ tags. This way the DNP system and Takedown processes works.
Beyond that, we have looked at something like a ‘Commissioner’ badge, which I think is similar at least in concept to what you are describing, but really only ended up using that in situations where it became critical for people to be able to filter or hide certain commissioner’s commissions.
Beyond that, there is no systematic or procedural way for us to say; ‘This tag is valid’, and if two people claim to own the same OC (yea - we live in the timeline where that happens) we don’t have a lot of tools for sorting it out.
So, from the ‘ownership’ side, I just want to make sure if we do this that we bake it into the existing processes. Which probably means editing the takedown and FAQ docs to reflect what the ‘designer’ can and can not do.
Or, completely ignoring it and just letting it be another one of the community tags that we ignore, like ‘cursed image’.
All of that said, I really think it would be great to be able to search on ‘Designer’ or ‘Owner’ - especially if it was something that could be verified like artist links are.
That way when we do things like the annual collaboration, finding the ‘designer’ of the OC will be significantly easier when awarding badges, for those who took advantage of that tag.
We are still trying to sort out all the OC owners from the last collaboration, and just last week I found 3 more from the 2021 collab.
So, I think it is definitely something that we need. It just will touch a lot of behind the scenes pieces that are hard to anticipate.
PS:
If ownership is truly important for the sake of takedowns, anyone that cares enough to remove art from the public eye will not care about tags
All seriousness aside, we care. If someone who is not the artist asks for images to be deleted, we just ignore them. If they do them again we let the artist know someone might be trying to fuck with them.
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk
Background Pony #7124
On topic, “ownership” is something that only the owner cares about, and as such should be categorised by galleries, not tags. People coming to Derpi want to search one of two things: more from the artist or more of the character; no one will be thinking “wow, I wonder what else this person bought”.
An assumption. There’s at least one BP who seems to be very interested in these matters. (Though I don’t understand why.)
I’ve not personally noticed any OC descriptions, not that I’ve been trying, but I can’t imagine they’re all that important.
They’re important enough to people for over 1000 to have them. There is a pinned thread in this forum for that purpose.
Personally, I’d just delete them all, unless you can give me examples of why they’re important beyond vanity/jokes.
I do not care, I can only say that I’ve noticed that people care.
I’m sure the number of unbracketed characters greatly out numbers the bracketed ones, and even more so the described ones.
You are right, they do, by ~50:1 and ~100:1 respectively.
What I’m prioritising here is search clarity and equality between similar tags,
Good in principle, but it feels disingenuous when someone who admits to being unfamiliar and uncaring about OCs is arguing for some way to make their arrangement more useful.
and there is a lot of preferential treatment going on (which I can understand from when the site was smaller). As nice as it would be for every character to have oc:name (artist/AU) and imply oc:name, that’s a huge amount of work to backlog, and will realistically only be afforded to bigger artists/characters. Maybe very popular ones can be preserved as their own tag, if they have some specific meme or following and there’s some specific value to having them singled out… Honestly I’m only speaking in hypothetical here, I don’t have enough experience to give specific examples.
Here are examples:
I don’t really see any fundamental preferential treatment besides “people who asked” vs. “people who haven’t asked” and I certainly haven’t seen the staff say “you’re not worth the work” (for further reference on that angle: 632 tags that have been hand-categorized as “species” that have 5 or less images)

Getting back to your actual proposal, the reason I flipped the question from “designer” to “owner” is that my own assumptions (heh…yes, assumptions) are that people may be interested in OCs that have some kind of relation. For example, they may all be in a fanfic or series of fanfics (this situation is already covered with fanfic tags) or in some kind of Alternate Universe or roleplay (there are already cases of AUs getting tags). Basically, a “designer” association will often, but not necessarily convey any character relation. An “owner” is more likely to do so.
Sure, from the artistic side of things, it’s a form of credit for intellectual work like “artist” is, but I wonder whether that’s what will really be of use to people visiting the site?

Simply put, what rights would the designer have where takedowns are concerned?
That doesn’t seem relevant. AFAIK Underwood’s suggestion is related to organization and information-association only.
As I wrote above (while you wrote yours), this is why I don’t give much weight to “ownership”. Even if I draw someone’s OC, I still consider the art itself to be mine that I can post freely. Maybe I’m alone in that feeling.
No, that’s the site’s as well. Only artists can request takedowns, not OC “owners”. “Owners” is just the word commonly used for associating OCs with people, it’s not being presented in any legal sense.
UnderwoodART
Shimmering Smile - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of Equestria Girls!
Lunar Supporter - Helped forge New Lunar Republic's freedom in the face of the Solar Empire's oppressive tyrannical regime (April Fools 2023).
Crystal Roseluck - Had their OC in the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
Princess of Love - Extra special version for those who participated in the Canterlot Wedding 10th anniversary event by contributing art.
Elements of Harmony - Had an OC in the 2022 Community Collab
Non-Fungible Trixie -
Magical Inkwell - Wrote MLP fanfiction consisting of at least around 1.5k words, and has a verified link to the platform of their choice
Kinship Through Differences - Celebrated the 11th anniversary of MLP:FIM!
Twinkling Balloon - Took part in the 2021 community collab.
An Artist Who Rocks - 100+ images under their artist tag

Just Another Pink Pony
@Ciaran
That’s great news! Especially since the editor: tag already exists, there does seem to be room for more valid ownership tags. I will say, though, that commissioner: isn’t the same as what I’m suggesting, as that can occupy this weird little niche where someone might commission art of someone else’s character, as neither the artist nor the designer.
The major flaw of my suggestion is when artists draw their own characters; suddenly all art will have artist:i♡ponies and designer:i♡ponies, which comes across as very redundant, especially for unpopular characters without fan-art. Even if you define designer: as applying specifically to fan-art, 1) a bunch of people won’t know/remember and apply it to the designer’s stuff, and 2) the tag will segregate the designer’s art to their artist tag and fan-art to the designer tag, so seeing all of a specific OC would require “OCname+artist+designer”. It’s quite messy…
Another problem of only adding designer: to fan-art is that any art without that tag will be assumed as the origin, just like art without an artist: is sort of assumed to be the uploader (until proven guilty). Of course, the problem of adding designer: to all of an artist’s work is that it becomes exactly the same as the artist: tag, but with added fan-art.
I agree that it could be a quite powerful tag, especially if it would aid with badge allocation (it still boggles my mind that you do it manually), though there are a lot of specifics to go over. I would be happy to talk about it more, if you think it would help, or if anyone else has any better ideas.
Addendum:
or when a team is working on a project (penciler/inker/colorer, etc)
Another reason why I would love a drop-down metadata thing, which could tag every participant on an image without creating a wall of art tags. Or like, nested tags, where each participant gets an artist: tag (visually they could say “inker” but behave like “artist”), and when there’s three or more, they get nested into a drop-down menu under artist: multiple ▼. Stuff like that. We need to minimise the amount of behind-the-scenes work for you guys >:
Ciaran
ラ・ゼッタ - For supporting the site
Silly Pony - Celebrated the 13th anniversary of MLP:FIM, and 40 years of MLP!
Shimmering Smile - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of Equestria Girls!
Lunar Guardian - Earned a place among the ranks of the most loyal New Lunar Republic soldiers (April Fools 2023).
Crystal Roseluck - Had their OC in the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
Flower Trio - Helped others get their OC into the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
A Lovely Nightmare Night - Celebrated the 12th anniversary of MLP:FIM!
Princess of Love - Extra special version for those who participated in the Canterlot Wedding 10th anniversary event by contributing art.
Tree of Harmony - Drew someone's OC for the 2022 Community Collab
Elements of Harmony - Had an OC in the 2022 Community Collab

Senior Moderator
友情は魔法だ
The major flaw
For me that’s not a problem.
The Artist tag is paramount, because that is what copyright is tied to.
The Editor and Edit tags are equally important, because it indicates derivative copyright.
Any other tags are really not a part of the process. After thinking about it for awhile, my main concern is that people will think that having those owner:* or creator:* or designer:* style tags will convey some sort of ownership of the image.
So, it might cause some confusion when dealing with takedowns or resolving copyright issues.
it still boggles my mind that you do it manually
Well, this is a fan-run fansite entirely operated by volunteers. Almost everything we do is some sort of manual. Sometimes we have tools that help, but most of the site is done by real people clicking real buttons.
drop-down metadata thing, which could tag every participant on an image without creating a wall of art tags … We need to minimise the amount of behind-the-scenes work for you guys
That might be nice for the viewers and users.
But for my use cases I really depend on being able to see the artists all laid out without having to do additional clicks. Getting things down to the minimum number of clicks might seem odd, but when you’re going through 200 images trying to manually figure out ownership of them all, extra clicks do not help.
It would be nice to be able to search for “# artist:* > 1” or maybe “num_artist.gt:1” - something like that. Right now those searches are enormous strings of “(artist:a* OR artist:b* OR …)”. Stuff like that can introduce a lot of unanticipated behaviors. So having a better way of doing this would be nice. But it’s not like the database as an ‘ARTIST’ column in a table. That’s just another one of many tags, so there’s no way to index it.
Worrying about the number of tags on an image when displayed might be best to just ignore - if these tags get added then they’ll have the same problem where there’s three or more OCs in a single image.
Another problem of only adding designer: to fan-art is that any art without that tag will be assumed as the origin
Hmmm … there are so many legacy issues with that though. I mean, literally millions of images don’t have that tag today, so populating it and getting it accurate will be tough.
Our approach is usually to verify the claim at least once, then assume the other claims are accurate until proven wrong. For example, if an artist wants to be verified, we look to see which tags they’ve been adding to make sure no one is claiming someone else’s art. Then once that’s done, we assume they are behaving until we find someone who isn’t and then that whole tag becomes a ‘cleanup project’.
art without an artist: is sort of assumed to be the uploader
We get a lot of that, especially now that we’re looking at images uploaded by true anons before they show up on the site, and I still prefer assuming that the artist is not the uploader.
There’s been enough cases where the uploader even had the same name as the artist but turned out not to be the artist that I am maybe a little more cynical about that.
Anyway, my worrying about the takedown/copyright issues might not be beneficial for what you’re trying to do.
As they say, if it’s none of the government’s business, it’s none of the government’s business.
So, if the designer tag doesn’t convey any meaning in our processes, and it’s just a vanity tag that anyone can use, like OC names, then it might be best for me to just watch to see what happens.
These kinds of tags, like a commissioner: tag, do have a kind of ‘this is an ownership thing’. So whatever happens I want to make sure that people’s expectations are well set so that we don’t end up with someone trying to take down an OC and finding out that being the designer doesn’t give them more power than the artist.
UnderwoodART
Shimmering Smile - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of Equestria Girls!
Lunar Supporter - Helped forge New Lunar Republic's freedom in the face of the Solar Empire's oppressive tyrannical regime (April Fools 2023).
Crystal Roseluck - Had their OC in the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
Princess of Love - Extra special version for those who participated in the Canterlot Wedding 10th anniversary event by contributing art.
Elements of Harmony - Had an OC in the 2022 Community Collab
Non-Fungible Trixie -
Magical Inkwell - Wrote MLP fanfiction consisting of at least around 1.5k words, and has a verified link to the platform of their choice
Kinship Through Differences - Celebrated the 11th anniversary of MLP:FIM!
Twinkling Balloon - Took part in the 2021 community collab.
An Artist Who Rocks - 100+ images under their artist tag

Just Another Pink Pony
An assumption. There’s at least one BP who seems to be very interested in these matters. (Though I don’t understand why.)
I never stated anything I said as being fact, but the site should not be designed around one (or more) accountless/hidden people wanting to buy up OCs like monkeys, or whatever their intentions are. Someone will have done everything on this website, but that doesn’t mean they should be catered to. If anything, the designer: tag would aid their “who owns this” question.
They’re important enough to people for over 1000 to have them. There is a pinned thread in this forum for that purpose.
Want and need are not the same thing. Do we need a twiabetes tag? No, we have twilight sparkle and cute, it is not important, but 13k still use it. Equally, OC tag descriptions are not important, it’s just ego-rubbing. That on its own is fine, but if it gets in the way of a more efficient search/tag system, then I think it’s a justifiable casualty, “care” or not.
Good in principle, but it feels disingenuous when someone who admits to being unfamiliar and uncaring about OCs is arguing for some way to make their arrangement more useful.
Disingenuous? Uncaring? For someone who repeatedly says they don’t care, your comments read as quite hostile. I think you’re reading a little too much into to my statement as well. The entire purpose of the designer: tag is to unify OCs. To unify art. Because I didn’t click on your favourite blue-dragon-fox-pony hybrid and read its description and family tree, I’m being ingenious about wanting to help categorise this website and help expose smaller OC names? I have my own OCs that disappear into the cloud of a common name, but that’s fine, because no one would be looking for my OCs, and fan-art doesn’t exist of them anyway. No, I don’t follow any specific OCs or care about their descriptions, but that’s what image descriptions are for. What do you think my goal is here if not the betterment of the website?
Here are examples:
Getting back to your actual proposal, [etc.]
I… don’t see how what you’re suggesting has anything to do with my suggestion. The designer: tag is for consolidating OCs designed by–but not drawn by, pending my last message’s reasoning–someone. For the rare cases when the comic artist or whatever didn’t design their characters, it would fall under the comic: or au: tag as you said, so the owner: tag you’re suggesting covers things that are already being done. In fact, it only makes things more confusing if someone “bought the rights” to the character or comic in question, with suddenly all “ownership” shifting to someone generally unrelated. And of course people are visiting an art site with the intention of either searching for a character or an artist- I can’t even.
LightningBolt
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Senior Moderator
Undead inside
Okay this thread is already tl;dr so I’m gonna toss in a few opinions (I read most of it anyway)
I don’t like the idea that you think OC tag descriptions as ‘vanity’ and that a whole new type of tag and rules for it is better and will make more sense as somehow cannot be bothered to click on an OC name to learn more but somehow think that a tag for the designer will help? What?
I think I understand what your proposal is, but I cannot think of any reason it would be useful or helpful. Same to the other proposed ‘owner’ tag too, albeit that one is a little better.
UnderwoodART
Shimmering Smile - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of Equestria Girls!
Lunar Supporter - Helped forge New Lunar Republic's freedom in the face of the Solar Empire's oppressive tyrannical regime (April Fools 2023).
Crystal Roseluck - Had their OC in the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
Princess of Love - Extra special version for those who participated in the Canterlot Wedding 10th anniversary event by contributing art.
Elements of Harmony - Had an OC in the 2022 Community Collab
Non-Fungible Trixie -
Magical Inkwell - Wrote MLP fanfiction consisting of at least around 1.5k words, and has a verified link to the platform of their choice
Kinship Through Differences - Celebrated the 11th anniversary of MLP:FIM!
Twinkling Balloon - Took part in the 2021 community collab.
An Artist Who Rocks - 100+ images under their artist tag

Just Another Pink Pony
Any other tags are really not a part of the process. After thinking about it for awhile, my main concern is that people will think that having those owner:* or creator:* or designer:* style tags will convey some sort of ownership of the image.
I suppose that entirely depends on where you consider ownership to lie. I know you said that the preference is given to the artist, but I think you give consideration toward someone whose character is be depicted in a sexual situation against their will, would that “designer” not have any say over the treatment of their character? I mean, maybe not, I’m just asking. Like you said for the collab pictures, it’s more about showing “ownership” of (though more like ‘who is responsible for’) a character design, with my main intention being to collect together art of a specific character with a generic name.
I dunno, the more I try to explain it, the more I feel like I’m being interrogated xP The “legal weight” of the tags never occurred to me.
Ok, here’s one example: I have a comic with a close-to-canon AU. The main character is Pinkie Pie, and while she is sometimes referred to by a nickname, she is still just Pinkie Pie. Now, this isn’t even what I had originally intended by my suggestion, but if we added designer: to this otherwise canon Pinkie, suddenly we can differentiate between my drawings of canon Pinkie and AU Pinkie, but also other people’s fan-art (not that there is any) of my AU Pinkie. Yes, that could be solved with an AU:, not that I have one (or thought they were “good tags”), but that aside… Maybe it was a one-time design outside of an AU that people wanted to redraw and give credit to? Whatever the reason, the end goal of this tag is to officially give credit to whoever designed the thing being redrawn and help others find more of it.
I dunno, I’m really tired now, I’m probably not making any sense. Each of these replies took like an hour, or it felt like it. No more from me today.
Background Pony #7124
I never stated anything I said as being fact,
Fact or opinion, I meant to highlight that what you wrote does not seem to line up with the real state of affairs on the site. I definitely agree the site shouldn’t cater to only a few special interests, but it was only one of several statements that as a whole seemed off-base.
Disingenuous? Uncaring? For someone who repeatedly says they don’t care, your comments read as quite hostile.
Please take note that I started off just with adding some information that I thought would help shape the plans. Each of your replies incorporated more and more opinionated writing, and I replied - not by insulting you or belittling your views - but by showing counterexamples. The part I care about is a dismissive attitude toward other peoples’ interests, which I can acknowledge even when I don’t value whatever the interest is.
What do you think my goal is here if not the betterment of the website?
It’s because you wrote things like this:
I can’t imagine [OC descriptions are] all that important. Personally, I’d just delete them all, unless you can give me examples of why they’re important beyond vanity/jokes.
…and replied to attempts to provide examples of information you specifically mentioned being unfamiliar with:
…that I feel like your idea of “betterment of the website” is not properly taking other people into consideration.

I… don’t see how what you’re suggesting has anything to do with my suggestion. The designer: tag is for consolidating OCs designed by–but not drawn by, pending my last message’s reasoning–someone. For the rare cases when the comic artist or whatever didn’t design their characters, it would fall under the comic: or au: tag as you said, so the owner: tag you’re suggesting covers things that are already being done.
It has to do with your suggestion because it’s still a way to identify and differentiate OCs, but from a content-centric perspective than a creator-centric perspective. I brought up those other kinds of tags as evidence of ways that people care about associating OCs - and an “owner” tag would fill in the situations where they’re not associated by another pre-existing tag.
In fact, it only makes things more confusing if someone “bought the rights” to the character or comic in question, with suddenly all “ownership” shifting to someone generally unrelated.
True, it would lose context - and thus, relevance - upon changing, I didn’t think of that…
Maybe it was a one-time design outside of an AU that people wanted to redraw and give credit to? Whatever the reason, the end goal of this tag is to officially give credit to whoever designed the thing being redrawn and help others find more of it.
Now that you bring it up, I’ve seen quite a few drawings of “redesigns” of canon characters, often referring back to someone who came up with that redesign - ie. fan-art of someone else’s design. It’s not for OCs, but that’s definitely a case where a designer: tag would be useful.
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