My Rating Tags Problem.

@Princess Luna  
Sorry, I was reading your previous message hastly (because… reasons), so I misunderstood what you ment. Yes, mentioning that it’s a range that goes from here to there would be the best.
 
“More then half uncovered” is a bit more discriptive then “mostly-bare”, so it’s a little bit better, I guess. The wording of “Keep in mind that content only reaches a higher rating when it has something from that higher rating” seems a little bit confusing though. What we need is to say that the end point of this rating comes from the starting point of the next one, and I’m not sure that it conveys it properly. Maybe something like “If content does not contain anything from a higher rating it should be rated lower” or something like that (this will encourage “if in doubt - rate lower” attitude though, which I don’t know if that’s a good thing).
 
edit: Reading it again, I don’t know if my version conveys the end point situation any better… I’ll think more about it.

@Background Pony #2FF6  
I’ve put in “Note that images only reach a higher rating once they have something in that rating.” for now, changes are live in the tag guidelines.

@Princess Luna  
Okay. Cool. Thanks :3
 
I still think that the most effective would be to add something to the suggestive section itself, but still, that’s better then nothing.

@Princess Luna  
Okay, I’m going to be a bit blunt with this wording, so feel free to change it however, but how about “Partial or full nudity, except when contains elements from higher ratings”? And add it right after “Breasts/buttcheeks/crotches any more than half uncovered on species that normally cover up”.

@Background Pony #2FF6  
That could be very confusing by adding so many words; people would probably skip right over the almost-visible stuff in Questionable (and maybe even anus/sheath detail level).

@Princess Luna  
What do you mean “many words”?

It’s shorter than quite a few bullet points.

@Background Pony #2FF6  
It’s still an unusual emphasis on that kind of content being in suggestive that could give someone a very wrong impression.

@Princess Luna  
Okay, now you’re loosing me a little bit. What impression? The impression of putting half/full nudity in suggestive?

@Background Pony #2FF6  
The impression that nudity as a whole is Suggestive; there are important types of nudity in higher ratings and it’s very easy to mislead people when you massively emphasize something like this.

@Princess Luna  
But it says “except when contains elements from higher ratings”. How is that misleading?

@Background Pony #2FF6  
Aside of the incorrect grammar, it reads awkwardly and isn’t found anywhere else in the ratings, even tho they all use that same logic; that’s the kind of emphasis you don’t want because it can make people think twice on something and go from its actual meaning to some crazy misunderstanding of the intent.

@Princess Luna  
Sorry for my grammar/spelling, by the way. English is not my first language, but even in my native one I have a wicked case of mistyping and making weird sentences. I guess it just translates :3
 
Well, as I’ve said, you can change the wording however you like. The point is, nudity that doesn’t have female nipples/genitalia/anus now belongs in suggestive, right? So why not make it clear? Maybe not with my wording of it, but in some way.

@Background Pony #2FF6  
I think it’s sufficiently clear with the new wording; “uncovered” has a very specific meaning in English that implies even if an object is in the way, it doesn’t count unless it’s a close-fitting thing like clothing.

@Princess Luna  
Okay, I didn’t told you that I’m not from an english speaking country so you could belittle my knowledge of english. I make mistakes writing, but I’m not some kind of first year immigrant, I know what “uncovered” means, okay. And also what are you even trying to pull here? What specific meaning? These are covered breasts, not “uncovered, because it’s just some object in the way and not a close-fitting thing”.
 
That aside, the thing is, nudity used to be tagged questionable (there were slip ups, but most of the time it did), and when, at some point in the past, I read new guidelines, I honestly did not get that nudity should be suggestive now. And I think a lot of other people didn’t got it either, given the problem I’m trying to solve here. And I don’t think that this slight change of wording will solve it (I think I’ve said this exact sentence about this exact wording before).

@Background Pony #2FF6  
Inertia inevitably wanes, we don’t need to change the guidelines to deal with temporary issues like that; the inertia of information is largely among those who never read the guidelines to begin with.

@Princess Luna  
How long is “temporary” for you? It has been happening for years. Where does your confidence that this will ever stop comes from, exactly? And how long it will take, exactly?

@Background Pony #2FF6  
In general, people don’t go back and rerate old images; they rerate relatively new ones. That rerating can generate conflict between people with different information, leading to questions in various threads, and then leading to figuring out what’s correct.  
For the most part, images are being uploaded with the correct ratings. Most questions that come up are on safe/suggestive, not on the suggestive/questionable nudity thing.  
It’s also only been around 2 years, and people can often take large breaks from being in the fandom entirely.
 
Overall, I’d expect that this may be a slight issue for another 6 months or so before it becomes completely obscure.

Well, I disagree, but I feel high levels of unwillingness to cooperate here, so, I guess I’ll contact you in 6 month or so.
 
And now to my secondary problem. Could you explain why nudity is now suggestive? It didn’t used to be. There always were some slip ups, but most of it was ending up being questionable under the old guidelines. So why the change?

@Background Pony #2FF6  
Mostly, it’s about having consistency and gradual stepping of ratings, rather than anything specific to nudity itself. Nudity got lost from Questionable in large part because the wording putting it into Questionable was vague and ambiguous, and so while in theory some (very limited) form of it would’ve been retained with the intentions of the rewrite, there wasn’t any good idea of what that form would be.
 
Now, as to the specifics, the old guidelines made it really unclear where Suggestive ended and Questionable began; it could be when the bra straps come undone, or when the bra comes off, or even not then if the character is facing away. As well, nudity for this reason was often spread between the two ratings with no clear reasoning.  
Of especial note is “featureless” crotches/breasts/butts, because they were considered Questionable on humans/anthros (I think, it was that or Suggestive, but either way is a mess…), but Safe on ponies, which is an incredible inconsistency. We still have that inconsistency in a way, but it’s only between Safe and Suggestive, and ponies don’t have breasts or much as far as crotches to begin with, so it’s mitigated.  
Note that if you consider nudity Questionable, but featureless nudity Suggestive on the same types of characters, you reach a contradiction where if you assume featureless, nudity consequently becomes Suggestive, but if you don’t assume featureless, nudity is Questionable but can become Suggestive by spreading the legs/buttcheeks or showing the whole boob.
 
Ultimately, having a bare butt or featureless breasts in Suggestive mostly works. For example, consider >>1861030, >>1846419, >>429905, or >>419005. These would all be, in theory, Questionable under the old guidelines. Do you think they should be Questionable (while >>1344053 and similar images are not)?

@Princess Luna  
“…while >>1344053 and similar images are not”. Well having a bikini I think makes a difference.
 
I understand and agree that old guidelines were too short and unclear, but new ones don’t feel like they are just fleshing out the way guidelines were already interpreted, but they also change things here and there, and nudity is one of them. And I don’t know why it’s position in the ratings changed the way it did. What would’ve made sense to me if I were to try to just flesh out the old guidelines (and let’s not bring back my mockup, even though you can kinda see what I mean in it) is to consider topless/bottomless and full nudity as questionable, while leaving clothed (if scantily) as suggestive. I think this is more or less how old guidelines were applied (not perfectly, of course, but in most cases).
 
This “gradual stepping of ratings” has been mentioned before, but it still is a mystery to me as to what it actually means and what exactly it does and why.

@Background Pony #2FF6  
Consider three images, one with a quadrupedal normal pony, one with a bipedal pony, and one with outright anthro with fingers and all, pretty much just EqG plus a tail. All three are without clothing, seen from behind, with a distinctive buttcrack (tail slightly to the side) standing, facing directly away from the viewer. Nothing about the framing especially sexualizes it.  
Let’s assume we don’t use Suggestive (as that’d be a copout on at least the pony image). Which of the three should be Safe, and which Questionable?  
Furthermore, I consider it a problem for there to ever be an easily-crossed unclear border between Safe and Quostionable in this manner.

@Princess Luna  
Well, if we’re going by old guidelines, then if both ponies are just regular “show anatomy” ponies, then they’re both in Safe (given that there are no other atrebutes that would make it suggestive), since show ponies are portrayed naked and featureless, and there’s no need to cover up their bodies, and anthro is in Questionable, because having a close to human body implies having a close to human anatomy, and having it exposed, in most cases, would be considered erotic.
 
I don’t know what was this example for. It didn’t really explained anything to me.

@Princess Luna  
Okay, quick question. Just level with me for a moment. Do you visit danbooru? Is this where you’re getting your idea of questionable from?

@Background Pony #2FF6  
No.

@Princess Luna  
Okay. Just wanted to check. It just seemed very similar.