Help: Tags

Tags are keywords attached to posts by users. These tags are used to provide information about the image as well as acting as search terms. Tags associated with a post are displayed down the left margin ordered first by Type and then alphanumeric order.

In some cases, a tag's defined use may be different than you would expect. In such cases, you should find the tag's use defined in the tag's wiki page. You can click on the ? link to the left of a tag to view that tag's wiki page.

There are also meta-tags that can be used to further refine and sort your search. Consult the cheat sheet for a full list of what you can search on.

Guidelines

When tagging a post, use the following guidelines:

Replace spaces with underscores

For example, for Zero no Tsukaima you would use zero_no_tsukaima. Spaces are used to separate tags. So if you tried to tag the previous example with spaces, you'd instead get 3 incorrect tags.

Forbidden Characters
  • The following characters are automatically stripped from tags: commas and semicolons.
  • All uppercase characters will be made lowercase.
  • Tags should be typable on a standard English keyboard without the use of an IME.
New tags

You can and should create new tags for characters, copyrights, artists, circles and vocaloid songs as needed. See the "Types" and "Editing Tag Types" sections below for information on tag types and how to apply them.

If you want to create a new General type tag, you must first have it approved in the Tag Discussion forum.

You can find a listing of all approved general tags in the General & Style Tags Resource. As general rule of thumb, if a General type tag has fewer than 5 posts, it's not an official tag and should not be used.

Name Ordering (Character Tags)
Always use the name order used in the original anime/visual novel/manga. By original we mean NOT a dubbed or translated version.
  • Failing this, use the ordering the character's nationality suggests:
    • LastName_FirstName order for Asian names.
    • FirstName_LastName order for Western names.
Exceptions:
  • Some characters use FirstName_LastName order despite having Asian-sounding names. Subaru Nakajima is a good example of this. All official material uses FirstName_LastName order for her likely resulting from her family's history outside of Japan.
  • Some characters have a mixture of Asian and Western names. Refer to the source material for these cases.
  • Failing that, the general rule is to use the ordering the character's last name suggests.
    • Asuka Langley Soryuu has a Japanese last name, so it would become soryuu_asuka_langley.
    • Akira Ferrari has an Italian last name, so it becomes akira_ferrari.
    • Middle names always follow the first name.
Use Full Names

Using full names reduces the chances of collisions. The definitive resource for character names is the Anime News Network (ANN).

(Note: The ANN character names use FirstName_LastName order.)

Ask

If you're not sure whether a tag is right or wrong, then post a comment asking for some opinions. There are plenty of obsessive Konachan members who will gladly weigh in.

Types

There are six types of tags with the following sort hierarchy:
  • Copyright
  • Character
  • Artist
  • Circle
  • Style
  • General (default type)
Artist

Artist tags identify the artist. This doesn't mean the artist of the original copyrighted artwork (for example, you wouldn't use the takeuchi_takashi tag on a picture of Tohsaka Rin drawn by kazenokaze).

For help on finding or creating artist tags, please see the Tagging Artists page.

Character

Character tags identify the character(s) in the post. (Use the Naming Order described above.)

Copyright tags identify the name of the anime, game, visual novel or some sort of copyrighted setting.

Circle

Circle tags are meta-copyrights. Most are artist circles (artist collectives) or studios like key which are in a way also artist circles. Also included are publications like Megami and NyanType. These are used ONLY for official artwork (produced or published by...) unless otherwise stated in the wiki (eg. Nintendo is an exception).

Konachan also uses circle tags for collective copyrights such as the monogatari_(series) where it's not an actual copyright in of itself, but rather a group of related copyrights.

General

General tags are used to tag an object (eg. book), action (eg. kiss), environment (eg. landscape) or color (eg. green). General tags are uncolored (white) but they appear colored when they are links (since links are colored).

Style

Style tags are used to tag things that do not fall under one of the other types. These include things like artistic styles, image descriptors, holiday themes and vocaloid songs.

Vocaloid songs are tagged when an image is created for or contains references to a particular song or it's official artwork. Tags for vocaloid songs should end in _(vocaloid).

Ambiguous Flag

Any tag can be flagged ambiguous, that is the ambiguous flag is separate from the tag type. When a search is performed using a tag flagged ambiguous, such will be noted above the results and possible corrections will be listed.

Editing Tag Types

Any tag can be assigned to any type using the edit links on the Tags page. Search for the tag name, select edit, select the tag type and save. (The ambiguous flag can also be assigned or removed with this tool box.)

Type general is the default type for any new tag.

Types artist, character and copyright as well as the flag ambiguous can be assigned to new tags when entered into any post edit box by prefixing the tag name with the desired type (or flag) separated by a colon.

Warning: This will change the type of the tag if it already exists. Please check to make sure the tag doesn't already exist as a different type before using this. If you do happen to use this when creating a tag and then find that it already existed, be sure to check your own edit history to be sure you didn't change the type!!

Examples:
  • character:yuuki_asuna (Creates the tag yuuki_asuna as, or changes it to, a character tag.)
  • ambiguous:leaf (Adds the flag ambiguous to the tag leaf.)
  • general:drink (Sets the drink tag to the default type.)

Short forms exist for types character, copyright and ambiguous - char, copy and amb respectively.

Note: This shortcut does not support circle or style types which must be assigned or changed via the tag edit toolbox.

Meta-Tags

Meta-tags can also be used to modify the parent, rating and source or to add or remove a post from a pool. This is only really useful for adding to pools unless you're doing batch editing.

(Note: This is currently the only working way to add posts to pools)

Examples:
  • rating:q (Changes the rating to Questionable. Use rating:s for Safe and rating:e for Explicit.)
  • parent:202431 (Sets the parent of the post to post #202431.)
  • pool:289 (Adds the post to pool #289. You can use the name instead of the number being sure to replace spaces with underscores, but using the number is easier and safer.)
  • -pool:289 (Removes the post from pool #289.)

Tag Blacklist

You can blacklist tags in your account settings. Posts with blacklisted tags won't appear in the posts section of the site and you won't see their thumbnails in the comments section. But they will still appear in the wiki section and can still be viewed by following a link to the post itself.

Each line is interpreted as a single blacklist. For example, if you have pregnant -rating:s on one line, that will only blacklist posts that have the pregnant tag and are not rated Safe.

Rating is the only meta-tag that works in the blacklist.