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Howto:Tag Checklist

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About Howto:Tag Checklist

Tagging Checklist

Table of Contents

This tag checklist exists as a reference for commonly used tags for new and existing uploaders alike. The list is organized into levels, with lower levels representing the essential tags, and higher levels representing niche tags that may be more difficult to apply correctly.

Please feel free to take your time getting used to memorizing this list. As a general rule, all uploads are expected to be tagged to at least Level 1 of the checklist.

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Note to taggers: Some parts of this checklist may be incomplete. Feel free to help out with expanding the checklist, however, if any part of this list grows too large, please inform the forums about creating a tag group. Remember to reference this tagging checklist!

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Things Not to Tag

Subjective tags that express opinions or subjective critique on images. Common examples are badass, cute, good, evil, moe, sexy and most other adjectives. A full list of known subjective tags may be found at Tag Group:Subjective.

Avoid making tags for themes that can be easily represented as individual tags:

  • Blondes in bikinis {{blonde_hair bikini}}
  • Bloody fighting: {{battle blood}}
  • Sleepy in the morning: {{sleepy morning}}

Note that these searches are possible from a basic Member account, with a two-tag search limit, even if a little browsing may be required.

Level 0: Basic Identification

Level 0 is the baseline of acceptable tagging - all posts must be tagged to at least this level. Adding these tags enables basic searchability.

Identification

  • Artist (prefix with artist: when creating a new tag)
  • If the artist does not currently have a tag on Danbooru, consider creating a new one. If you don't know how to read their name to create a tag, consider asking in the forum topic Artist tagging help where someone is likely to help you come up with a name for the tag.
  • Copyright (prefix with copyright: when creating a new tag)
  • Character (prefix with character: when creating a new tag)
  • Character lists from popular copyrights are available at Tag Groups, in the Characters section.
  • Source
  • Original
  • Use this tag for illustrations that feature characters that are not related to any kind of copyright.
  • Frequently, these characters appear only in the one illustration, and will not have a name. In these cases, it isn't necessary to include character tags for them; the Original tag is enough.
  • Sometimes, such a character may become recurring, limited to a single artist, or multiple artists on a very small scale. (In this case, they may have names. Most such named original characters can be found listed on the wiki page of the artist that created them.)

Classification

  • Rating
  • See: Howto:Rate
  • (use the Ratings choice list, or use {{rating:e}}, {{rating:q}}, {{rating:s}} or {{rating:g}}).

* [

] (Important: apply if image is a potential spoiler)

Let's keep Danbooru a spoiler-free community.

Basic Image Content

Level 0-i: Explicit

These are basic tags specific to explicit or graphic images.

Important Note: If any of these tags are applied to an image, consider setting the Rating to Questionable or Explicit, as it will often (but not always) be appropriate, and Danbooru does not automatically do it for you. See Howto:Rate for precise guidelines regarding ratings.

  • Graphic Content
  • Guro (Important: commonly blacklisted tag)

Level 0-ii: Information and Requests

These tags indicate if additional information about an image, such as translations or artist commentaries are available.

Information Present

  • Translated
  • To be added only when the image is considered fully translated, see Translation Guidelines.
  • Commentary
  • To be added if a commentary fully understandable by an English speaker is present, or when it has been fully translated into English.

Requests

Level 0-iii: Technical Image Information and Source

These tags are to used to identify specifications of an image such as pixel size (dimensions), file sizes and types of sources.

Level 1: Composition and Foreground Graphic Details

These tags are used to identify things happening in the foreground. Adding these tags brings Danbooru to an acceptable level of searchability.

Level 2: Background Graphic Details and Artistic Errors

These tags identify things happening in the background. Adding these tags greatly enhance Danbooru's searchability, possibly to the level of professional image databases such as GettyImages.

Level 3: Additional Artistic Details, Canons and Memes

These tags are for those with an intimate knowledge of the images they are searching for, such as artistic techniques, celebrities and family relationships.

Level 4: Microscopic Details

These tags identify extremely minute details in the background, often missed by a glance. The importance of tagging these details may be under debate, as they can either make or break the searchability of our images depending on the situation.

  • Characters that appear far in the background
  • Characters which are only partially visible
  • Characters whose point of view is the subject of the image

See Also

Return to the Contributor Guide

Return to the Table of Contents

Return to the Wiki Help Home Page

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