Topic: The one about colored/shaped speech & thought bubbles

The bulk update request #8291 is pending approval.

Reason: I'm gonna be 100 with y'all, I don't think these need to exist. They are junk tags that nobody is actually going to use in searches that only serve to inflate a post's tag count.

But if anyone can give a compelling argument as to why these tags are actually useful enough to warrant keeping around, be my guest.

The bulk update request #8292 is pending approval.

Reason: More tags.

Color tags are consistently the lowest value tags on the site, so I won't shed any tears when a post overtagged with 40+ color tags loses one or two. Pretty much the only people using those [color]_*_bubble tags are rather guilty overtaggers.

Some bubble shapes follow conventions that accentuate the content of posts. I think I'm actually gonna write this out, because Fluffball couldn't be bothered half the time and no one else will. I still can't be bothered to put this into the wikis.

I would alias away polygonal_speech_bubble and irregular_speech_bubble. polygonal_* feels like an incomplete project in need of subtypes that doesn't say much on its own. Big "so what" tag. irregular_* has very inconsistent tagging, particularly because the other types have been tagged with it too. Taggers don't even know what is regular to then be able to know what is irregular. Alternatively, pointy_*, dripping_*, wavy_*, and puffy_* could be implicated to irregular_*.

linked_speech_bubble and conjoined_speech_bubble could be aliased to something like connected_speech_bubbles (WIP name). Also, these tags should really be pluralized since they always involve at least two bubbles. These tags are not the exact same thing, so someone could say implicate them... I just don't care. Observing that a post has progressing, layered, whatever dialogue is more important than noting how it's done.

Contrary to the above, I am one who tends to like color tags, provided other elements of an image aren't being skipped over. I tag them often, but mostly just for elements related to how the character presents themselves - body colors (not I'llKogYourMaw level, don't worry), clothing, accessories. Stuff that I actually search for myself.

For example, I tagged post #3693582 recently. While I added color tags, I added color tags that are actually noteworthy, and the overall tag list is fleshed out in detail beyond just colors, without being bloated.

That being said! I don't think anyone is going to search for the color of a speech bubble. It's unhelpful and unnecessary bloat. A lot of these sort of tags frustrate me when tagging, because time spent tagging the colors of speech bubbles could instead be used to tag fur colors and eye colors, something that is missing from posts way too often and that I frequently use to identify characters.

So, yes vote from me. Kill these with fire.

abadbird said:
conjoined_speech_bubble - this doesn't say much on its own, but posts with this tag tend to have characters saying more things. Currently, we do not tag the relative amount of text or dialogue in a post, which would be valuable, so this tag has an indirect use for finding those posts.

I don't feel this is wholly true. Conjoined speech bubbles just means two speech bubbles are connected, and says nothing about the amount of text. You could have one speech bubble with multiple sentences, and conjoined speech bubbles with one word each. Conjoined speech bubbles could equally be depicted as separate, too. It's an entirely stylistic choice, which is commonly used to break up the monotony of single bubbles, and in being so common, isn't likely to have much value even if it was better tagged.

abadbird said:
linked_speech_bubble - same deal as conjoined_* but a different style. Redundant tag that could be combined. Sometimes linked_* structures more complex back-and-forth dialogue whereas conjoined_* structures consecutive dialogue (rather than making one larger bubble).

And easy to mistake one for the other, as they essentially mean the same thing. Conjoined just means "Joined together or touching", where linked speech bubbles are joined together via a link. It can also be used to help guide the reader through a series of panels, rather than indicate some kind of back-and-forth between two or more characters.

abadbird said:
dripping_speech_bubble - accentuates orgasm, pleasure, arousal, wetness, and the idea of melting. Seems fine.

As well as distaste, anger, and hatred, or fear, foreboding, and anxiety. It doesn't really have a consistent meaning.

abadbird said:
irregular_speech_bubble - tends to indicate something is wrong. An unstable mental state (as opposed to a composed one), scheming, nervousness. Tagging is likewise very inconsistent, in a bad way. People don't know what to do with this tag. Weird that polygonal_* seems set up for regular and irregular polygons, but irregular_* is about more than polygons.

I'm not even sure what "irregular" is supposed to mean. One side larger than the other? An unusual or non-uniform shape or coloring?

abadbird said:
wavy_speech_bubble - unease, doubt, nervousness, anxiety. Fluffball had it right. Also, sometimes pleasure in a way that could lead up to a dripping_speech_bubble. This is... okay.

puffy_speech_bubble - this one is harder. Sometimes accentuates an introduction, like *poof* the character appears in a cloud of smoke and starts talking. Or a character speaks up to announce something. Also has happy, bubbly, loud characters. Probably air-headed dialogue too. Sometimes mistagged for wavy_*... and misdrawn as such too.

These too also seem easy to mistake for one another. If something's puffy, it can be said to have wavy lines, and vice-versa. It could also be easy to mistake for a thought_bubble.

I feel like the pointy_speech_bubble mistags could be avoided more with a different name like jagged_speech_bubble.

i don't know, it's not as egregious as (color)_inner_ear_fluff or the embodiment of I'llKogYourMaw's ideology to tag every single color and lighting of character's quark. i personally find it more useful than good chunk of colored tags nevertheless

edit for expansion: judging by the popularity and usage, if we compare between something like teeth and speech bubble color tags, black speech bubble tag is 100 entries larger than black teeth, so you could argue that it has some warranty for existing for its decent popularity. if it's unpopular as/than speech bubble, are we supposed to alias it to teeth like the rest of others? since i found black speech bubble is pretty fucking cool, that'll be harder to scramble through generic white speech bubbles

My preference is to keep the tags for different speech bubble forms (shapes and connections), but I don't mind losing the different colors.

Considering we have so many different forms of speech bubble listed on the wiki, I've always thought it odd that there isn't a tag for another major type of speech indicator: the kind where there's just a line between the dialogue and the character, with no actual bubble surrounding the text:

post #4490175 post #4339582 post #3036442

If we decide to keep the different speech bubble form tags, I think we should come up with a tag for this style of dialogue. Unfortunately I don't think there's an established name for it in the comics world, and the only names I can think of are really awkward (like "bubble-less speech bubble" and "unenclosed_dialogue"). Anyone got any suggestions for tagging this?

chemistrynoisy said:
If we decide to keep the different speech bubble form tags, I think we should come up with a tag for this style of dialogue. Unfortunately I don't think there's an established name for it in the comics world, and the only names I can think of are really awkward (like "bubble-less speech bubble" and "unenclosed_dialogue"). Anyone got any suggestions for tagging this?

I think I suggested something like speech_marker when it came up in the past. Which would also cover underlines, partial/incomplete speech bubbles, and other shapes that connect the dialog with the speaker.
post #4814487 post #4813810 post #4813808

watsit said:
I think I suggested something like speech_marker when it came up in the past. Which would also cover underlines, partial/incomplete speech bubbles, and other shapes that connect the dialog with the speaker.
post #4814487 post #4813810 post #4813808

I must have missed it when I made my previous post in this topic, but it turns out there is a tag called partial speech bubble (as well as one for partial thought bubble). Since a connecting line could be considered "part of a speech bubble", it's probably the best existing tag to use when there's a connecting line but nothing enclosing the text.

I'll add that tag to the examples we each posted above.

chemistrynoisy said:
I must have missed it when I made my previous post in this topic, but it turns out there is a tag called partial speech bubble (as well as one for partial thought bubble). Since a connecting line could be considered "part of a speech bubble", it's probably the best existing tag to use when there's a connecting line but nothing enclosing the text.

Problem is it's not always a partial speech bubble. I wouldn't call a plain line "part of" a speech bubble any more than a plain line can be part of anything you can imagine, so I wouldn't consider
post #5217564 post #5216309 post #4339582
to be "partial speech bubbles", compared to something like
post #5219398
which clearly is an partial/incomplete/open speech bubble.

And the distinction between when some lines are a partial speech bubble or not can get blurry:
post #5214108
speech_marker is less ambiguous and more clearly indicates it's for things that don't qualify as full speech_bubbles (be it an incomplete/open speech bubble, or simple lines) that still have something connecting text to the speaker.

watsit said:

speech_marker is less ambiguous and more clearly indicates it's for things that don't qualify as full speech_bubbles (be it an incomplete/open speech bubble, or simple lines) that still have something connecting text to the speaker.

Fair enough. I've gone back through the partial_speech_bubble tag additions I made the other day, and where appropriate, replaced them with a new speech marker tag.

I've also added a bit of text about the new tag's use to these three wiki pages:

• speech_marker
• speech_bubble
• partial_speech_bubble

I support removing most of the <color>_speech_bubble tags, but I think black_speech_bubble does have valid use, as it's a commonly used narrative technique to convey that a character is evil or corrupted.

irregular_speech_bubble could also have valid use, I think, since people may be interested in searching for unusual speech bubbles for artistic reasons. I don't think the others need to exist, though.

beholding said:
I support removing most of the <color>_speech_bubble tags, but I think black_speech_bubble does have valid use, as it's a commonly used narrative technique to convey that a character is evil or corrupted.

I don't think it's appropriate to keep one color tag because it's sometimes (but not always) used to denote something specific about a character. So like if multiple characters are given their own color speech bubbles with pink, blue, red, black, green, etc... black gets to be tagged, but nothing else, even though it's not anything special. I think it's best to just get rid of all the colored versions and not give special treatment to one over the others.

It just occurred to me that this could also produce annoying autocomplete results if a bunch of tags starting with color names are all aliased to the same tag. A mass update would be insufficient, though, since people would just start adding them back.

Every time I deal with tags I regret that English is an adjective-first language...