The tag alias #58022 shirtless -> topless has been rejected.

Reason: Even its own wiki calls it a defunct tag; besides, there is no point in having two tags that mean basically the same thing.

EDIT: The tag alias shirtless -> topless (forum #339566) has been rejected by @bitWolfy.

These were previously de-aliased in topic #28485, with the idea being that shirtless would indicate that a character is wearing less on the upper half of their body than could be considered a "shirt", while not being strictly topless. Mostly, this applies to female characters wearing bras.

Unfortunately no wiki was ever written to clarify that, and even if it had been earlier, the tag will always require constant policing, much the same as pantsless is constantly misused to mean bottomless. In particular, I note that since I last looked at the tag, some well-meaning idiot has created a shirtless_male tag whose results are almost exclusively mistags!

I attempted to solicit input on a community definition on topic #29285, but didn't get much in the way of useful feedback. This tag and its associated tags definitely need some tough love, but we shouldn't give up entirely on the concept of having a tag with their meaning without even trying.

wat8548 said:
These were previously de-aliased in topic #28485, with the idea being that shirtless would indicate that a character is wearing less on the upper half of their body than could be considered a "shirt", while not being strictly topless. Mostly, this applies to female characters wearing bras.

Bras are considered underwear, so, technically, a character wearing a bra and bottomwear would still be tagged as topless. And while I admit there are images where the "shirtless" tag might be useful (for example, images where a character is wearing an open jacket but no shirt), I don't think such a small minority are worth having it around.

slidesnet said:
Bras are considered underwear, so, technically, a character wearing a bra and bottomwear would still be tagged as topless.

No, that's not how it works. Topless means wearing nothing whatsoever on the top half, including underwear. Why would you not want to distinguish those two scenarios?

wat8548 said:
No, that's not how it works. Topless means wearing nothing whatsoever on the top half, including underwear. Why would you not want to distinguish those two scenarios?

Alright, I admit that was a misunderstanding on how the tag works on my part. But still, I don't think the shirtless tag is useful enough to exist separate from the topless tag. As you said before, the shirtless tag is filled with mistags: the vast majority of images tagged shirtless should be tagged nude, "x_only" or topless instead.

The tag alias shirtless -> topless (forum #339566) has been rejected by @bitWolfy.