Background:

Please read the related topics and previous discussions:
https://e621.net/forum_topics/36246 (page 2 also)
https://e621.net/forum_topics/36706

Essentially, the issue that is occurring is that some users don't want to see franchise species in their search results. A rule was created that pokemon and digimon should not be tagged as their real world counterparts. EX: swellow could not be tagged bird, but rather should be tagged as avian.

This has created numerous issues and violates TWYS. Additionally, cervid is now aliased to deer, and chiropteran is aliased to bat, so it is impossible to follow this rule if any pokemon/digimon looks like a deer or bat.

Solution:

1. Remove the rule that disallows pokemon to be tagged as their real world counterparts. This will make all current incorrectly tagged posts valid.
2. Create a new tag, franchise species, and have pokemon_(species) and digimon_(species) imply it. Other franchises would be added at the discretion of site staff (ex: temtem_(species) could be added if it ever gets large enough). Users will then be able to easily filter out all franchise species without having to add a negative tag to their search/blacklist for every franchise.

The franchise species tag would only be used for franchises containing a very large number of taggable species.

If there are issues with my idea, please point them out below!

kyiiel said:
2. Create a new tag, franchise species, and have pokemon_(species) and digimon_(species) imply it. Other franchises would be added at the discretion of site staff (ex: temtem_(species) could be added if it ever gets large enough). Users will then be able to easily filter out all franchise species without having to add a negative tag to their search/blacklist for every franchise.

That sounds messy. What constitutes a "franchise"? A single game or comic can have unique fictional creatures, but a single piece of media doesn't make a franchise (nor does a series necessarily make a franchise). When is a species part of a franchise instead of just being a fictional species (e.g. owlbears being popularized by D&D, which many people associate with D&D (including this site) but they aren't D&D-specific, or worgen being Warcraft's take on werewolves, or Warcraft's dracthyr vs generic anthro dragons)?

Seems like a fictional_species tag would be far more straightforward.

Essentially, the issue that is occurring is that some users don't want to see franchise species in their search results

Adding copytags:0 to searches could help with that, granted it would remove a ton of desired results as well.

A fictional_species tag could mayyyyyybe be helpful, but it would clearly be impossible to cover every fictional species with implications. How many implications would we need for the tag to be helpful? Where would the cut-off point be for noteworthiness?
Pokemon_(species) (367k posts) and dragon (260k posts) seem pretty noteworthy. Yoshi (4.7k posts) is likely worthy. Saber-toothed_squirrel (127 posts)... maybe not? Pianta_(super_mario_sunshine) (21 posts)... probably not?

It perhaps should be noted that processing these implications would take forever and might create performance issues on the site during that time.