Tags are basically keywords you can use to describe posts, allowing you to easily search and explore posts based on their content.

Guidelines

When you're tagging a post, use the following guidelines:

Tag What You See

Unlike many other art sites, e6AI has a tagging policy called "Tag What You See" (aka: "TWYS"). With very few exceptions, TWYS says that all tags on a post must be directly verifiable within the post itself. Example: a solo picture of what APPEARS to be a male character will be tagged "male". Even if the character was defined as "female" on other sites by the artist or character owner themselves, the picture would still need to be tagged "male" on e6AI, because of the TWYS policy.

For more information on TWYS please see [e621:Tag What You See (Explained)].

Replace spaces with underscores

For example, video games should be tagged as video_games. This small concession makes other features much easier to implement.

Forbidden characters

The following characters are unusable and will automatically be stripped from tags:

• %,#\\* - Anywhere in the tag
• -~ - Only if they are the first character

Artist Names

When adding a new artist tag, attempt to use an alias or nickname instead of the artist's real name. If they go by their real name with everything else, then use their real name. When in doubt, ask the artist. :)

Ask

If you're not sure whether a tag is right or wrong, make a topic in the forum asking for some opinions. There will hopefully be plenty of obsessive users who will gladly weigh in.

Basics _^

cat dog
Tag a post with the tags cat and dog. Tags are separated by spaces.

red_panda african_wild_dog
Words within each tag are separated by underscores.

Category _^

Tag categories are what makes a tag show up as an Artist, Character, Copyright, Species, or General tag.
In order to change the category of a tag you have to edit the tag on our Tags. Search the tag's name you want to change, then click "edit", on the following page change the type to which you want it to be, then click Save.

Important:
Please be sure that the tag change is correct, don't change a valid artist tag to a character tag, or similar.
In order for a tag to be found with the search it has to be used at least once. If it hasn't been used yet apply it to the submission where you want it to be used, then search for it again.

Metatags _^

These special tags are used to alter information about a post, but not change their tags. These tags do not show up in the list of tags next to the post.

Tag		What it does
parent:1234		Sets parent ID to 1234 (edit mode only)
pool:extinct_animals	pool:10	Adds post to pool with given name or ID.
set:fox_and_the_grapes	set:10	Adds post to set with given short name or ID.