The use of solo with 2+koma posts

I got into a protracted debate about using solo on comics with more than one panel (e.g. 2koma) so I'm bringing it to the forum to gain consensus on record or clarification about our current expectations/practices and to fix what I found to be potentially a longstanding issue. Since I held the minority opinion, it's up to me to table it on the forum for discussion just in case for future record - we've had a lot of scenarios where there's been an imbalance in opinion and the majority wasn't necessarily held to be right.

The post in question is post #8880941 post #8880944. Per the expectations I originally had, I tagged this and similar such cases as solo. While I am aware of the wiki saying image (implying it takes all panels into account too) and the suggestion was that this post would be neither solo or multiple views, I - and seemingly many other people have been considering the counter tags per panel. There is a lot of similar tagging being performed or straight up wrong tagging (e.g. post #9314059 (Explicit) was tagged as solo even though there's another person, this one was definitely blatantly wrong).

Also worth noting in the time I was writing this topic an admin did remove solo on the first post I linked so that could speak to mean official policy.

My only real stake here is to figure out what the proper expectation here is and I can adapt accordingly, and if we need to sort out the entire minefield that is solo comic if we're considering the presence of the character on multiple panels as not solo (spoiler alert, there's over 400 pages worth at page size 40); or, alternatively, if we should rework solo when it comes to comics and consider against the panel rather than the single post.

Part of that minefield resolution also includes untagged 1komas and simple greyscale posts being tagged as comic even if they aren't.

tl;dr

1. Posting on the forum to officialise whether or not one character in 2+ different panels is not solo.
2. I've been tagging comics like post #8880941 post #8880944 as solo because the character appears once per panel.
3. An admin removed solo on those posts while I was writing the topic so maybe my current expectation is wrong.
4. To figure out if solo is still inapplicable just because the character is in multiple panels or if we should make clarifications about how to use solo with comics.
5. That solo comic might need some serious gardening as a brewing problem that saw no discussion until today because a post of mine was brought up in passing for a random discussion that turned into a debate about solo with comics.

monkey tl;dr

post #8880941 post #8880944 solo yes or no

If I saw post #8880941 under solo, I'd flat out assume it was mistagged, because like...I'm pretty sure the only time solo on a comic post is okay is shit like post #9071373, which is structured like a normal post under solo.

I had no fucking clue there was a subset of people who thought this, but I personally think it's such an utter leap in logic for one panel to be considered okay for solo, I got no words for it. Made worse by the fact this ain't even a 1girl post, but a 2girls post! This would not be the sort of thing I'd expect (or even want) under solo at all. It's a 2girls multiple views to me, which is mutually exclusive with solo for the most part.

So conclusion: No. I think solo would be a mistag on this comic, and if there are any others like that, it's time to get gardening.

Shit, my bad, I linked the wrong example. I meant post #8880944 is the one in question. The previous one I linked actually does have 2girls in it. Brain is frazzled from having debated prior in a real time chat room instead of the forum and I thought I was "getting a better example" instead of linking exactly the one we were discussing.

Knowledge_Seeker said:

...

I had no fucking clue there was a subset of people who thought this, but I personally think it's such an utter leap in logic for one panel to be considered okay for solo, I got no words for it. Made worse by the fact this ain't even a 1girl post, but a 2girls post! This would not be the sort of thing I'd expect (or even want) under solo at all. It's a 2girls multiple views to me, which is mutually exclusive with solo for the most part.

...

To add to this, you might as well extend the "take the panel on its own" logic to mean something like post #9314872 is both 1girl and 2girls.

Not to mention the solo wiki explicitly mentions image, and nowhere are panels mentioned.

Okay, not as bad as 2girls, but I still would say the same thing ultimately about post #8880944 that I would post #8880941, minus the stuff about 2girls. It's 1girl multiple views to me, as many a comic are, which to my knowledge are not the sort of thing I'd want to see under solo.

So no, it should not be tagged solo in my opinion. If it was uploaded per panel, that'd be fine, but it's a 2koma, which makes it multiple views, and thus, disqualified from solo, I think.

As I mentioned before, in my head I'm thinking that this isn't the first time that the wiki definition has been wrong to its actual usage and has had to be corrected, as well as likewise the wiki being the proper definition and the tagging happening being wrong. It's not made any better by solo comic being a complete minefield. Common sense dictates that it's correct not to use solo because the wording says "image" without an explicit carveout for comics, while the other half is saying that this may simply be an element that was missed out from the wiki. That's where my disagreement/confusion is born from.

I also wouldn't say it's multiple views since you can genuinely have multiple views in a panel and otherwise comics would dilute it. post #9325246 for example.

WRS said:

I also wouldn't say it's multiple views since you can genuinely have multiple views in a panel and otherwise comics would dilute it. post #9325246 for example.

Same character depicted from different angles in a single post. It's multiple views, no matter what way you dice it. Unless you are suggesting we tag per panel of a comic now, which I think would cause so much more harm than good.

Tempted to edit the wiki of solo to exclude comics and put this to rest now, but I'm not touching that until there's an actual conclusion.

I would never tag a comic page where a character appears multiple times in different panels as solo. That would completely undermine the whole distinction between solo and multiple views.

Tagging gender counters by the panel would be absurd for the reason ANON TOKYO pointed out.

There are a lot of mistagged posts under solo comic but that could be fixed pretty fast.

To be honest, I myself am not suggesting much myself - I mostly avoid taking stances on things that have the potential to become controversial, much like this topic. I'm only reiterating what is said in the comic wiki which is that multiple views generally doesn't apply to comics. There are some legitimate cases where it does apply however but all the images in that set at the very least are meant to be continuations of each other, not the same panel in another angle. I'm only tabling this based off of my own understandings and observations, and want to figure out what's right here.

As far as finding a consensus, I do agree that it would be completely absurd to use both 1girl and 2girls on the post ANON linked, and that it would be a weird jump in logic to not say the same about solo because then that becomes selective application. Unfortunately this was never a point I considered, nor was it brought up (at least in a way that I could understand easily) in the non-forum discussion that was had on this. So that would tackle the second purpose of my forum which is to address the tagging situation based on what the consensus ends up being.

Knowledge Seeker said:

Tempted to edit the wiki of solo to exclude comics and put this to rest now, but I'm not touching that until there's an actual conclusion.

I get the temptation but probably best not to unilaterally edit policy on your own until we have a consensus. Though clarification would be good to prevent further mistags if it indeed is.

You would’ve saved a lot of time if you checked for previous discussions in the forums before writing all this.

forum #138021
forum #195141

It’s been long accepted that solo is for a single instance in the image, as is already defined in the wiki. The whole point of solo is to see images where only one of that character exists and no one else. Using it for multiple panel comics defeats the purpose.

It would also be disastrous to tag multiple views on most comics. It’s pretty much a given that comics with multiple characters are likely to show them from multiple views, so adding it to them as a matter of course would end up polluting the tag. It could be argued that something like post #9325246 could count, but something like post #9336996 would definitely be out.

That's assuming I would've known what to look for, which I didn't, and none of that was brought up in the discussion that I had prior to the forum which is why I wrote all of this to begin with. The first one isn't even a discussion and has some disagreements with some of the prompted tags as well so it's not a full consensus to work with. The second one doesn't have any authoritative comments but there's at least an accepted consensus it looks like. I remind, there are two points to this thread; to either get a consensus or to get clarification, and to highlight what may be a problem of a lot of mistags based on either or conclusion from it.

The consensus part is, at least, now clear; and someone has already begun work on removing solo from solo comic (or similar) posts.

WRS said:

That's assuming I would've known what to look for, which I didn't, and none of that was brought up in the discussion that I had prior to the forum which is why I wrote all of this to begin with.

If you go to the solo tag’s page and click “Discussions” in the bottom left, you can see all of the topics that link to it. It may be 26 pages long, but the topic names and excerpts should give you a good idea of what is relevant.

The first one isn't even a discussion and has some disagreements with some of the prompted tags as well so it's not a full consensus to work with.

Those are completely unrelated tags. The point of that thread is not to form a consensus, but to identify common mistags under current policy. Not everything needs to be proven there.

The second one doesn't have any authoritative comments but there's at least an accepted consensus it looks like. I remind, there are two points to this thread; to either get a consensus or to get clarification, and to highlight what may be a problem of a lot of mistags based on either or conclusion from it.

There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m just saying you might want to do a bit more research next time, especially since you admitted to being in the minority in a discussion over a large and historied tag. As a rule of thumb, if a large number of experienced users are telling you how a major tag is supposed to be used, they’re probably right.

The consensus part is, at least, now clear; and someone has already begun work on removing solo from solo comic (or similar) posts.

As they should.

Blank_User said:

Those are completely unrelated tags. The point of that thread is not to form a consensus, but to identify common mistags under current policy. Not everything needs to be proven there.

I never said anything about them being related; what I said is that the first topic you linked isn't even a full out "prior discussion" that you mentioned, and there are literal disagreements with the definitions or correctness about a tag being misused that are present there, which doesn't mean it's a fully conclusive topic as mistakes can be corrected in there.

There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m just saying you might want to do a bit more research next time, especially since you admitted to being in the minority in a discussion over a large and historied tag. As a rule of thumb, if a large number of experienced users are telling you how a major tag is supposed to be used, they’re probably right.

I addressed this in the OP; there has been a time where a majority opinion was either wrong or fuzzy and gave credence to neither side. You were involved in that very discussion and it was to do with ratings. The majority held against you, but we were wrong (on a technicality, but not fully, and the door was left open to yield to the other side and be more restrictive). This is not including BURs which double as discussions and poking into BURs that were rejected, not timed out, with a high amount of votes in favour.

I also addressed "prior research" both in the OP and responses at least twice now. This thread doubles not only for consensus/clarification purposes but to point out that there might be a large amount of mistagging in either direction regarding solo comic posts. This isn't purely about reading two topics that are in themselves not having a conclusive message, but at least a consensus (which seems to still hold as of this topic). Ultimately, if I had been on the side of "these posts don't qualify as solo" initially, I would've still posted somewhere about it but to get help in gardening rather than what the topic is now. The existence of other dedicated topics or single forum posts does not mean that this whole thing is without purpose or a waste of time.

WRS said:

I never said anything about them being related; what I said is that the first topic you linked isn't even a full out "prior discussion" that you mentioned, and there are literal disagreements with the definitions or correctness about a tag being misused that are present there, which doesn't mean it's a fully conclusive topic as mistakes can be corrected in there.

If the tag in question is not being debated in the topic, it agrees with the wiki entry, and the user making the claim is highly experienced, I would consider the claim likely to be true. Obviously, I would keep an eye out for anything contradicting it, but some statements will hold more weight than others.

I am not claiming any of these are conclusive. I was only showing evidence that was not mentioned. You’re not going to find a grand debate on every topic here. Sometimes, statements like that are the best you can find.

I addressed this in the OP; there has been a time where a majority opinion was either wrong or fuzzy and gave credence to neither side. You were involved in that very discussion and it was to do with ratings. The majority held against you, but we were wrong (on a technicality, but not fully, and the door was left open to yield to the other side and be more restrictive). This is not including BURs which double as discussions and poking into BURs that were rejected, not timed out, with a high amount of votes in favour.

That’s why I said it’s a rule of thumb. Yes, you shouldn’t just blindly follow the majority, but it’s still a good idea to double-check if the majority disagrees with you. In the case of the ratings, the majority disagreed because they disregarded the wiki history and thought a 100% ban on all genitals was somehow compatible with a deliberate exception carved out for subtle vulva (even removing it from the wiki at one point).

That said, I don’t actually know if the majority in the solo discussion were experienced users or if they presented any evidence, so I’ll retract that part.

I also addressed "prior research" both in the OP and responses at least twice now. This thread doubles not only for consensus/clarification purposes but to point out that there might be a large amount of mistagging in either direction regarding solo comic posts. This isn't purely about reading two topics that are in themselves not having a conclusive message, but at least a consensus (which seems to still hold as of this topic). Ultimately, if I had been on the side of "these posts don't qualify as solo" initially, I would've still posted somewhere about it but to get help in gardening rather than what the topic is now. The existence of other dedicated topics or single forum posts does not mean that this whole thing is without purpose or a waste of time.

I don’t doubt you researched this, but you mentioned earlier you weren’t using the forums at their full potential. It still would’ve saved time since you would’ve better understood how solo should be used. With that knowledge, you could then focus on the tag gardening issue.

Blank User said:

If the tag in question is not being debated in the topic, it agrees with the wiki entry, and the user making the claim is highly experienced, I would consider the claim likely to be true. Obviously, I would keep an eye out for anything contradicting it, but some statements will hold more weight than others.

I am not claiming any of these are conclusive. I was only showing evidence that was not mentioned. You’re not going to find a grand debate on every topic here. Sometimes, statements like that are the best you can find.

This line of reasoning is incredibly broken, when once again I've pointed out that such a similar scenario has resulted in those people being wrong. You can be highly experienced and still make mistakes; and I don't even know what metric you're going off of. This line of thinking is so incredibly arbitrary and pointless to this current conversation that I'm not really feeling debating you for ten hours or more on the semantics or specifics of this. It's just wrong to assume like this and shuts down perfectly reasonable conversation by assuming someone's right just by nature of the person. None of this makes sense.

That’s why I said it’s a rule of thumb. Yes, you shouldn’t just blindly follow the majority, but it’s still a good idea to double-check if the majority disagrees with you. In the case of the ratings, the majority disagreed because they disregarded the wiki history and thought a 100% ban on all genitals was somehow compatible with a deliberate exception carved out for subtle vulva (even removing it from the wiki at one point).

That said, I don’t actually know if the majority in the solo discussion were experienced users or if they presented any evidence, so I’ll retract that part.

That's why this topic exists. And no, the majority did not disregard the wiki entry because the lines in the entry itself were not explained well enough and that's what led to the whole debate in the first place which was later given clarification. The same could easily be said here which is exactly why thinking that experienced users' word is gospel is such a silly line of thinking that doesn't make sense to take at face value. Everyone should reasonably be treated equally and considered in a discussion like this.

you mentioned earlier you weren’t using the forums at their full potential

Discord. I don't know why we're discussing if I'm saving time or not because the topics you linked are still inconclusive and you're tunnel visioning on this idea that this topic only has one point or that I'm wasting time. I'm wasting far more time arguing semantics and silly reasoning with you than I did in writing this topic.

-

If this is still worth discussing, then my time could be "less wasted" if we can go back to focusing on the application of solo in question and using sensible lines of reasoning, to which other people have already provided and held a consensus over, and to which I'm inclined to agree now, instead of pointlessly arguing about semantics or "wasted time", or that we should believe people at face value and not have our own disagreements on any topic.