@AkaringoP: This is one of the many tag issues that confuse...

AkaringoP
2025-04-16T22:02:03-04:00

This is one of the many tag issues that confuse me—like holding shirt vs shirt hold(or ahoge wag & tail wagging).

While gardening some headpat posts recently, I noticed we also have head_rub and rubbing_head as separate tags. I thought, “What’s the difference supposed to be?” and after some consideration, here’s how I tried to sort it out:

head rub: Generally refers to rubbing someone’s head with a hand.

rubbing head: On the other hand, this implies rubbing something with one’s head.

For rubbing_head, I think it helps to imagine affectionate behaviors from pets like cats or dogs. Ex. post #1558181

As I looked into it more, I realized head_rub is actually quite similar to headpat. Maybe the difference comes down to the area being rubbed and intensity? For example, headpat usually involves gently patting the top of the head (like the crown), while head_rub might cover more area—like hand-drying someone’s hair without a towel. It feels like a head_rub would leave the hair more tousled or messy afterward.

So, I wonder if we can distinguish them based on that level of difference—or if it might just be easier to alias head_rub into headpat altogether.

Btw when I look through the current head_rub and rubbing_head posts, it seems like there’s not much consistency. They’ve been used without any clear criteria.

What do you all think? How should we go about gardening this up?

And we also have ‘hand_on_another's_head vs headpat’ issue.