Eastman said in forum #24:
I think the question is, what did you come to milbooru for? (...) did you come specifically for the gear? If so, maybe M16, F16, whatever should be the character. If you came for pictures of specific units or nations, then the units or nations should be the characters.
and on the other hand, where do we draw the line? if planes are characters and guns are characters, is a helmet a character? A plate carrier?
Thanks for replying,
In all honesty I don't particularly see any issue in tagging literally any system or equipment, so long as it is readily visible on the photograph. If you had a photograph of one guy posing with his CAGshit it'd be perfectly reasonable to tag all the gear as characters, for example: HK-416, AN/PEQ-15, FAST, FAST_(sentry), JPC_1.0, G3_(combat_shirt) G3_(combat_pant). Or for aircraft, a photograph of an F-16 with the radome open: F-16, F-16C, F-16C_(block_50/52), and then any equipment visible on it: AN/APG-83, AN/AAQ-13_(LANTIRN), mk_82_(bomb), so on and so forth.
I wouldn't go so far so as to describe things that either aren't visible or are implied by the system itself, if you char tag an AR-15 of any kind, it wouldn't make sense to also tag the specific buffer tube or the bolt carrier group, unless they were the focus of the photograph or image. Likewise, I wouldn't tag char:PW_F119 unless it was a photograph of the engine being tested, in any other context it'd just be F-22, F-22A
To note, "FAST, FAST_(sentry)", "F-16, F-16C, (...)", or "F-22, F-22A" would be, Godwilling, all tag implied from the base F-16 like outfits or variants on a gacha character, like it already happens in Danbooru with kongou_(kancolle), kongou_kai_ni_(kancolle). I am wholly unequipped to argue whether or not char:HK-416 or even char:M16A4 should be under char:AR-15 in this manner, I'd rather leave that to popular opinion.
As for copyright, I think it's already a great idea to have it be the faction, to which I myself would probably add, whenever possible, which unit or element the subject of the image is a component of. Something like, usa, us_navy, cvw_3, vfa-34. Any further information like bureau numbers or side numbers that identify the specific aircraft I would place on the translated artist's commentary, along with a brief description of the image and its context.
Even armor regiments, as another example, could benefit from this. You'd get usa, us_army, 1st_tank_battalion; and then on translated artist's commentary you could point at the chevron on the side of the tank and say "The M1A1 on front with 'ASVAB Waiver' etched on the bore evacuator is A Company's 1st Platoon's 2nd Tank."
This could be readily applied to most cases, short of insurgency units, irregular militias, airsofters, or commercial photographs. But even at that point you could probably get away with just tagging the country the subject's from.
But I think forcing artist into the submission of the photograph's author, at a time when it's completely unknown whether or not a new tag category can be made, would be a little bit nearsighted. It might be more useful to just tag the actual company responsible for producing the systems, I'd artist: tag things like heckler_&_koch, crye_precision, raytheon, lockheed_martin, general_electric, so on and so forth. Most posts I've seen don't even have a source and it'd be unreasonable to even ask for one, as some of the photographs are either paywalled or were never published digitally as part of an entire portfolio where you can just go "yeah it's this photo by this guy". If available, the very source of the photograph, or the artist's commentary could be used to credit the photographer to greater effect than attempting to upload an author's entire portfolio just to justify having an artist tag for him.
For now I'll do whatever seems most appropriate for aircraft, and change to whatever is decided at a later date if it conflicts with what I'm doing.
