I'd like to continue the discussion I started at http://whatthemovie.com/shot/234791 . Even though there already is a topic about b/w vs. black & white (see http://forum.whatthemovie.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=910 and sorry for asking again), there are some other tag conventions that need to be clarified in my opinion. Maybe those could be collected in a sticky forum post (like this one ;-) ). For example, I never know if I should tag animated movies as "animation" or "animated". Furthermore, I don't really know how to tag for example a shot with red text. Is it "red text" or "red" and "text" or simply "red"? What about background colors? Would they be tagged "green" or "green background"? And should I add obvious tags like "man" or "face"?
EDIT: I'll try to collect the stuff here... (btw. are there any tags like bold or stuff to use in this forum?)
In general: * no hints (e.g. car types, plane models, director camero, title in shot) * only composits where necessary * nouns instead of verbs
meta-stuff: nudity, gore: filtered content replaseplease: shot should be replaced
graphic types: b/w: black and white movies animation: animated movies
still open: closeup, close-up or close up? green background or simply green?
This is an interesting topic. I don't have much time right now to talk about it, but feel free to post suggestions here, the Staff will discuss them eventually.
Sometimes I also don't know what to tag, then I let it open for guys who like to contribute tags, so I think it is a good idea.
I find "animation" better. "Animated" sounds like a verb and the "b/w" tag is also not called "black and whited" or something. I don't if that makes sense.^^ Beside that search for the tag "animation" and "animated" there are much more "animation" tags.
Asmodai already point out the most important ones. I'm just a simple user but since I tagged a lot of shots, these are my personal suggestions if you have a doubt about ambiguous words, synonyms, etc. :
1) WTM search ---> tag ---> see which one is the most used 2) try Wikipedia (dictionaries or similar websites) for the most common/correct term, American English vs British English, and so on 3) wait until i take care of them, lol :) (for example one of the lasts: there were "eyepatch" (most used), "eye-patch" (some) and "eye patch" (a few) tags before, now only "eyepatch", see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyepatch )
Also, always *IMHO*:
1) only tags for the most important, curious, interesting, significant, evident, striking, flashy and particular things/characteristics in the shot and not small, insignificant, or out of focus object in a corner; 2) too generic words like woman or man (they are almost in every shot) are useless, it's better to use some more specific like blonde, redhead, moustache, etc. 3) at the same time, too specific tags are pointless too especially if it's a more than 2 words composite tag; but some are interesting (white dress, chess floor, ...) 4) no genre (western, sci-fi, etc.), no historic events/periods references (World War II, middle ages, ...), no specific locations (cities, buildings or monuments), and so on mostly because they're obvious but can also be "hints" unless they're universally known (Colosseum, Eiffel Tower, etc.)
Composite tags are good, though, since they also show up when you only search one of the parts, but you can combine this into one tag. So for "white dress", you can see them if you search for dress, yet it still works if you know there was a white dress in the shot you were looking for.
As to your 4th point I totally agree, but be careful with what is "universally known", this can not be the same for every country.
I would also like to stress this: DON'T tag stuff like car types, plane models, "director cameo" etc. You might know this, but it is a major hint. For car types alone there is a whole movie database out there!
I like very much two particular tags : "not that one" and "TITS" or "Title in the shot" which is not used because it gives a hint. But it could be added once the shot is in the archive. For example : http://whatthemovie.com/shot/24913 or http://whatthemovie.com/shot/49909
About composite tag, I obviously meant not to create too long, too complicate or too specific tags like "girl reflected in mirror", "blood-injected eyes", "full metal jacket bullets" or "yellow and blue striped t-shirt" :) For example, derchmul asked about 1) "red text" or "red" and "text", 2) "green" or "green background"? My personal answers would be: 1) "text" and eventually "red" but only if it's in a plain, bold or big font (huge, major quantity of, eye-catching color); 2) just/only "green" (background is a non-entity IMHO).
As always, *in my humble opinion*:
(...) 5) preferably no verbs: kissing (use "kiss"), hugging ("hug"), talking (no tags), killing (use "knife" or other weapons used in the shot), etc. even though sometimes are still good like dancing (but I think "ballerina" or "dancer" are better) or flying (but not for birds, planes, etc.) just when a man is doing it (it's an unusual act); 6) singular/plurals: not a real problem since usually it'a "word(s)" situation and you can easily find all of them using search ---> tag ---> "word" and also "words" appear; irregular cases like tooth (43 tags) and teeth (346 tags), foot (289) and feet (300), leaf (65) and leaves (111), knife (387) and knives (35), etc. I don't know but I'd say: stick to quantities :) 7) physical vs. metaphysical/abstract concepts/feelings: obviously, mostly the first one. I don't see any reason to add "love", "fear", "bored", "sad", "perplexed", "nightmare", "dreamy", "scary", "visionary", "surreal" but maybe I'm wrong...
Now, I need to know: we have "theatre" *British English* (45) and "theater" *American English* (66), what should I do (lol)? Oh, and another quite complicated case that makes me crazy: "bicycle" (126)/"bike" (230) [but "bike" is also used as abbreviation for both "motorcycle" and "motorbike"!] and "motorcycle"(126)/"motorbike" (61)...