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Since the last guide was from two years ago and is now locked and slightly out of date, I'd figure I'd write my own, and add a bit to it. So without further ado, I present the Unofficial Image Tagging and Searching Guide.

(Note: When I use quotes once, it is for the purpose of helping to single out a word. If I use it twice, that means I'm referring to a word with quotes around it that I'm singling out. This is because searching with quotes can change the results you get.)

1. Use full names over several shorter names. For example, when someone searches "Twilight", they'll also get results for images tagged, say, "Twilight Sparkle" or "Princess Twilight". So, if you see an image that needs tagging that has Farnsworth from Futurama in it, when you're tagging him putting in "Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth" would be the best and most efficient move. Otherwise, you'll have to do something like "Professor Farnsworth, Professur Hubert J. Farnsworth, Hubert J. Farnsworth, Hubert Farnsworth, Farnsworth". Both get the same results but the first is immensely smaller and quicker.

2. This also applies to certain special characters. ""mlp:fim"" is considered the same by the image search as ""mlp fim"", so tagging an image both would be redundant. The same, interestingly, goes for ""mlp:fim"" and ""mlp: fim"".

3. Be thorough, but not overly. (Example of a failure to do this: the MLP gallery. There's so many badly tagged images it's nearly impossible to find the one you want)

• 3a. If you've seen one before, you'll know what I mean when I say KYM isn't a booru. You don't need to note the color or length of hair, for example. However, details such as what room they're in, what book they're reading, etc. is considered a good thing to add.

• 3b. It's typically considered a good idea to tag every character/book/movie/etc. in an image. However, there is one notable exception. When there are a LOT of something like that in an image, such as here, then it doesn't really help anyone to tag all of them. Very few people, if anybody at all, are going to search several of the games they remember showing up in that image to find it again. It'd just waste your own time when you could be tagging one of the many badly tagged or untagged images on here.

• 3c. And now here's the thorough part. Except in cases like the one mentioned above, you want to tag every character, book name, show reference, etc. Also encouraged are things like weapons, any specific rooms or buildings they're in (such as bathroom or library), and the like.
  
  

4. The database tag index is also a good place to start.

5. Now on to searching. The basics of it is that you add a space in between tags if you want to find an image with both of the tags. If you don't want an image to have a tag, you'd place "NOT" before it – for example, if you wanted to find an image that was tagged "naruto" but not "bleach" you'd put in "naruto NOT bleach". If you wanted to find an image that had both "beans" and "chicken" tagged you'd search "beans chicken". For searches that have multiple words for a single tag, you might want to try putting quotes around the multiple word tag. For example, if you were searching for "One Punch Man" and "Genos" you might want to try ""One Punch Man" Genos".

5. Unless you use quotes, you want to avoid special characters. They have various and often unpredictable effects. For example, searching "pokemon+rwby" will give different results than "rwby+pokemon" with no pattern as far as I could tell. Searching "*" will return no images, while searching "." will give you all of them. The only two special characters as far as I'm aware that are useful are "(" and ":". ":" is used in many of the documented search operators, so if you're searching for an image that has that as a tag, title, or entry name, you want to surround it with quotes, or it'll not give you what you want. "(" works as a hidden OR function. For example, searching "pokemon(rwby" returns any images that have pokemon, rwby, or both in the titles, tags, or entry name.

6. Take a look at the Search Operators blog post. They'll help you find what you're looking for.

7. Lastly, two search operators not shown are "nsfw:" and "spoiler:". "nsfw:true" would only search for imaged labeled nsfw, and "nsfw:false" would filter out them all. Same goes for "spoiler:" – "spoiler:true" would find only spoilered images, and "spoiler:false" would filter out all spoilers.

It'd be helpful if there was a standardized set of tags. For instance:

Is this considered a sketch comic, monochrome comic, or black and white comic?

Same thing for drawing styles:

Is it a vector, flat colors, flash?

…things like weapons…

Is it a sword, a cutlass, a blade?

Ambiguity can be a big problem for tag searching--especially when limited to 12 tags per image.

Yeah, that'd be nice, but as mentioned we're not a booru. Plus, such a task would be a huge undertaking for an image gallery of approximately 1 million images. We already have a bad enough time with untagged images. Maybe once we rid the gallery of the majority of untagged images (~40% are untagged by my estimates) the admins and mods could work together on creating a standardized list of tags.

ProfessorRivers wrote

Use full names over several shorter names.

Sometimes it makes sense to use both. In particular, when dealing with Team Fortress 2, I try to tag both "Team Fortress 2" and "class name TF2". This way, people just looking for an image with the Solider class can type up "TF2 Solider" which can quickly eliminate unwanted results (provided it is used).

xTSGx wrote

Ambiguity can be a big problem for tag searchingIs it a sword, a cutlass, a blade?

Try to be as specific as you can. Using Google reverse image search I would tag it as "1917 Navy cutlass". However keep in mind what the focus of the image is, and what people are going to try and search in order to find said image. Images with, say, Pyro from Team Fortress 2 are almost always going to have a flame thrower or some other weapon associated with this class. Unless the weapon is featured prominently, tagging it in every Pyro image isn't really that important.

Another example would be glasses. Characters that normally wear glasses don't really need a glasses tag unless the image focuses on it. Likewise, characters that don't normally wear them that have them would benefit from this tag.

xTSGx wrote

--especially when limited to 12 tags per image.

As far as I know, the site does not limit you to twelve tags. I know I've uploaded images with more tags than that. Unless something has changed you can add just about as many tags as you want (definitely more than twelve).

xTSGx wrote

Is this considered a sketch comic, monochrome comic, or black and white comic?
Same thing for drawing styles:
Is it a vector, flat colors, flash?

I wouldn't know what would be best for the comic (other than literally tagging it "comic"), but I know the MLP community largely referred to those images as vectors. Trust me, if you see something and just decide to make a tag for it just run with it. I have a bunch of things buried across the site with odd tags so I can find them again.

ProfessorRivers wrote

This also applies to certain special characters. ""mlp:fim"" is considered the same by the image search as ""mlp fim"", so tagging an image both would be redundant. The same, interestingly, goes for ""mlp:fim"" and ""mlp: fim"".

So there actually is a difference here, but it's kinda complicated. It's really more important for something like the the reaction images gallery. Just typing in "reaction sad" it brings up all images with both "sad" and "reaction" in the metadata everywhere on the site. Typing in "reaction:sad" brings up no results (the search engine hates this format). HOWEVER, putting tags:("reaction:sad") in the serach engine (the same format you get when you click the tag "reaction:sad") it only brings up images tagged exactly as "reaction:sad". This was mainly established in this thread

ProfessorRivers wrote

If you wanted to find an image that had both “beans” and “chicken” tagged you’d search “beans chicken”.

Again, it's more complicated than that. Looking up "bean chicken" will bring up all results of "beans" and "chicken" no matter where these words are present in the metadata, be it title, tags, notes, entry or any combination of these three. If you just want just the tags, then use quotation marks and the "AND" function. So, for example, if you were looking for an image tagged with both "Pokemon" and "Kirby"you can type in tags:("pokemon"AND"kirby"). Of course, the practicality of this is reduced when you realize that just typing up "Pokemon Kirby" actually brings up more results because of people following the "don't use the entry name as a tag" notification.

Finally, there was Brucker's Old Guide Some of the stuff is a little dated, but it's still worth looking at.

EDIT: Okay, so one more thing: remember that tags like Alternate Universe, Crossover, and Fanart can be used to help deal with those locked galleries (okay, crossover isn't technically locked, but you get my point). Hopefully the admins will respond to that thread I made a year ago about making those galleries basically just the images tagged as such on the site.

Why has Rivers not been modded yet?

Thanks for the notes Jacob. I was learning some of this as I was writing it, so I was bound to get a few things messed up or missed.

Why has Rivers not been modded yet?

Well, it's been 3 or 4 months since the last full batch of moderator upgrades. Typically that's just about how long it takes for a new batch of moderators to show up. Asdfghjkl is really the only user I'm aware of that really deserved a special upgrade before a full batch came out, due to the extensive work he's done on cleaning up the site. Even I'm deemed worthy of being a moderator, I'd have to wait for the next batch to come out before I could become modded.

Nice, I will try and follow these. Can I add a suggestion for anime uploaders that it is best to tag the name of the show in both languages if you know them both, since most ppl know only one name or the other depending on where they watch the show.

Also an addendum to 1: I think things that are easily confused or characters whose name is just one word should have their franchise or medium tagged within the tag. Example, the wrestler Edge should be tagged as "edge (wrestler)" because just "edge" will bring up stuff related to "ow the edge" and other edgy-type uploads. I know Kotor has been working hard on the tags for certain Fire Emblem characters to avoid this kind of thing.