hand_on_head tag

I noticed this tag being removed from images that clearly had a hand on someone's head and was a little confused... but then I checked the wiki entry and there is a claim there that petting should be used instead whenever it's "non-sexual". However, all of the relevant edits on the wiki were done entirely by one user, memegui. Any thoughts on how these tags are supposed to be used? Since most images on Danbooru are static, "petting" doesn't really differ much from "hand_on_head" in my mind.

Overall I'd say the current definitions are pretty good, as from what I saw there is a good enough visual distinction between the two groups. Though I wouldn't say there aren't images that could be tagged petting and still be of a sexual nature.

While the images might be static, you can still get the impression and action of what the hand on the head is doing from a static image. Motion lines, character's expressions, even just the position of the hand can all give you visual cues of what is going on.

Overall I'd say petting is an image depicting a character with the hand on another characters head stroking their head, while hand_on_head seems to be more that the hand is there to force a character's head into a specific position or used as a support.

I don't really understand why hand_on_head is supposed to be a sexual tag. That just seems to make things unnecessarily complicated. It's no wonder I have such trouble finding the right action/posture tags sometimes.

Hand on head would, logically, be used when a hand is on someone's head. I don't much think it should matter if it's "sexual" or not, or if it's the individual's own hand on their own head, or someone elses hand on their head.

I have no issues with expanding the usage of hand_on_head. Though I wouldn't agree to say aliasing petting to hand_on_head, since I think the visual cues usually make it obvious enough what is going on. An implication though would definitely be in order though.

Not enough visual information to really tell, but post #253537 could be seen as the character being petted while the image is still being of a sexual nature.

jxh2154 said:
Hand on head would, logically, be used when a hand is on someone's head. I don't much think it should matter if it's "sexual" or not, or if it's the individual's own hand on their own head, or someone elses hand on their head.

I agree with this.

For what it's worth I don't mind keeping petting as a separate tag, but it would need a better definition than it has now (I'm envisioning it mostly having posts like post #411399) and should, if kept, implicate hand_on_head.

Would this work as the definition of petting?

This tag is for images depicting a character or animal being stroked on their head by a hand. This can be determined from visual cues such as motion lines, mussed up hair, and the expression of the character with the hand on their head. When in doubt use the hand_on_head tag.

Some of the expressions or actions a character being petted may exhibit are smiling, having one or both eyes closed, tilting their head toward the hand on their head, annoyance, or crying (such as in a scenario of one character trying to cheer them up).

Sounds fine.