In its current form, I agree that variant set is starting to become useless.
So I support the creation of large variant set or alternatively slimming down variant set and updating its definition, with a light preference for the second one.
However the reason I created this tag to begin with was the imho bigger underlying issue and that is the overuse of the parenting system.
I've ranted spoken about this before in topic #22621 which also has the previous discussion about this tag, but eh... it's a friday, so here we go:
Current situation
The parenting system is at the moment used to keep a track of a lot of things:
The problem
post #8102062
Unbreakable said:
This image is supposed to be second but someone uploaded them out of order.
The order of the children of a parent is determined by the upload time of a post. The newer the image, the further it is shifted to the right.
At the moment, the guideline is to make the first image the parent, all later images become children, and add branch children for each variation.
Making adjustments to an existing collection or adding new/better images is outright impossible without screwing things up.
Thankfully, we already have a solution for collections of related images that are in a specific order. Quite an old one actually: Pools.
My proposal for the long(er) term
- Create a third pool category besides Series and Collection. Let's call it Variants for now. This way these posts become a category on their own and become searchable just like Series and Collections now.
pool:variants
- Add functionality to search by pool size.
pool_size:5
/ pool_size:..6
/ pool_size:7..
- (Bonus Credit) For better UX: Add a thumbnail view to the Pool header on post pages just like parent/child posts have now. This should make browing pools even easier.
All variant sets that are three posts or larger (because at this point the order cannot be controlled anymore with the parenting system) should go into a Variants Pool.
- This would give space for the other usecases for the parent/child system without immediately breaking a collection the moment a duplicate is uploaded.
- This would make variant set far more searchable than with a tag.
- This would solve AngryZapdos' usecase for wanting to limit variant set visibility.
-(pool:variants pool_size:6..)
You can even change the limit on the fly! - This would solve my usecase of wanting to occasionaly hide all variant sets while searching.
-pool:variants
- And most importantly: This would help in nonamethanks' noble quest of eliminating superfluous metatags by making variant set redundant and eligibile for a deprecation.
TL;DR
Trimming down variant set should be done, but we need something done for the longer term. See proposal above.
ANON_TOKYO said:
Aren't these tags a bit of a bandaid solution to something that could/should be implemented in the site itself though?
say it again for the people in the back