Toeless legwear =/= barefoot?

Just had a short discussion with nonamethanks, and we agree that this is a bit of a problematic situation with these two tags. IS a character who wears stirrup toeless_legwear barefoot, or not?

The wiki definition of barefoot states that the no_shoes tag should be used instead, but you search the toeless_legwear tag and what do you see as the third corresponding tag? Barefoot. There are, to my guesstimation, over three thousand images where both tags are applied. And that creates issues going forward. Why should post #4304918 be tagged barefoot, yet post #4321868 not? Or vice versa?

Needs to be resolved, ya'll.

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My two cents, whatever they may be actually worth: I honestly don't care lol. Pick a side. If I had to pick a side, I would just use my judgment and common sense on an image by image basis. Is the larger majority of a character's sole exposed? Does more skin/sole than an article of clothing make contact with the ground? If so, they are barefoot, even if they got toeless stuff. For example, SFIV Juri Han wears instep guards, leaving her toes, front of her soles, and heels bare. Thus, barefoot. SFV Juri's biker outfit on the other hand only exposes her toes, hence, not barefoot.

Whatever the consensus decides, I'll roll with.

I think feet covered by any sort of legwear should count against barefoot; anything past the ankles. I wouldn't assume people only want the bottoms of feet to be uncovered, either. Tags such as toes and soles can be used if you just want specific parts of the foot to be visible. I don't think foot fetishists, and the like, necessarily want to see images where much of the foot is covered up when searching for barefoot, as is the case with Han Juri.

On the most basic level if it covers and protects the bottom of the foot in any form, then it's not barefoot.

Barefoot should be the entire sole uncovered, we don't tag bare arms if only a part of the arm is bare for example. Neither of the examples in the first post should be tagged with it, there was even a user banned in the past for edit warring over this.

I agree with what's been said, since we have toeless legwear and stirrup legwear for other levels of covering, but someone needs to go through a few of the combination searches and clean them up because right now there are a lot of mistags.
stirrup_legwear barefoot solo for example has 400 posts. han_juri barefoot has a lot too and those are mostly untagged stirrup too. Also toeless_legwear barefoot solo has a staggering 2.7k posts in it.

NWF_Renim said:

On the most basic level if it covers and protects the bottom of the foot in any form, then it's not barefoot.

Does that also include like....just tiny little strips of...whatever? Like Corrin's legwear? What about Shuten Douji's barefoot sandals? They technically do have a very tiny strip between the instep and heel.

VSD02C said:

Does that also include like....just tiny little strips of...whatever? Like Corrin's legwear? What about Shuten Douji's barefoot sandals? They technically do have a very tiny strip between the instep and heel.

If it still covers part of the bottom of the foot and provides, even if extremely limited, protection to the that would not exist if the foot was completely exposed. The foot isn't bare, therefore it isn't barefoot.

edit: Of the things tagged barefoot sandals, the only ones that I could possibly side with calling them barefoot are those that either completely expose the bottom of the foot or consist of a very thin string or chain looping going on the bottom like in post #3795564.

It's not really protection so much as a strap so the whole thing holds together - so it wouldn't run up the ankle from movement. Like post #4116643. It doesn't protect the sole, it just keep the pants(?) from rolling upwards. Like....yoga leggings lol, I guess?

It still covers part of the foot and prevents direct contact on a portion of the bottom of the foot, the portion covered is protected from the elements more than the rest of the foot. Stockings don't exactly protect the feet either, but I'm not going to claim that which is covered is unprotected. The foot isn't bare if it's covered up, even a portion of it. I'm not going to tag a character topless, just because they only have a belt wrapped around their breasts.

Having done some cursory browsing of toeless legwear, stirrup legwear, barefoot sandals this seems like a difficult call to make, there are some obvious examples I personally would not consider as barefoot like post #4185920 under barefoot sandals, but post #3696468 looks pretty barefoot to me.

But what about post #4155204? Does a fairly robust covering of the TOP of the foot count when the bottom isn't covered?

And where does the line get drawn, is a toe loop okay but nothing under the arch? What if JUST the heel is covered like in post #4167728? Or the toe thong from above or post #3709404? Fine chains vs ribbons vs leather straps? How big do the chains need to be before they're too big? post #3273454? post #2721737? post #4248920? How many chains is too many? We've got 1 chain in post #2860449, 2 in post #3273454, 4? in post #2544903

The more I think about it the more I'm inclined to agree with Obstetrics, make it a hard cutoff of "anything below the ankles and it's not bare enough for the barefoot tag" but what if the above examples just didn't have a chain between the anklet and toe ring? Is a toe ring too much to discount the barefoot tag? post #4135621 is only slightly less covered than post #3721095 after all.

toeless/open toe legwear, stirrup legwear, barefoot sandals, bandaged feet/foot wraps, foot bands, foot protectors (tkd & karate), instep guards (without the ankle attachments, solely on the midfoot) (tkd & karate), ankle/foot supports (aikido, muay thai/leth wei/Eastern Asia/Southeastern Asia kickboxing, mma & ninjutsu/kunoichi), and string stockings should just be considered barefootwear also i would consider shuten douji's original barefootwear to be foot gauntlets (similar to bridal midfoot bands) and toe rings should be considered as foot jewelry