Merge "Yaoi" and "Shounen-ai" tags into BL
StarFire
Both "Yaoi" and "Shounen-ai" are considered unused terms in the Japanese fandom. Here in the West people still used them, but it is not clear when one begins and the others ends; for this reason, I believe that using only "BL" for any Boys' Love manga that would otherwise be categorized into either yaoi or shounen-ai would be better and avoid any kind of misunderstanding.
Even on websites like MAL, where they also use both of these terms, it is clear that there are not many ways to distinguish the two, since many manga have both tags (for example: https://myanimelist.net/manga/66057/Blue_Sky_Complex)
BL is a more modern and simple term, since it can be seen as an umbrella term for the other two.
Here are some sources that explain this better:
Also, I would like to point out that anilist is already ahead of us and no longer uses any of these terms, but only Boys' Love. They also only use Yuri for works that depicts wlw content.
Hange stan
It's a good idea. There's a lot of confusion when using these two terms, so simplifying as "BL" really helps.
fafaux
I support this idea as well. BL also embraces new webcomics that have the same themes and that Kitsu also have in their database. they all should share de same tag.
TehRei
Seconding this. While we're at it we should merge Shoujo Ai and Yuri into GL as well. Or just call both Yuri.
Having two separate categories accomplishes nothing other than make advanced search incredibly frustrating and clunky to use, as I now have to open one tab where I search for Shoujo/Shounen Ai and one for Yuri/Yaoi if I want to browse for stories containing male-male or female-female relationships, respectively. Because they're not tagged with any sort of consistency, which makes the whole system a mess.
What's more keeping them separate is completely redundant. We already have categories for ecchi, nudity, sex, and romance, in addition to having age ratings and age rating guideline on every database entry.
All of those things can be used to indicate what sort of content the user can expect from the media in question. It's good enough for straight romances after all. We don't have any separate tags for "pure romance" and "smutty romance" there.
But for some reason we have to treat LGBTQ+ relationships differently than so called "normal" ones, which I think plain and simply stems from homophobic attitudes.
TehRei
To give an example of why these categories cause problems when trying to find things to read, this is the description we have for yuri (taken from https://kitsu.io/explore/manga/category/yuri):
"Yuri Manga
Yuri refers to anime that portray lesbian (female/female) sex. Do not confuse this with the Shoujo Ai category under Romance, which only portrays girl/girl relationships, but generally not anything pornographic. This is real female/female porn.The male version is Yaoi."
These are our most popular manga tagged as Yuri. Note that exactly one of them is porn. Shoujo Sect, on the bottom right. That's it.
You'll struggle to find actual pornography using the Yuri category on kitsu.