I find myself in disagreement with the administration and other moderator(s) here over thread tagging. I agree that some tags go too far, but I see that as a moderation issue rather than policy one. I also think humor tags help diminish outright flame wars and off topic posting IF they don't get ugly (again a moderation issue).

With that said, I am curious about other opinions. Please vote and comment.

Oh, and tag too, I guess.

EDIT: per Reggie's request-- tags are normally used to add metadata to threads for search purposes. When used as designed, they can aid in finding posts. This is why I agree that tags should never be 100% humor-based. That said, as long as useful tags have been added, the humor tags do not hamper search. This is where moderation comes in.

I also enjoy very much the concept of "funny tags". Slashdot also allows them and does classify them automatically into "Categorizational" and "Funny" (because Categorizational ones tend to repeat themselves on more topics than funny ones).

I've voted so the poll is visible.

I see no harm with funny tags.
How the tags get there is beyond me.
As I don't get to see the tags until I've read the thread, I don't see how they would help diminish outright flame wars.

I think it is important to define what are tags and what they are used for, and why is there a tag search feature, and a Tag Cloud page: http://talk.maemo.org/tags.php

Tags work when more people use the same terms to group threads together to make searching more efficient, blah blah blah...
...I'm sure y'all know this already.

If anyone wants the tag system to work as intended, surely they'll be annoyed to see all the random tags that are tacked on for comic effect.. sometimes even used to leave anonymous comments that the person don't dare to say under their real names.

Then again, as Tex said, the comical tags can sometime work to disarm tricky situations and bring on lightness to this sometimes-too-serious forum (well ok, not so much lately). This is a good benefit to it too.

Perhaps the system should enable one to tag the tags with metadata, grouping which tags are real and which are for jokes? =p

Well, mods can see who added the tags, so it's not purely anonymous.

A comical reply would work as well right?

In addition to your post, I updated mine.

Nope. Replies get lost in the thread. Tags don't.

@reggie: yes

Hmm... being the pragmatist, I do wonder:

Did the tag system work before the deluge of silly tags?
Is there any plans to make use of it better?

Otherwise, we're wasting 'management' bandwidth & effort on something that may not give us much return anyway...

Not really. It was just added one day when the forum was upgraded.

Well, there are really no definite plans of changing the rules now, at least here in TMO (forum.meego.com might be stricter though). What I don't like seeing though are uncontrolled tagging. While some tags are funny for some, can be insulting to others. It just doesn't help.

It goes both ways. An insulting tag will be there on every page.

All of the whining threads should be tagged with "worst thread ever", and all of our problems would be solved.