View Full Version : Tags are being abused
allnameswereout
2009-04-04, 09:54
On this forum in several threads I've seen nonsense tags en masse being added in the thread. What is going on? Can a moderator please look into this? Here on bottom is clear example. (http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27934)
Here is an example with only 1 tag which is clearly nonsense. (http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26475)
Lord Raiden
2009-04-04, 15:59
lol. Love the tag. And it appears they tagged you here with it too. :D
It's just someone proving their need for instructional control. Unfortunately the easy way to do that is to treat all users as children. Whether we deserve it or not.
It's a selfish, attention seeking, passive aggresive act... IMHO :)
It should be possible to look up who created a tag and it should be possible to look up who added a tag.
It should be possible to look up who created a tag and it should be possible to look up who added a tag.
Ah... and there is that attention seeking component of this behavior that I spoke of Doctor. :p
The fact that it requires you to do the actual work to find out who... makes it passive-aggressive ******ish in my book.
Yes, the easy and unnecessary way to "fix" this would be to treat everyone like chilldren. But it's not actually a problem worthy of much notice. I saw the tags and assumed they were the work of someone with an addled sense of humor. They didn't bother me much.
This must be work for someone, and they would presumably get tired of it at some point, unless they really don't have a life.
Actually, come to think of it, the use of psychobabble tags like "passive-aggressive" bothers me more...
Yes, the easy and unnecessary way to "fix" this would be to treat everyone like chilldren. But it's not actually a problem worthy of much notice. I saw the tags and assumed they were the work of someone with an addled sense of humor. They didn't bother me much.
This must be work for someone, and they would presumably get tired of it at some point, unless they really don't have a life.
Actually, come to think of it, the use of psychobabble tags like "passive-aggressive" bothers me more...
What sucks is that this abuse draws attention to the fact that the tag could be used as spam. It don't hurt my feelings none.
BTW, I use easily searched terms in my posts as a consideration for those reading. Would the term "******ish (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=******ish)" be better for you. :)
sondjata
2009-04-04, 17:35
Dude relax. I think the tags were funny as hell. I even added the total amount that I was allowed. Regular users don't clutter actual useful threads with the type of tags found on your example.
Heck I started checking that thread just to look at the tags.
allnameswereout
2009-04-04, 22:59
This kind of 'humor' blurs the tag cloud though. Its also potentially confusing for a new comer. It also makes tags less functional. If a majority of users prefer it, so be it. Problem is that right now every user can add 2 (nonsense) tags to every thread and these tags are not verified. If you compare that to Slashdot only the most popular tags are shown instead. While here tagging is encouraged its apparently not used in the right way in some threads.
GeneralAntilles
2009-04-04, 23:05
Well, we know who's tagging the n900 hardcase nonsense.
TrueJournals
2009-04-05, 21:23
At the very least, whoever started the thread should be able to remove tags regardless of who added them...
benny1967
2009-04-05, 21:45
Oh come on... do we need regulations for everything? It wasn't before the tag-spamming in the "n810 is useless"-thread that I knew tags existed at all. (Or was it another thread before tagged with "n900-hardcase"-tags? Can't remember...) anyway, it was recently, and it were tags that only caught my attention because they made me smile a bit. So now I know we have tags in this forum. These spam-tags were useful for me.
They may be gone again in 2 weeks, and I don't think they did any harm so far. Get back to this when there really is a problem that needs to be dealt with. Discussing it now seems overly bureaucratic to me. We don't need to run a business here. It's a web-forum. It is made for such things. ;)
This kind of 'humor' blurs the tag cloud though. Its also potentially confusing for a new comer. It also makes tags less functional. If a majority of users prefer it, so be it. Problem is that right now every user can add 2 (nonsense) tags to every thread and these tags are not verified. If you compare that to Slashdot only the most popular tags are shown instead. While here tagging is encouraged its apparently not used in the right way in some threads.
There's a tag cloud? Where?
TrueJournals
2009-04-05, 22:33
Tag cloud: http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/tags.php
Isn't the tag cloud supposed to be somewhere visible? This kinda defeats the purpose.
Well, we know who's tagging the n900 hardcase nonsense.
It's called activism. A hard case on the N900 will solve all of the problems of globalization. And it will increase the pH of acid rain.
(I just deleted all mine, the couple that are left are by someone else.)
TrueJournals
2009-04-06, 01:06
Isn't the tag cloud supposed to be somewhere visible? This kinda defeats the purpose.
Click search > Tag search. It's not in the most convenient location, but it's there.
sondjata
2009-04-06, 02:54
Well I for one would like to know who's searching for forum posts on "N810 gives head"
benny1967
2009-04-06, 07:58
I found no evidence in this forum that it does, so I stick with my N800 and wait what the next device brings...
verumgero
2009-04-06, 09:03
I found no evidence in this forum that it does, so I stick with my N800 and wait what the next device brings...
I don't even know what to say to that. But isn't this a little too much? I've noticed the tags before and at times laughed at some of them. Putting stupid tags on a thread is childish but they aren't really hurting anyone. I have never put a tag on a thread but I am half tempted to now just knowing that I can. ANYWAYS, I don't think we should be taking ourselves too awfully serious here, they are just little words at the bottom of the page that most people don't even notice.
As it is now, the tags are of no use and can as well be removed as a feature. We didn't have them before, and if the addition didn't work out then just get rid of them again. Noise is noise.
benny1967
2009-04-06, 10:29
As it is now, the tags are of no use and can as well be removed as a feature.
http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/tags.php?tag=canola
is useful
http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/tags.php?tag=1-800-whining
maybe isn't, but then you wouldn't click on/search for it, would you?
sondjata
2009-04-06, 13:32
I object to the "childish" judgment calls being made here. It's called fun. Fun is not childish. Coming into a IT forum and posting a thread that says "N810 sucks!!" or 'N810 is useless" is childish. I mean really, Here's a forum of IT users who are clearly find the product(s) useful for their purposes, and someone rolls in and says the IT is "useless?" that's some ******** right there. Sure we all have issues here and there with the IT and we discuss them at length.
The only childish thing I do is play with my Nintendo DS. But then again, Video games are good for hand-eye coordination, contrast recognition and overall prevention of alzheimers due to increased brain activity. So I guess that's not too childish after all.
I object to the "childish" judgment calls being made here. It's called fun. Fun is not childish. Coming into a IT forum and posting a thread that says "N810 sucks!!" or 'N810 is useless" is childish. I mean really, Here's a forum of IT users who are clearly find the product(s) useful for their purposes, and someone rolls in and says the IT is "useless?" that's some ******** right there. Sure we all have issues here and there with the IT and we discuss them at length.
The only childish thing I do is play with my Nintendo DS. But then again, Video games are good for hand-eye coordination, contrast recognition and overall prevention of alzheimers due to increased brain activity. So I guess that's not too childish after all.
Tags don't SPAM people, people (and bots) SPAM people...
:D
This discusion turned toward the feature instead of towards the abuser(s) of that feature... and as I wrote earlier, it is easier to treat us all as children and remove a feature than it is to deal with those that abuse those features.
This isn't a judgement it is MHO based on my life's experiences.
There is enough information out there, and enough holes in the software used, that with a little effort someone can wreak havoc on a forums web site.
Some may call that having fun as well. If I was to judge though, I would call it "being an *******"; but who am I to judge? :)
jmjanzen
2009-04-06, 17:45
As it is now, the tags are of no use and can as well be removed as a feature.
Generally, I agree. Although, to nitpick, the tags are useful for bringing attention to their existence (credit: benny1967), :p and for fun, :D but they serve no practical purpose. many posters don't use tags (example: this thread does not tagged with "tag", even though that's the topic), and i can't see any advantage to doing a tag search instead of a google search.
of course, i mostly visit the forums to have fun, so i think they might as well stay. and i wouldn't call it "abuse". if (arguably) funny tags are abuse, then isn't the whole "off-topic" section abuse? i mean, the purpose of these forums is to talk about internet tablets, right? but people have fun talking about other things here, too, and expressing their opinions wherever they like, including the tag cloud.
TrueJournals
2009-04-07, 02:33
What do you mean it's not tagged with "tag"? :D
Talking about VBulletin features, I also wish for a function like the newsreader 'killfille thread' function, so that I could flag threads that I don't want to show up anymore in 'New Posts'. Just to make it easier to wade through, particularly when I haven't been reading ITT in the wekend.
allnameswereout
2009-04-09, 14:09
In this thread the current tags are: http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28164
8000 = blowhard, whoring for harmattan
I wonder what kind of humor that is... maybe oversexed teenage humor? It does not belong on a serious forum where people -including yours truly- are putting effort to make tags useful. I'm sure spammers would love to argue that spam is fun and humor but that doesn't make it right.
If you have an opinion about something you can use reply for that. Tags are meant to be informative; not opinions and other highly subjective nonsense. Unless the majority would have a specific opinion. But since there is no way to measure that in this forum this should be left out.
benny1967
2009-04-09, 14:20
We could tag tags with tags like "useful", "nonsense", "childish", "oversexed teenage humor",... Such meta-tags would make tags much more useful. So if you read a tag "8000 = blowhard" but see it's tagged "oversexed teenage humor", you know you needn't take it seriously.
rcsteiner
2009-04-09, 16:11
On this forum in several threads I've seen nonsense tags en masse being added in the thread. What is going on? Can a moderator please look into this? Here on bottom is clear example. (http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27934)
Here is an example with only 1 tag which is clearly nonsense. (http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26475)
Huh. I didn't even realize there was a little "tags" section in these forums until this thread brought it to my attention.
I guess I've been concentrating on the actual content too much...
verumgero
2009-04-12, 00:28
I guess I've been concentrating on the actual content too much...
For sure. I vote that tags just be removed totally.
cashclientel
2010-03-25, 15:16
How do you add tags to a thread?
How do you add tags to a thread?
click the Edit Tags link at the lower right.
cashclientel
2010-03-25, 15:26
click the Edit Tags link at the lower right.
Cheers.
May my reign of tag-terror commence.
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