Content Tags?

While browsing the many threads in the Paranormal Studies forum (and the rest of the board), I noticed a growing trend among new topics - no content tags!

A short while ago, I was able to quickly browse similar topics by clicking a content tag at the bottom of the page. Now, alot of the newer threads are lacking these helpful tags. Why does no one tag threads anymore? They aren't getting points. I don't believe we should need to be rewarded with points in order to take part in the organization of the many wonderful topics that are here on ATS.

I still tag threads, and hope that more poeple will start doing it too.

Lets bring this great feature back to life guys!

By the way, would anyone be interested in trying some type of organized tagging effort?

Your right, tagging has dropped off the map with ATS.

I try to add a tag whenever I notice the box, but sometimes it does slip my mind.

I've always thought it was a good idea that in order to create a new thread, the author must create a tag. This way the % of tagged threads on ATS will never decrease.

Originally posted by JBurns
By the way, would anyone be interested in trying some type of organized tagging effort?

Certainly.

anxietydisorder has always been a huge advocate for the tagging effort, so I am sure he would be on board.



[edit on 2-11-2006 by chissler]

There used to be points given for "tagging" a thread.

But it was abused by some people who just tagged threads, even really old threads with irrelevant tags, they would tag it with anything to get the points for tagging. So the points were dropped for tagging (understandably).

I must admit the only threads I tend to tag are my own, even then not very often. But I never tagged for the points either.

There's probably alot of good threads that will be missed now though if somebody is searching for a certain subject now due to the lack of tags.

I think I'll start paying more attention, now that the lack of tags have been brought up, to threads that aren't tagged that I might come across and give them an appropriate tag.

Glad you brought this up, I didn't notice this before.

I believe it was probably only new members that abused this system just trying to gain points quickly.

Maybe they can start giving points for tagging again, but only if the member has enough points to participate. If a member has, say 20,000 points or something, they probably aren't likely to be tagging "the archives" for 5 points (or whatever) each thread with inappropriate tags (hopefully).


[edit on 2/11/06 by Keyhole]

chissler, that is a great idea. That would at least ensure some amount of relevant tags.

That was another problem with the system, and taking away the point factor really did take care of that problem. I think that people now should realize that tagging has a positive effect on the ATS community, and should do it whenever possible.

Thanks alot for the replies, it's nice to know that some other people feel the same way as I do.

Happy tagging!

I wonder, would it help to have the tag field moved up to the top of the thread?

Right in yer face.

Would it be too cluttered? Sometimes I just don't scroll all the way down.
I'd almost forgetten about the tag feature..

Originally posted by spacedoubt
I wonder, would it help to have the tag field moved up to the top of the thread?

Right in yer face.

Yeah I think it might be too cluttered. But a relocation of the box itself might advertise the message.

What if the staff offered an incentive based on milestones? For every 100 relevent tags a member adds, they receive a bonus. Maybe every 1000?

Unfortunately without an incentive, it becomes difficult to round the troops. For now we can merely lead by example.

1. The tags are in an inaccessible portion of the screen. It should be right below the search bar and made more compact and only showing the most frequently clicked + entered tags.

2. Greater ability to tag, we need to impose a unique word count discounting words such as A, The, As, etc. A wordcount of 5 would suffice. Max Number of Characters should be upped to 50 as well.

3. Allow tags to be entered multiple times on an individual thread and only have the ones entered the most show on the top right hand side under the search bar. All the others and dupes will be buried, though it should still be viewable by clicking a button say called "expand tags" or something like that to get a complete listing. If the list is too big, perhaps a unique page can be quickly tallied up for rather large threads with many many tags. I would also only allow a maximum of 10 duplicate tags per unique word or something like that to avoid server overload.

4. A public record of who tagged what should be kept and maintained. This will discourage tag trolls who get off on the semi-anonymity of the process.

[edit on 2-11-2006 by sardion2000]

I summon the members of ATS to join me in the fight against untagged threads.

What we ask is very small. Each time you post in a new thread, take 5 seconds out of your day to drop a tag onto it. For awhile I had completely forgotten about this function, but after reading JBurn's thread here a few weeks back, I've made a bit of an effort to tag some threads I post in.

Were not asking anyone to go searching for any threads, just drop some tags on the threads your posting in anyway.

With the slowest of internet connections, this would only take a few seconds.

Not much to ask, just take a few seconds out to help a worthy cause.