The Unwound Third > Site Announcements, Tips & Trouble Reports
Forum Usage: Tags
Rivers:
Tagging threads helps keep the content you post on the site alive and kicking. Tags are a useful addition to the traditional board indexes and unread posts feature. They provide a way to chase down a subject grouped across all boards regardless of last posting date.
The use of tagging on various internet sites ranges from a total free for all to tightly controlled. The way it is evolving on the weenie site is somewhere in the middle, with enough control to keep tagging useful.
Guidelines for tag posting
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1. Check if there's an existing tag running that's appropriate and use exactly the same format. You can see all the tags currently active by clicking on the horizontal menu bar at the top of each page on the tab labeled Tags. Using the same tag text ensures the thread you're tagging will be grouped with the others.
2. The moderators can do housekeeping to ensure things don't drift too far and to keep the system useful to the maximum number of people. So please don't be too surprised if your tag changes at some point.
3. Tag like a librarian, remember that tags belong to and are used by everybody. Don't create 'quirky' tags that mean nothing to anyone else. Make sure what you're tagging contains enough information to make it worth grouping with other threads with the same tag.
Guidelines for tag formatting
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When creating a new tag please follow these guidelines. A hastily convened weenie tagging work group agreed on these after some discussion.
1. Avoid noise characters like dashes and double quotes. If in doubt leave it out.
2. Commas. Only use if absolutely necessary.
3. Initial and embedded capitals.
"things" should have no initial capital letter:
banjo, railroads, floods
Real names should have an initial capital:
Banjo Ikey Robinson, Titanic, Blind Lemon Jefferson
4. People with initials before their name:
J.T. Smith. Space between J.T. and Smith
5. Tunings. Vestapol, Spanish, Cross Note, Dropped D. Other tunings without a common name, G6 tuning
6. Standard guitar tuning and chords.
Use "position" to imply standard tuning:
C position, E position, A minor position
Chords. Use short form:
Bm7b5, Gm7, Ebdim
7. Concepts. Where a thread embodies two or more concepts give each one a distinct tag.
So a thread discussing creation, recreation and interpretation can be tagged three times.
8. History. Use a compound tag to qualify what aspect of history. Separate a prefix "history" with a colon:
history: instruments, history: social, history: recording
9. Instructional posts: "Instruction". This is the one exception to the initial capital rule for obvious reasons.
10. The word "blues" in a tag is usually completely redundant. If you tag "blues magazines" people will naturally assume it's a tag about blues magazines, so just tag "magazines". The theory threads are exceptions, blues theory, 16 bar blues etc. are valid.
11. Like "blues", also completely redundant are "fingerpicking", "guitar", "lyrics", etc etc. Context is everything, this is weeniecampbell.com! :P Redundant tags will be removed or refactored.
12. Song titles. If we tagged every song title mentioned on WC the list would be enormous. Better to not tag it and use the search.
At this point, and probably forever more, we haven't gotten round to bringing all the tags into line with the above. Any problems, questions or requests please feel free to post them here.
Rivers:
Well people I'm impressed. A few dedicated individual taggers have been beavering away in the background.
Check out the discographies tag in particular. Someone has been on a mission to group all the references to Stefan Wirz's most excellent archiving project website. I won't mention any names for fear of embarrassing anyone, so rest assured, Bunker, your secret is safe with me.
To see the full tag index click on Tags, either here or on the horizontal menu bar above. It's currently at nearly 420 distinct tags, grouping over 1300 topics.
I don't know about y'all but I've been surfing the tags a lot and as a result have been getting much more out of the weenie site. Thanks to all the taggers for helping to keep it stitched together. We have plans to roll out more functionality in this area at some point.
GhostRider:
And thanks to you, Rivers, for keeping us on the straight and narrow path!
Alex
Bunker Hill:
--- Quote from: GhostRider on February 23, 2007, 09:23:24 AM ---And thanks to you, Rivers, for keeping us on the straight and narrow path!
--- End quote ---
...and for saving me a fortune by keeping me out of the pub! Seriously this tagging thing is bringing to light so many interesting threads from way before my joining which I'd never have had the time, nor inclination, to spend hours using the "search forum" function on. It's also a good way for us "newbies" not to reinvent what's already been invented in terms of duplicating earlier discussion topics.
Keep up the good work Rivers and co.
Rivers:
Bunker has noticed the following forum software behavior relating to tags:
This relates to the message preview function and occurs when creating a new post. If you specify a tag or tags then preview the post, the tags are lost.
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