Tags - Thread 'Tags' - New in vBulletin version 3.7 - Will YOU help us?

[Marc]

Some of you may have noticed the new 'Tags' feature of vBulletin. In some ways, I think of the 'Good Old Days' when things were simple on the internet. Those of you around 10 years ago probably remember the simplicity of the old The Original Elsmar Cove Forums. Plain text. Of course, then came the 'UltimateBB days' circa 1998 through August 2001. It was very nice and sometimes today I miss that simplicity. However, time moves on and things evolve. In this case it's an increasing complexity which sometimes seems totally unnecessary.

I've thought about the 'Tags' a lot and whether or not to 'Turn On' the Tag system. I decided to turn it on and see how it develops. For quite a while now, particularly on blogs and news aggregators such as /. (aka SlashDot), I have seen 'Tags' used more and more.

However - Even amongst the moderators there has been debate as to whether they make a difference, are useful, and if they are useful, what are they useful for? One moderator pointed out that many sites like sales sites are using tags. I will say the 'Tag Cloud' is kinda interesting.

Anyway, for those of you who are interested in helping 'Tag' threads, just look at the bottom of any thread page and you'll see:

Or, if there are no Tags on the thread yet, you'll see:

If you feel comfortable helping, that's all there is to it!

Check out the Current Tag Cloud!

NOTE: There are 5 levels of Tags. These are the settings:

If you have recommendation about changing the defaults, please let me know!

And if you're reading an OLD thread that hasn't been Tagged, please don't hesitate to Tag the thread. It may be old, but it's probably still relevant, at least in most cases.

My personal Thanks!

Marc

[harry]

Originally Posted by Marc

If you feel comfortable helping, that's all there is to it!

Check out the Current Tag Cloud!

Thanks in advance to those who volunteer to help out.

This is just a word of caution - tag the 'key words' only, otherwise there will be unnecessary clutter.

[Marc]

Good point, harry. That is important. Tag the 'key words' only!

[Claes Gefvenberg]

Originally Posted by Marc

I will say the 'Tag Cloud' is kinda interesting.

I'll say it is, and getting more interesting by each passing day. It is really useful now, as a novel way of finding things rather than just a different twist to the search function.

Do try it, and keep adding new tags.

/Claes

[Marc]

Help with Tagging threads is appreciated!

[BradM]

Originally Posted by Marc

Help with Tagging threads is appreciated!

A question on these. As with database design, you can "force" things into a list of tags for consistency and stuff, or be more creative in tag names. I realize any tag is better than no tag, but do you generally feel the existing tags are fairly sufficient, or is there "plenty" of room for new ones?

[Marc]

Essentially, the Tag Cloud is a 'Most Popular Topics' indicator.

Current settings:

Registered Visitors will get a drop down list when tagging a thread. Start typing and the list expands. Registered Visitors can not add new tags. There are just too many 'Variations on a Theme', if you will, to allow everyone to add a new tag. I have spent, and am spending, many hours going through thread tags and trying to decide what the 'best' tags are. I have to admit its rather daunting. For example, to try to categorize (which is what tagging is about), do you have tags for 'procedure' and 'procedures'? I am trying to take situations like that and make them plural (in most cases), so there is a tag for 'procedures' but not for 'procedure'. There are exceptions.

I have not seen a way to see all current tags in a listing other than what is in the screen shot in this post which only admins can see. Even there, it's a 'pain in the butt' because you have to page through the listing (as opposed to one long list). This is where I review and add or delete Tags in the admin control panel.


As a Super Moderator, I think you can add new thread tags (in the thread, not in the admin control panel). I'll have to look at the preferences and permissions to see for sure, but try to add a new tag and let me know what happens.

The Value of Thread Tags: I cannot tell you. I visit a lot of web sites, as you can probably imagine. Most of them are using forms of Tagging, especially blogs, but also news sites and such. Tagging threads is something that I see pros and cons to.

And one of the issues here is there are thousands of existing threads that have no 'Tags'. There is a 'mod' which will tag old threads so that all threads in the forums have a tag. But, it's an algorithm and to be honest I don't trust it. And, I figure as we go along Tag searches will be more relevant because only newer, or very popular, threads are being tagged, so those 'buried' threads from 5 years ago won't be in the Tag Cloud search results.

So, I have been manually entering tags and editing the tags list trying to focus relevance. Obviously, the more tags, the more blurring of significant results when someone clicks on a Tag in the Tag Cloud.

I don't know how a lot of you feel about the Tag Cloud, but I find it kinda interesting as a relative measure of what people are asking about and discussing.

[Marc]

I temporarily upped the Tag Cloud Results to display the most 'popular' 1000 tags. Maybe that will help give an idea about what the existing tags are. I may try setting it to 2500 just to see what happens...

Tagging help is appreciated!

And remember, this is not just for new discussion threads. You can tag old discussion threads when you come across them.