A quick word on tags

[zdenka]

There are tags! Which is very exciting. We are behind on tagging entries, but working on catching up. In order to make the volunteer taggers' job a little easier, I have a couple of requests:

Consider selecting your tags from the list rather than typing them in (or else checking carefully), because it's really easy to make typos or just type something inconsistently -- and then we have card:landscapes as well as card:landscape until the taggers fix it.

Please don't put a space after the colon. It's not that number: b10 is inherently wrong, but Dawn chose at the beginning to make the format number:b10, without the space -- and the tags need to be in the same format, or else clicking on the tag won't bring up all the stories, and that would be sad.

Thanks! Now back to your regularly scheduled writing! -Zdenka, who should really be asleep now. :-) (Oh, and if anyone else wants to join the tagging, there is plenty of work to do.)

ETA: This post refers to if you decide to tag your entries yourself, which some people have been and some haven't. If you don't, the taggers will get there sooner or later. :-) Not-a-mod, but please do whatever is comfortable for you.

Comments

[zhie.livejournal.com]

Is it possible that the correct tags could be loaded ahead of time? Three of the days, I've been the first one in to post, and I'm the one to be banished for the extra space (that's okay, I hear the Feanorians make good company ;) What I've done is looked at the tag listing and added when it wasn't available -- however, via deductive reasoning, I counted the number with a space vs those without the first time I did that and guessed that since there were more with the space that was the correct version (I'm not much of a tagger myself, tending to tag things with one-time-use tags... I think it's a tumblr thing...).

Is it possible for this info to be included today with the number announcement when it comes up? I know that this is actually the first day for me that I've looked at the whole listing in a week; usually, I just hit the daily number posts. I think that might help get out the word (about the mistake which is admittedly probably mostly if not all my fault except for whoever did it first and I'm going to blame Celegorm for that :D ).

[zdenka]

Is it possible that the correct tags could be loaded ahead of time?

Well, only the mods know which numbers are going to be called ahead of time -- and most of the tag creation is done by volunteers, not mods. (I am very much not a mod.) I haven't banished anybody, though! I, um, mildly expostulated. (Okay, I did banish the inconsistent tags. But they kept popping up again . . .) I am not meaning to criticize anyone -- I figured people were doing it because they didn't know, so now more people will know. :-)

If a tag you want doesn't exist, you can 1) create it, 2) ask someone to create it, or 3) wait for someone to create it. As far as I'm concerned, in my non-modly opinion, creating tags is a totally fine thing to do! It does make it easier for taggers
if people follow the patterns or check first to see if a similar tag might exist. (e.g. Witch-King vs. Lord of the Nazgul.) If this were a library catalog, it would be possible to cross-reference (so a search for "Witch-King" or "Lord of the Nazgul" would turn up both) and do all sorts of awesome stuff. Or on AO3, they can let people tag however they like and then link everything up behind the scenes. But sadly we do not have that power here. :-( Er. Unemployed librarian possibly loves metadata a little too much. *shifty eyes*

Is it possible for this info to be included today with the number announcement when it comes up?

Again, that's up to the mods. I made this post without even asking anyone, which maybe I should have? So I speak completely without authority and not representing anyone but myself.

[ladyelleth.livejournal.com]

The two of you are doing fantastic work!

One problem with the tags, I think, is that while the tags list and the edit tags field display the correct tag format, i.e. without the space, the select tags popup you can use at entry creation still displays all the wrongly formatted tags, so it's still quite easy to make mistakes. Here (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/1003/ladyelleth/tagslist.jpg)'s a screenshot to explain what I'm trying to say.

[zdenka]

Yes, I see the issue! Thanks for pointing that out; I hadn't realized those were still accessible.

Unfortunately, while taggers can remove tags from entries, we can't actually delete them, which would be needed to make them not show up in the popup list. Much to my chagrin near the beginning, when I was making all sorts of mistakes in tags and could replace but not delete them! So unless Dawn has had time to delete some of those, I daresay a bunch of the incorrect variants were originally mine. *hangs head* Wait, no, I'm going to follow zhie's example and blame Celegorm. :-P

[zhie.livejournal.com]

<--is a library director, understands the dilemma

I guess the 'ahead of time' part meant ahead of time in terms of before stories were posted, not in terms of before the numbers were posted. (Unless Galadriel's a mod... I don't think we have that option anyhow ;) and even then, that mirror's kind of---

Oh, sweet Eru, no one let her play, did they? Because I so know who's going to win this in that case....

:D

I was more thinking, when the number was posted, could one of the tags for that post be the tag for the number [example: could one of the tags for N43 by number:n43 ]? But I guess this is more a question to be referred to the Valar and not the other Ainur? ;)

*shiftily glances over to see if Galadriel's hiding a bingo dauber up her sleeve*

[zhie.livejournal.com]

Yes. Blame Celegorm.

Or, Gildor. Gildor is less likely to retaliate to blame.

[zdenka]

Yay librarians! Sorry for telling you things you already know, then. But metadata are shiny! *cuddles the Precious*

*snickers at Galadriel comments*

ahead of time in terms of before stories were posted, not in terms of before the numbers were posted.

Oh! Now I understand. *nods gravely* I know not the mind of Eru. In the meantime, I can . . . *thinks about tags* tell LJ to email me when a new number is posted and create the tag right away if I'm at my computer.

[zdenka]

*hides from possibly annoyed Feanoreans behind a thicket of tags*

[independence1776]

Lignota, thank you for saying this! *is the other main tagger* And yes, we're slowly catching up.

One note: drabbles and all variations thereof (double, triple, etc.) go into format:drabble.

[independence1776]

Oh, phooey. I'd thought those weren't accessible. :( Well, it at least explains why they keep popping up!

[zdenka]

Oh good, I'm glad we're on the same page. (So to speak.)