Tagging

[shewhomust]

I'm happy with my shiny new(ish) LiveJournal; and most of the enhancements and upgrades on offer don't tempt me at all. Get a paid account and create a poll: I don't think so. New, improved, more pretty: I've opted for one of the simplest layouts, and don't need more pretty. Tags, though, sounded like a fun thing.

I've come across the idea of tagging (or folksonomy, which is either a rather neat word or a completely horrible one: the jury's still out). It always sounded like a logical update of a filing system durham_rambler and I devised for NCCL (the National Council for Civil Liberties, now known as Liberty)'s archive of complaints against the police. Each case file was represented by a card with holes punched around the edge, one for each issue that might be illustrated by the case. If that issue actually does arise, we cut from the hole to the edge of the card. Then, to find, for example, cases of racism, you inserted a knitting needle through the stack of cards in the hole corresponding to racism, and raised it gently - cards tagged for that issue fell out onto the desk. It was crude but effective and we were pretty proud of it. And it allowed a case to be placed in as few or as many classes as fitted.

Tagging appears to do all this, with the added bonus that new tags can be added at any stage.

I was surprised to find that the comments on tagging that were turning up on my flist were all negative, and dived cheerfully into a couple of conversations, asking why and saying that I liked this new feature. And I do, but I had better admit, with apologies, that I have not tested it all that thoroughly - as will appear...

janni's post on this subject is friends locked, so I won't link to it: what it showed me was that some people were using the Memories function to do what I was hoping tagging would achieve for me. Indeed, we seemed to divide between those who hadn't realised that you could add other people's posts to your Memories, and those to whom it had never occurred to use the feature on their own posts.

Another theme both here and in comments on a post from profane_stencil is a dislike of seeing the tags appear at the head of an entry. sekhmets_song puts it best:

I like to analyze things myself, decide what they mean to me. There are a couple of lj tag styles that put the tags at the very top; that's like telling me, up front, what I am supposed to get out of the entry.

Now you point that out, it's not an effect I want either as a reader or as a writer. More research needed here, then: can I find a style that will either hide the tags or at least put them at the end of each entry? Until then, I promise a) only to tag entries which I might at some stage want to view thematically and b) to keep my tags as cryptic as I can.

Does that imply that I am, after all, in the market for a new style? I fear it may. Because despite my loud enthusiasm for tagging (and my early steps in tagging my posts), I had not yet tried using the tags to find related entries: and when I did, I got the message "Sorry, tag filtering is not supported within S1 styles." What I have here is Write-Only Tagging. To move on from here, I have to re-decorate my LJ. And that is not going to happen in a hurry.

I continue to like the idea of tagging: but that statement is now qualified by a much stronger awareness that so far it is just an idea.

Comments

[janni.livejournal.com]

The tricky thing is, those reading posts through their friendslists see them in their style, rather than the poster's.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Good point: that applies to tags as well, does it?

So if you don't want to see tags, it's up to you to pick a style that doesn't show them to you; which is fair enough, except that suddenly tags have arrived and you don't want to go re-styling. I wonder if those clever design people could give us a simple tick box for Show me / Don't show me?

[profane-stencil.livejournal.com]

Well, tag away, if you wish- I fully believe that people should do what they wish with their ljs, and take no notice of what others think (with the exception of posting big pics without a cut).

My biggest problem with tags is one I haven't mentioned- it seems like an offense against the ephemerality of blogging. I know that not everyone has an ephemeral lj, and for them, tagging is probably quite useful. But when your lj is simply a series of statements about how you feel at that moment, a tag like "reflection" just seems like a waste of time.

It's like any tool- tags are inherently neutral, but they can be used in all sorts of irritating ways. Just like userpics- I don't need an icon to make clear to me this post is about American politics, for instance. I would rather find that out for myself, at my own rate. I know that tags weren't designed to be used as "spoilers," but that is what's happening.


And if you should decide to try a new style for your lj, do it the safest way- create a new user id and use that account to play with styles without fear of mucking up your real lj.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

That's part of the difference between us, then: I don't do ephemeral - and am seriously considering printing off my past posts, because I can't quite believe in the permanence of anything other than dead trees.

But thanks for the good advice: do you really think LJ is ready for two of me?

[sekhmets-song.livejournal.com]

Absolutely tag if you think it is useful to you. After all, it is your journal. I have heard several people suggest that there should be a way to hide the tags. Hopefully, those clever code writers at LJ will hear the request and make it a reality.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I'd vote for that!

[samarcand.livejournal.com]

I'm having difficulty in visualising how the NCCL hole-punching thing worked myself. You punch a hole in the file card and then shove a knitting needle through the pile to find all the cards punched in that particular spot? So, how does the knitting needle avoid the cards which are unpunched in that spot? Am I missing something or do you have Paul Daniels-esque knitting needles? And, if so, is keeping them away from the general public an infringement of our civil liberties?

And 'folksonomy' sounds more like something to do with sticking your finger inyour ear and singing about how you got on a boat at Liverpool and sailed away from your true love never to see her again rather than tagging.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Ordinary knitting needles, cosmic string, and we stick them through worm-holes... No, read it again, I don't think I can make it any clearer.

And we don't allow bad-mouthing the folk process in this journal, you know!

[samarcand.livejournal.com]

There's a process?

D'oh!

[samarcand.livejournal.com]

Re-read it now (for what must be the fourth or fifth time - I knew it had to make sense, I just couldn't get it to do so) and I get how it's done. Although next time I see you, I may demand a practical demonstration, just to check I've got it right!