Tags

[*BaseClogger*]

These things are not functional at all, but they can be very funny. Have some of them been disappearing? Thoughts? Should we point out food metaphors?

[camisadelgolf]

I like the tags. Sometimes, a comment isn't worth a post, and sometimes, a thread of several pages can be summed up in a few words. I think "tags hit with risp" is the most appropriate tag for this thread.

[remdog]

I'm totally perplexed by these things.

What the hell are they and how are they beniefical? They seem to be a big waste of time so far.

Rem

[Mario-Rijo]

Originally Posted by remdog

I'm totally perplexed by these things.

What the hell are they and how are they beniefical? They seem to be a big waste of time so far.

Rem

Seems to me they can be beneficial when doing a search. You tag it by adding the main components of the thread. Say I was offering up a potential trade idea and a year later that trade happens, I wanna go back and prove I was out in front of that deal. I could do a search but what if I don't recall the name of the thread or the people involved were guys whose names come up all the time in trade scenarios. If I tagged it in such a way that would be maybe a little unique it would make it easier to find.

One of my favorite trades would be Arroyo for Escobar plus a prospect. So if I tag it exactly that way I should have that thread at the forefront of my search results.

[nate]

Well, it seems like it has the potential to get out of hand with the humor opportunities and I'll admit I'm guilty of that already (I was just seeing how it worked!)

The problem with this sort of thing is all the spelling people are likely to use. For example:

bronson
arroyo
bronson arroyo
Bronson
Arroyo
Bronson Arroyo
Bronson arroyo
bronson Arroyo

All would be different tags even though they're the same thing.

I'd suggest something like MLBTraderumors.com has. Each post is tagged with the player's full name and teams involved. So "cliff lee" is a tag and "texas rangers" is a tag. Couple that with subjects like "RISP", "Sabermetrics", "clutch", etc. and one could have a pretty effective tagging mechanism.

I wish the tag cloud could be displayed in a sidebar. I think that helps encourage more precise tagging and searching.

The funny tags are funny and all but they aren't very useful. It may be that the tags need moderation or a guideline or both.

[nate]

Originally Posted by Mario-Rijo

Seems to me they can be beneficial when doing a search. You tag it by adding the main components of the thread. Say I was offering up a potential trade idea and a year later that trade happens, I wanna go back and prove I was out in front of that deal. I could do a search but what if I don't recall the name of the thread or the people involved were guys whose names come up all the time in trade scenarios. If I tagged it in such a way that would be maybe a little unique it would make it easier to find.

One of my favorite trades would be Arroyo for Escobar plus a prospect. So if I tag it exactly that way I should have that thread at the forefront of my search results.

I think that's what the search is for. You'd get the same result if you typed "Arroyo for Escobar plus a prospect" into the search. However, tags for that topic might be:

bronson arroyo
yuniel escobar
atlanta braves
prospect
trade

Having a "Arroyo for Escobar plus a prospect" tag is going to be really hard to find searching through a massive tag cloud of phrases and made redundant by the search function.

To me, tags and tag clouds are great serendipity devices. I can look at a tag cloud and see what the most discussed topics on a web site. I can then click through the "big links" and read as much as I want to about those topics. Along the way, I can see other tags and click through to see what's been talked about with them.

[Screwball]

Originally Posted by nate

Well, it seems like it has the potential to get out of hand with the humor opportunities and I'll admit I'm guilty of that already (I was just seeing how it worked!)

The problem with this sort of thing is all the spelling people are likely to use. For example:

bronson
arroyo
bronson arroyo
Bronson
Arroyo
Bronson Arroyo
Bronson arroyo
bronson Arroyo

All would be different tags even though they're the same thing.

Point well taken, but I think the tags are always in lower case.

[nate]

Originally Posted by Screwball

Point well taken, but I think the tags are always in lower case.

Yep, could be.

[Boss-Hog]

Originally Posted by Screwball

Point well taken, but I think the tags are always in lower case.

That's correct - they're automatically converted to lower case.

[Ltlabner]

Tags will be useful down the road when they become more descriptive and less humor driven.

[KronoRed]

Originally Posted by Ltlabner

Tags will be useful down the road when they become more descriptive and less humor driven.

What fun will that be?

[Unassisted]

One good use for them would be short search terms like OBP, which the board doesn't return results for as a search term since it has fewer than 4 characters.

[Unassisted]

Originally Posted by remdog

I'm totally perplexed by these things.

What the hell are they and how are they beniefical? They seem to be a big waste of time so far.

Rem

When you click a tag in the list, the board returns a list of all of the threads tagged with that tag. For instance, you could tag the threads that you like with "remdog's favorite" and the board would return a list with all of the threads you (or anyone) tagged with that.

BTW, I just noticed that it's not possible to tag threads in the archives. I wanted to tag this one for easy finding, but couldn't do it.

[Boss-Hog]

Originally Posted by Unassisted

When you click a tag in the list, the board returns a list of all of the threads tagged with that tag. For instance, you could tag the threads that you like with "remdog's favorite" and the board would return a list with all of the threads you (or anyone) tagged with that.

BTW, I just noticed that it's not possible to tag threads in the archives. I wanted to tag this one for easy finding, but couldn't do it.

You have to have permission to post in a forum in order to tag a thread in it; if there's something specific you'd like to tag that thread, let me know.

[Unassisted]

Originally Posted by Boss-Hog

You have to have permission to post in a forum in order to tag a thread in it; if there's something specific you'd like to tag that thread, let me know.

Thanks for the offer. I'll pick a few favorites from the archive and send you a PM with a list.