I too dislike the clutter -- since there will always be a #goodlongread.flagamuffin if there's a #goodlongread on a flagamuffin post, can we take it for granted that they exist and not put them under every post? Instead users could rely on lists in profiles, which are more out of the way and less prone to clutter.
Like insomniasexx said, the username and all tags are presented as they give information as to why the post is in you feed; the one you follow is blue. If we hid the personal tag, it wouldn't be immediately obvious why that post was in your feed if you only followed the personal tag. One option would only to have the personal tag appear if you follow it, however, it seems a bit odd. Another reason for presenting it (and this one became much more apparent to me as I tested), is accessibility to the personal tag page. I found myself clicking the personal tag as a quick way to see the user's contribution to that tag. In my limited experience with it, the personal tag becomes a window to content discovery. That being said, if there is a way to aesthetically improve this without compromising the functionality, I am all for it.
What if you condensed into #tag.user and highlighted "#tag" when you follow the tag and "#tag.user" when you follow the personal tag? And then have a similar system for hyperlinking - clicking "tag" sends you to the tag, clicking the "user" in "#tag.user" sends you to the personal tag, and clicking the "user" in the author field sends you to their user page. Disclaimer - this might be really difficult to code, I don't know. I dabble in web design, but nothing this complex.
Throw any ideas you have at us. Seriously. The discussion about how to display the personal tag was a long and tiresome one. Here's a little insight to why we just fell back on doing it like it is. We toyed with the idea of doing #@ or #improvclass.p or #.mknod or come up with a new symbol or icon. The problem is the tag becomes too hidden and easily missed. 2. Why is this on my feed + clickability As it currently stands, you can easily tell why something is on your feed. Either you follow the user, the tag, the domain, or a "shared by mitvit +3" appears. You can click on any of those things and be taken to a page that displays a list of posts that share that. By limiting the personal tag to a single character or icon, this information is again more easily missed. In addition, the different in color for a single character or two is not enough to give the audience an easy way to take in this information as they scan their feed. Here are a couple of screen grabs from that night as examples: I am personally a fan of the visual look of #@ but it doesn't really educate anyone about anything. It works if it's blue and nothing else is. The second you follow a user but none of those tags, it gets lost again. :/ Looking at the entire feed, I'm realizing the order that we display the tags does need to be different. The repetitive information so either be at the beginning or end so that it's not splitting up the other information. by mknod 9 hours ago
1. Education: New and existing users who are unfamiliar with personal tags need to be able to grasp the concept. I still firmly believe that one of the reasons community tags are so rarely used is people don't really know what they are nor are they reminded to add one. The symbol is simply Δ# or +#. text · #improvclass · #improvclass.mknod · #movieproducers
I like the simplicity of #@ as well, but it's understandable you'd be reticent to use it when better context about tag usage could be in its place. It's also harder to see, click, understand, and so on. The line of links reads almost as a continuous string of characters, which isn't helping the repetition issue. Maybe keep the spacing but remove the dots (" · ")? Or break the repetition with a new line for the personal and community tags? #@username ? #this.username (where this is literally the word "this")? I'm not sure I really like anything I've proposed, because each solution has some obvious drawbacks. Moving the personal tag up next to the username might add context.