Out of the top 66 tags (#music - #apple), there are 11282 submitted posts as of me typing this comment. 5639 of those posts are contained within the top 10 tags (#music - #history). It's scary how close to 50% that works out to be. Hint: It's 49.98%. I wanted to put some values behind what flagamuffin was talking about with monochromatic tagging, because I completely agree with his point. I think right now it's very easy to find people that you want to follow, the community page is laid out great. But I don't think as many people utilize the tags page, I know I don't use it to it's fullest extent. It could also be an issue where people want their posts to be seen and cared about, and thus only submit to tags that are popular which then fuels the cycle. If you're new to the site and want to gain followers so more people your contributions, then you can't really go about posting to rarely used tags. I love having the opportunity to post to a never before used tag such as #charm and know that somebody will see, but new people aren't afforded that as easily.
There definitely is a long tail of tags. I am going to be adding 'most followed' to the tag page soon. I'm actually curious what that will look like. I haven't looked at it yet. However, it might have the same effect. Still, I have my doubts that it will map over the most popular tags really well.
When you click 'reply' to the parent post in the comments section, two comment boxes come up. The standard one we are all used to, and a smaller second one that asks you how you would tag this post. This would not be present in the child replies where people are talking with each other, and filling it out would be optional. I bet a lot of people use community tags if they are implemented at that prompt as well.
The nice thing is that it questions the appropriate people (People who are invested in the topic enough to move into discussion), and solicits those people at the appropriate time (when they are in the act of entering data). It doesn't try to solicit behavior at other inappropriate times.
.... I need to read an entire thread before commenting :) mk, we should do this.
Hey mk, this isn't related to this topic but I thought of a possible quirk last night. Completely hypothetical situation that I'm curious about. Let's say somebody joins Hubski and I don't like what they post so I ignore them, but at some point in time they tag me in a comment. Would I still get that notification or would that too be ignored?
That's a really great idea ecib. If you're at the point where you are leaving a comment, you are hopefully familiar enough with the post to add a tag. Great idea, I would likely add more community tags if this were an option.
From a philosophical standpoint, I could see removing the community tag option from the main feed completely, with the reasoning being that the only people you want to tag a post are the ones engaged and informed enough to move to the discussion page. It would remove a small (though always significant) bit of clutter elsewhere to arguably improve community tag quality. Not sure that it would be necessary, but it is certainly a thought. Lack of visual clutter is a premium as far as I'm concerned.