Today begins a fairly significant experiment.
doesntgolf recently commented that he would like to be able to follow tags in a user-specifc way, regardless of whether or not that user had created a personal tag for a post. That is, he could follow #music.mk to get just my posts with the #music tag.
We thought this was a very interesting idea, and the conversations that ensued led us to this update.
Starting today, whenever you tag a post, a corresponding personal tag will be created for it. These tags can be followed or filtered just as any other tag.
Here are some details:
1. The personal tag is automatically generated based on the post's tag.
2. Posts no longer carry a normal second tag.
3. The author may now make the first community tag suggestion on their post. This replaces the second tag.
4. In your profile, you can find a link to a page with all of your personal tags.
5. If you have follower-alerts turned on, you will get emailed when someone follows one of your personal tags.
There are a number of reasons why we thought this experiment was worthwhile, and I will be happy to discuss them below. However, not all of functionality that will likely accompany this change is in place. For example, it is likely that when you visit a tag, you will also be able to see the most popular personal tags under that tag.
Of course, this is an experiment. If we find that this isn't an improvement, we will modify it, or roll things back to where we were before.
As always, feedback is much appreciated!
p.s. For previous posts, if there wasn't a community tag (which was >90% of those posts), the second tag was promoted to the community tag. However, the author of the post can still suggest a different community tag for their previous posts.
UPDATE: Based on the feedback we received here regarding the repetitiveness of the two tags, we have since formatted them in a way that combines them.
I'm not sure that I will use this. I will say that I got all excited because that meant I could ignore qz.com but follow qz.com.thenewgreen. But I can't, 'cuz you aren't doing the same thing with domains. I will also say I had to click around for 20 minutes to figure out where my ignored domains were.
I'm interested to see if you decide to do so over time. In your use case, I could see the point I made to Aeiri applying: Of course, for quieter tags, I can take the opposite approach: filtering a personal tag or two might be all it takes to keep the overall tag quality, and I need't filter out those users wholesale. In that respect, we now have two kinds of filtering: content-specific, and user-specific. The presentation is wanting with regards to the repetition, however. It's pretty clear there is some consensus there. Good point. That info should be in the same place where the moderation tools are when you visit someone else's profile.One thing I have also considered is how this plays into scaling. The conventional wisdom says that as tags grow more popular, the ratio of quality content will fall. However, what if I really want to get great #politics posts even after hundreds of users are submitting to it? Previously, I would have had to follow #politics, and filter an ever-increasingly large swath of users (in entirety, not just their politics posts) to cull out the chaff. It is a race, that eventually I would lose. Now, I have the option to browse #politics, find the best users submitting to it, and follow their personal politics tags. With this approach, my politics feed doesn't degrade over time. Of course, I need to work if I want new voices, but I won't have to be constantly filtering users to have a quality politics feed.
I will also say I had to click around for 20 minutes to figure out where my ignored domains were.
I can see the use, it's just not an approach I've taken before. Hang on... Okay. It wouldn't occur to me to follow #relationships, but #relationships.nowaypablo maybe. We'll try that. He's posted once, though. #relationships.theadvancedapes seems like a good "ignore" candidate simply because he's posted from Buzzfeed and collegehumor... but I've got things dialed to the point where I don't see buzzfeed and collegehumor. So I wandered into a tag I've filtered - #feminism. And what I see is not so much that there are people who I want to filter out of #feminism, what I see is that there are lots of useful interesting articles in #feminism but I don't see any of them because they've been tagged #feminism. Which is stupid: - I follow #grrrlski - I follow _refugee_ - but if ref posts something in grrrlski and someone else tags it #feminism it vanishes.
I filtered #feminism because lorelai was using it on blast. She's long since gone. I can unfilter #feminism. But it's gonna be a lot handier for me to filter #feminism.jezibel than #feminism.userwhoisnowgone. I can ignore everything lorelai has to say - I'd really rather ensure that I don't have to deal with gawker anything. Here's where it gets really dumb - for some reason, this post shows up under #feminism, which means I didn't see it, even though it isn't tagged #feminism. So yeah. I can see my way towards greater granularity, but the greater granularity I want you ain't givin'.
That, is a riddle I need to solve. It would be great if we could identify post content so well, but that's not what is happening. I'm nearly certain it previously had the community tag feminism, and we are pulling it by that previous tag in the list.Here's where it gets really dumb - for some reason, this post shows up under #feminism, which means I didn't see it, even though it isn't tagged #feminism.
I appreciate that you might like to follow my curated qz stream, but I do think I should point out that it was a steaming pile of qz that I posted that caused you to ignore it to begin with :)I will say that I got all excited because that meant I could ignore qz.com but follow qz.com.thenewgreen.
-This is an interesting idea. It furthers the granularity with which you can tailor your experience. I wonder though, is this an edge case and would this functionality rarely be used?
Decided to see if I was "filtering" any domains. When you bring up your list of filtered/muted/hushed, that page still displays things as "ignored". Just a little inconsistency but I figured I'd point it out mk.
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.
I'm not sure how I feel about the personal tag being automatically generated based on the tag I give a post. It makes sense if I'm posting something with the music tag, or askhubski tag, larger ones like that. But, to use m_w as an example, aaronswartz.m_w as a tag just looks like needless clutter to me. In a case like that it would make me consider using a more general tag that might not as accurately portray the submission for the sake of avoiding that issue.
I agree with all of that. There is little doubt that this will alter people's tagging strategy. It will also significantly alter people's following strategies. Rather than follow #music, and filter users in their entirety based on what you don't like, you may look in #music to find the personal music tags that you want to follow, or filter out only personal music tags you don't, and not the users entirely.
Oh don't get me wrong I'm excited about the potential to further customize who and what I follow (as thenewgreen also brought up), I think my problem right now is more readability related with the way tags are displayed when every post has a personal tag. That's probably just me though.
It was one of the things that we struggled with most, and we tried a number of different options and formats. However, we always kept coming back to this basic presentation. IMO after using it a while, it starts to look natural as your expectation of the functionality adjusts.
In a case like that I would #aaronswartz as the second tag. Think of the increased ability to tailor your experience here. As it was you could "filter" or "follow" a user which meant you took all or none of them. mk is one of my closest friends and he doesn't follow me on Hubski. I don't blame him, I post a TON of content, much of which may not be relevant to him. Now he can follow the aspects of me. Maybe he digs my #history.thenewgreen posts but wants to ignore #music.thenewgreen? It's going to be an interesting experiment. I look forward to your feedback as you kick the tires.
Fly in the ointment time! I like the idea of greater customization potential, but I'm a little worried about echo chamber effect with this one. Isn't the point of tags to allow for a greater breadth of opinions/content? I like following, say, the "music" tag because it's so vague and untargeted- if I have the option to filter out people with perceived taste differences, I risk overlooking good stuff I would've otherwise missed. Correspondingly, if I like somebody's taste in anything, I'm already following them personally and so I'll see their submission re. any given subject on my main feed. Doesn't this potentially just create redundancies? Also: sometimes I follow somebody because I like their taste in music, but it turns out I'm not so hot on their politics. But I like the idea of taking that person as the whole bundle for better or worse, and in so doing having to reconsider their positions on various topics just by virtue of connecting with them on other levels. If I can pick and choose which aspects of a user to follow, kind of saps some of the humanity out of the experience. And on a more self-involved level (if there was any other level to begin with?)- I like to think that I have something to add to some tags. I'm also much more likely to post to those tags over others. If I'm being filtered out of my favorite tags, and it starts to feel like I'm just shooting submissions into the void, doesn't that create a disincentive to post anything at all?
I see it as a cool avenue for content discovery. I see it as a cool way to see which aspects of my Hubski contributions are the most appreciated. I thought it was pretty cool to go in my profile and see all the tags I've used. Think I need to rekindle a few of the old ones. I like the idea of greater customization potential
Cool, I'm glad. but I'm a little worried about echo chamber effect
If I never hear the phrase "echo chamber" again, I'll be okay with that :) -I don't see this as a way for me to be able to follow people that post things I agree with only and to filter out those that don't. This is not how I use the follow/filter for users, why would I use it that way for tags? I do see this as a way to protect the integrity of tags I enjoy. I see it as a way to follow aspects of people that I currently do not follow and get more granular with things. I don't follow mk, I don't follow bitcoin because I'm not that interested in most of the content there. But I have found that I enjoy the bitcoin posts that mk makes. Therefore, I'm now following #bitcoin.mk. There are any number of scenarios that could present this way. If I'm being filtered out of my favorite tags, and it starts to feel like I'm just shooting submissions into the void, doesn't that create a disincentive to post anything at all?
Knowing the content that you've posted in the past I find it hard to believe this would occur to you. That said, there are some users that may have their askhubski.user posts filtered. I can think of a few people that I currently follow that I would do this to.
Okay, fair point re. The Phrase That Shall Not Be Named. Move to replace it with equally meaningless word combo that gets same point across. Respectfully submit "value-affirmative feedback loop" for consideration. I hear what you're saying in terms of granularity. Personally I like using follow more holistically- can't filter out one aspect of my friends/acquaintances in real life, so it's nice to take the same approach here. On the other hand, I can appreciate that Hubski doesn't have to follow the same mechanics of real life, and just because I view my interactions here through that filter doesn't mean that Hubski has any obligation to conform to those standards. On top of that, implementation of the above doesn't really preclude me from continuing to use the site as I like, so cool beans. And I don't really have a problem with the "content discovery" part of it, goddamn cause you know how to sell something. Pretty much any time I push back in the update threads, it's more or less against further filtration. Part of Hubski's charm, I think, stems from how many positive interactions it encourages through the absence of negative filter. Following a user is a big "yes" to said user. Sharing is a big "yes" to a post. Following tags, "yes" to the subject. And there's a lot of service paid to the obvious lack of a thumbs-down function. If a post or a user or a tag doesn't click, instead of actively nullifying discourse with the sad old downvote, you can just choose not to say "yes." And this new feature builds upon that, which I'm pretty sure you're getting at. It's the obvious potential for active filtering-out that harshes my buzz. No, I don't want to interact with this user. No, I don't want her comments coming up in my chatter. No, I don't want to consider this content. Nullifying action has a clear purpose- esp when it comes to spam or the rare troll- but it's also a pretty over-powerful tool. We already have so many ways to now actively filter voices out, I just see potential for this to become that. Maybe it won't. Probably it won't. But I don't mind being the shrill voice in these threads piping in about unintended consequences re tools that allow for nullification. Whatever though, mountains out of molehills? Site's still sex no matter what.
I go see music and there are certain friends in my life I would never invite to join me. They may think they're music fans but IMO, their taste sucks. So I don't invite them, I "filter" them. Honestly, and I'm not just trying to "sell this" but this helps my Hubski experience be more like my IRL friendships. As for the buzz kill of filtering, for those two hypothetical real-life friends I just mentioned, each has at least a dozen aspects of them that I'd gladly "follow" and when I do, they get a notification (my meataphor is now a digiphor) and they're happy -yay, positive. Any new music to share? Geez. Been a while.can't filter out one aspect of my friends/acquaintances in real life, so it's nice to take the same approach here.
I definitely disagree. Tomorrow I am having friends over to watch the World Cup Final. There are certain friends I've not invited because they are just not interested in that sort of thing, though I think they'd come over if I invited them. I have essentially "filtered" them. Maybe it won't. Probably it won't. But I don't mind being the shrill voice in these threads piping in about unintended consequences re tools that allow for nullification
actually, seems the norm this far in this thread. I'd be really keen on hearing suggestions on improvements etc. Site's still sex no matter what.
thanks pal, you know I think you're the Shizzle.
Hell, you're right. Eff. Alright. You know what? Gimme a sec. Shooting something your way to work on... we'll see if your turnaround is any better than mine...Any new music to share? Geez. Been a while.
Was going to sleep, now I must stay awake and I'm excited. Nice.
Btw, fwiw "value-affirmative feedback loop"
made me laugh out loud. It's a solid replacement phrase. I endorse it.
See my comment to flagamuffin. The best solution might be to shake up the layout of the feed posts. Insomniasexx has been throwing things at the wall in that respect.
The main advantage I see is that I'll be able to filter posts in larger tags like music. I can now follow #music and filter people whose tastes I don't agree with, without filteringignoring them entirely. Or be able to follow a person but be able to specifically ignore the music they post. Also echo ButterflyEffect's concerns, about tags being needlessly clunky. Maybe require a minimum post volume for a certain tag before this kicks in?
so what if I want to put somethin in #music and #vibesandjives@, someone can change the community tag and de-list that post from my #vibesandjives@ list?
Yes. You are only guaranteed the first tag will not change. However, users that haven't earned a hubwheel can't edit community tags on other user's posts. Previously, almost no one suggested (~5%) community tags, and fewer changed them. We will see if this changes significantly.
My idea was much better, it preserved the second tag. The two guaranteed tags made a whole hell of a lot of difference IMHO. You can still keep the second tag with this new system though. My question is why in the world did you want to get rid of the second tag? Granted, you'll still have a community tag, but this essentially went from miles ahead of reddit to only as far as you can throw a baseball ahead of reddit. The only reason I can think of is existing data structures. I'm guessing the entire system only supports 3 tags total, amirite? You should have just waited until the rewrite to add stuff like this. Assuming you guys moved over to a real database, you would have actual flexibility to test things like this without screwing up existing features. For existing users, you probably don't see how powerful the two tagging system is. You already have a network of users developed that you know and trust. For first time users, articles posted in two tags (AND a community tag) creates great content discovery and user discovery in general. Being a new user that hasn't fully developed a network of users to rely on, I'm not sure that I can anymore with this system. We'll see, though.
If the advantage of tags was that new users could discover more content via them and thereby could build the amount of people/tags they follow, then this has just been drastically improved imo. I can now go to #science and find posts I think are interesting and then follow science.user and the user that posted it. I may find that the user posts other content I dislike and can remain following their science tag. There are plenty of scenarios like this that exist. But if your main concern is the loss of the second tag, my guess (and this is only an experiment) is that you'll find it's largely unchanged. I look forward to your thoughts in a week or so. Definitely.but this essentially went from miles ahead of reddit to only as far as you can throw a baseball ahead of reddit.
If the worth of the site by your estimation, hinges upon the ability to offer two tags, you're in luck you still can. Given that less than 10% of posts were given community tags and you can still offer up 2 tags at time of post, honestly in this regard, not much has changed. I realize that the second tag can be changed by the community, but unless that number increases (which it may) I don't think you'll find much of a difference.
I can see one of two things happening. If community tags increase in popularity, then people will have to post their initial tags with the idea of, hmm, which of these tags am I willing to sacrifice? That, or community tags will decrease in popularity as a result of this feature, because people will feel they are infringing on the submitter's original choice in tags. Before, when you posted you weren't affecting the original post at all, now you can directly screw with people. Vindictive users could abuse this, bots could abuse this, etc.Given that less than 10% of posts were given community tags and you can still offer up 2 tags at time of post, honestly in this regard, not much has changed. I realize that the second tag can be changed by the community, but unless that number increases (which it may) I don't think you'll find much of a difference.
Keep in mind that you yourself only just got the ability to add a community tag. Bots will not have an easy time gaining this ability. Vindictive users are usually vindictive in all aspects of their use and easily identified and filtered.I can see one of two things happening.
there are any number of things, anticipated and unanticipated, that could come from this. I'm excited to see what those things are. Kick the tires, have an open mind about it and please keep sharing your feedback. It's imperative. Vindictive users could abuse this, bots could abuse this, etc.
Filtering is not an option in this case, though. So let's say I decide to create a bot or even just a separate account to screw with people's tags. All I have to do is post a bit and get one hubwheel (like I just did), and then I can use this account forever. Because you are saying using filtering is how you will prevent people from doing this, that is on a user level. Users don't know what community tags are suggested or voted on at all, so they won't know who to filter if the vandals just compartmentalize multiple accounts. So I can go right now into #blog for instance and just strip off everyone's community tag and randomize the tags to be completely off-topic, and now the only valid tag they have is their #blog tag. The only way to trace who did this would be for admins to get involved, which I was under the impression that your designs were to give the users control over moderation. Yes, the community can go in and fix all that, but if it were an automated process or just something someone spent a little bit of time on each day, would you want all your users to do this? They'd have to fix every single post every single time. Plus, it wouldn't be that tag that the poster chose, it would be exclusively a community tag at that point (hence, why I said you essentially got rid of the second tag). Do you as full-time job possessing admins also want to go around policing the site to figure out who these users are? This is mostly vandalism and juvenile, but we're talking about internet users here :)Keep in mind that you yourself only just got the ability to add a community tag. Bots will not have an easy time gaining this ability. Vindictive users are usually vindictive in all aspects of their use and easily identified and filtered.
Written on phone. Please excuse typos.So let's say I decide to create a bot or even just a separate account to screw with people's tags. All I have to do is post a bit and get one hubwheel (like I just did), and then I can use this account forever.
mk can the globally ignored add comm tags as is? I know we've never had a bot/spammer take the time to gain the ability to add one, but on the off chance they do, could they if they're globally ignored?Because you are saying using filtering is how you will prevent people from doing this, that is on a user level. Users don't know what community tags are suggested or voted on at all, so they won't know who to filter if the vandals just compartmentalize multiple accounts.
it's a valid concern, for sure. In the past we toyed with the idea of the comm tags showing who suggested them. Perhaps that's worth considering again? It's a potential problem that should be thought on though, I agree. Do you as full-time job possessing admins also want to go around policing the site to figure out who these users are?
even if I didn't have a full time job, I don't want this. Not ever. We want to leave as much moderation as we possibly can in your collective hands.
This is mostly vandalism and juvenile, but we're talking about internet users here :)
-I agree, it's worth being out in front of such things.
I'm going to have to separate this into two posts. I JUST NOW out of coincidence filled up my first hubwheel and tried out the community tagging feature on this post: https://hubski.com/pub?id=164815 I figured it would be easy to remove my community tag (which is dumb, #major?) or replace it with what was originally on it (#baseball#, #baseball.flagamuffin, #sports). I was just messing around trying to figure out how the community tag feature worked. Is there any way I can change my vote on what the community tag should be? I want to get that post back in #sports! I think I just screwed up flagamuffin's post (sorry dude!). PS: #baseball isn't linking properly above... I messed around with it and it's a problem with the paren before the hash symbol.
Is there any way I can change my vote on what the community tag should be? I want to get that post back in #sports! I think I just screwed up flagamuffin's post (sorry dude!).
You change your community tag by doing exactly what you did: appeal to the community. From time to time, I have asked people to add specific tags when my two were used up. Someone usually obliged within the hour. (I'm like four hours late on this.)
Congrats! You have to be careful w the comm tag, it's not editable. I've gotta be away from site for a bit. Bbl.
I think we all gotta be away from the site for a bit tng.
It's important, no doubt about it. Normally, I'd never declare as much but I thought it rude to be in the middle of a discussion and not say I was not going to be able to respond for a while. But yes, I realize we all need lives outside of the ole keyboard. I mean, where else will we gather our vague questions? -a personal tag I am gladly following btw.
No, we could have 80 tags if we wanted to. Actually, the second tags still reside in the data. There were a few reasons. The most concise are: 1) tags could then have between 0-5 tags, and 4 of the tags would be repetitive. You can see that elsewhere in this post, one of the biggest complaints is the feeling of clutter. Having two primary and two corresponding personal tags was a mess. 2) Community tags were on just over 5% of posts, and they were very rarely edited. We feel, and others have told us, that the community tags and personal tags are good ideas, but they were poorly executed. With this current approach, we simplify the functionality overall, and ramp up the utility of both of those functions. Give it a shot. Like I said, this is an experiment. Often what we learn from these experiments leads us to something we never could have never planned out in any number of discussions. In experimentation, I have found the personal tag to be a compelling content discovery tool. One thing I have also considered is how this plays into scaling. The conventional wisdom says that as tags grow more popular, the ratio of quality content will fall. However, what if I really want to get great #politics posts even after hundreds of users are submitting to it? Previously, I would have had to follow #politics, and filter an ever-increasingly large swath of users (in entirety, not just their politics posts) to cull out the chaff. It is a race, that eventually I would lose. Now, I have the option to browse #politics, find the best users submitting to it, and follow their personal politics tags. With this approach, my politics feed doesn't degrade over time. Of course, I need to work if I want new voices, but I won't have to be constantly filtering users to have a quality politics feed. Of course, for quieter tags, I can take the opposite approach: filtering a personal tag or two might be all it takes to keep the overall tag quality, and I need't filter out those users wholesale. In that respect, we now have two kinds of filtering: content-specific, and user-specific.I'm guessing the entire system only supports 3 tags total, amirite?
You can still keep the second tag with this new system though. My question is why in the world did you want to get rid of the second tag?
Being a new user that hasn't fully developed a network of users to rely on, I'm not sure that I can anymore with this system. We'll see, though.
I'm not really arguing that forcing tags into community tags was a bad idea, I had a very similar idea a week or two ago and was arguing that community tags were useless without forcing it in there in some way. That's primarily a display issue, though, that is easily solved. Right now we see this on this post: "text · #blog · #blog.hubski · #hubski" All you have to do is detect that #blog and #blog.hubski are in a row and simplify the display to: "text · #blog.hubski · #hubski" Or something. You could even have #blog.hubski be two links, one for #blog and the ".hubski" part link to #blog.hubski". That, I believe, is most people's concern with visual clutter. It's just redundant display. Once we get to #blog.hubski when reading things, we already know it's in #blog. We also know it's already posted by hubski, so maybe something like: "#blog@" Where the "@" is what gets a second link. I dunno I'm just throwing stuff out there right now. I guess my point with keeping a second tag that is forced by the poster actually helps not in user discovery, but tag discovery. For instance, I would have no idea #privacy or #surveillance existed without double tagged posts. Then, it does help with user discovery since now that I have #privacy and #surveillance followed, more posts are going to show up. Someone might tag #uspolitics and #surveillance, but say I'm not fond of #uspolitics. Mr. US Politics subscriber feels that as a community tag, #nsa is a better tag for a post, and I never even see the post or know that user exists.You can see that elsewhere in this post, one of the biggest complaints is the feeling of clutter. Having two primary and two corresponding personal tags was a mess.
One thing I have also considered is how this plays into scaling. The conventional wisdom says that as tags grow more popular, the ratio of quality content will fall. However, what if I really want to get great #politics posts even after hundreds of users are submitting to it? Previously, I would have had to follow #politics, and filter an ever-increasingly large swath of users (in entirety, not just their politics posts) to cull out the chaff. It is a race, that eventually I would lose. Now, I have the option to browse #politics, find the best users submitting to it, and follow their personal politics tags. With this approach, my politics feed doesn't degrade over time. Of course, I need to work if I want new voices, but I won't have to be constantly filtering users to have a quality politics feed.
That's actually been the option that is the most attractive replacement in my mind. However, I am not sure that new users will be able to figure out that the link is split. It might be worth trying. We would also have color splitting going on as well, which may or may not help. For example, if you followed #blog.hubski, the entire thing would be blue. However, if you only followed #blog, then just the blog portion would be blue. -That splitting of colors might be instructive when it comes to the split link, however. It's probably worth mocking up. It's not terrible when the color splits. However, I do see people stumbling on the split link.You could even have #blog.hubski be two links, one for #blog and the ".hubski" part link to #blog.hubski". That, I believe, is most people's concern with visual clutter. It's just redundant display. Once we get to #blog.hubski, we already know it's in #blog.
Idea: just have all the tags as shown before, but not including "#tag.user" tags. If a user then follows the "#tag.user" tag and that's the only reason that post would show up in the feed, have it show up at the end of the list as: by user #tag1 - #tag2 - (#tag2.user) surrounded by parenthesis. It's otherwise implied that the #tag1.user and #tag2.user tags exist. Maybe in the post page itself, you can have links for users to follow the #[tag].[user] personal tags. Of course, I don't really know what you do with community tags, but I assume there isn't a #[community].[user] for that specific post? So maybe that would get a little confusing.Title
I like it, but then I'm not opposed to the way it is currently, I don't find it ugly or cluttered. I mean, the site itself is... text heavy altogether. I also think the progression currently educates as to the process. #science then #science.user suggests that perhaps the second tag is a subset of science, specific to that user. -It's visually informative. That said, this suggestion looks nice.
Honestly if it were to be supported I would much prefer arbitrary numbers of tags over one or two. Okay, maybe it should be limited to avoid an instagram-like hundred-tags-I'm-so-funny scenario, but the ability to tag posts with both general and specific tags would be nice, and many items fit under several specific tags. This is a nightmare in terms of the simplified non-repetitive tag display I'm advocating here on this same post. (Frankly, I like the simplified display better than arbitrary tag numbers.) Everything's a balancing act.
nice. i rest a bit more assured. edit: ok wait now it kinda looks disorganized and nasty. Any way to compress the spillage of tags?However, users that haven't earned a hubwheel can't edit community tags on other user's posts.
I was thinking about this earlier! The system I was thinking of was just having the tags as they were, but being able to follow a [user]#[tag] sort of deal. No need for any changes in the old tag system, it's just like following a user and filtering that user's posts to only show the tag that you subscribed to. EDIT: Or, I guess, #[tag].[user]