Tagging no longer gives you points

Check your U2U.

Just look at the tags for this thread.

People missed the idea.

The reason for tagging was not for "points grabbing" it was to tag the threads with relevant terms to the thread you were tagging.

People were tagging threads with the name of the thread, with the name of the forum the thread was in, with the name of the user who authored the thread.

That makes it pretty obvious that ZERO percent effort was going into tagging for the proper reason and one hundred percent effort was going into tagging for points.

Just the other day one member tagged over 100 posts from the Introductions forum, within minutes with the word "Intro".

The examples could go on for a week, but that was a recent one that stood out in my head.

Or how about tagging 3 year old threads with "cool" in order to get some points.

Yeah, very valuable...

To any of the Administrators:

Does This mean that because someone is very proficient at something here, that it is now considered Abusive??

If so, please let me know.
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To SpittinCobra:

Thank you very much.
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Mechanic 32.


[edit on 6/22/2006 by Mechanic 32]

[edit on 6/22/2006 by Mechanic 32]

All you have to do is look below this thread at the tags given and see how you feel about tagging properly. My biggest point in tagging threads was to think about the thread I had just read, then think about what I would type in if I was looking for that very subject. Sad to see it removed, but I will keep on tagging, because I would really like to see the tagging that some of us had done actually have an eventual purpose. Points or no points, it was nice while it lasted, but that wasn't the sole reason for my doing it, just a nice little bonus for your time.

There are still many other ways to make points.
Write for ATSNN.
Make a PODcast.
Become a Writer, Fighter, or Scholar.
Start a thread.
Reply to a thread.
Win contests like the Member Photo Edit Contest.

Now that you don't get points for tagging just consider points to be more valued.

I completely support removing points for tagging. People do abuse it for whatever reason. I got tired of reporting inappropriate tags. They were showing up on every thread. The ones that bother me most are the personal opinions on the thread subject.

On one 9/11 thread I saw recently, two tags were: "illogical thinking" and "ponerology", which is a division of theology dealing with evil. On a 9/11 thread! If I were looking for something about the 9/11 subject, I would NOT look up freaking ponerology!!! I'd like to smack whoever did that!

niteboy82 has the right idea. If you want to find that thread, what word or phrase would you look up? Certainly not "Stupid Idiot Lies", which is one of the tags for this thread about an Iranian Drone Plane...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

/rant

Thank you!

I knew we had people tagging threads for points, I thought they were actually reading them and tagging them appropriately. I found out the other day there were people opening many windows and tagging huge numbers of threads in minutes with utterly worthless tags.

I then found out people were getting enough points off this abuse of the system to gain access to the Really Above Top Secret Forum, custom items, etc... in a week instead of the 4 -6 months we had intended when we set up the RATS forum.

When you find a loophole in a system and you exploit it for the purpose of gaining something faster than you would have gained it without the exploit it is definitely not ethical, it's cheating and it's abuse of the system.

They say what a man does when nobody is looking is the level by which you can measure his honor.

The REASON RATS requires points to get in is to make certain the Members who have access are dedicated to our genre, are committed to contributing to the site and have earned that access through quality contributions NOT hyper tagging.

This hyper tagging has diminished THREE important aspects of this site and I am fairly upset about it, it has made many of the tags worthless, it has diminished the exclusivity of RATS, and it has created a window in which anyone could have gained access to RATS in matter of days instead of weeks/months which defeats the "safe house" aspect of RATS.

Tagging will continue, it was never meant to be a source of points and now it's not.

To defend using an exploit like this as being "proficient" at using the system is the same as claiming to be an efficient eater when you eat all homemade cookies and leave none for the rest of the family.

I think some people need to read my post on ethics and what that means around here.

One more point, each and every staff member of this site is fully AUTHORIZED to deal with every aspect of this board. The T.A.C. you agreed to when you joined this community specifically states you must cooperate with and comply with ALL STAFF when asked to do so.

The only reason I have taken time out of a totally SLAMMED morning to type this is so there will be a permanent record for the next time one of the Mods gets his "authority" questioned.

Springer...

I'm not really that bothered that the points rewards for tagging has been removed. I don't tag for points, I tag for making thread searching easier for myself and others.

Actually, now that i read springer's contribution to this thread, which is very appreciated mind you, I see that although it was nice to get a small reward of a few points here and there for people who did not abuse the system, that is all it really did. If you look at it with the big picture in mind, i believe that if points are more limited, therefore harder to get, once people get to a certain number of points which allow you to do such things as enter RATS etc, you will be more qualified and experienced to do so..I hope i did not anger any MODs by creating this thread, i just wasnt really clear about what was going on or what the term "abuse of tagging" really meant. I am now very clear about what was going on and as Springer said we really shoud'nt question admns about decisions like these, because they would'nt make them without good reason.

If nobody has anything else to say, I would not be opposed to closing this thread, my question has been answered and i feel alot better about the situation now. Thank you Springer.

Hacking It


I'm not an admin, but I hope it's clear from Springer's posts that bypassing the intent of board features and leveraging exploits is not the kind of proficiency the administrators want to encourage.

Also, as I hope is becoming clear by now, members who seek to play the staff off against each other are in for a rude awakening.

We're a team. If you take on one of us, you're taking on all of us.

Despite the drama, if anyone has any further questions about this issue or site policy in general, please don't hesitate to contact us.

We really are here to help.

I think it is great that points are no longer given for tagging. I hope it stops all the abuse of tagging. Great job ATS staff for fixing the problem!!!

By "very proficient" do you mean tagging 100+ threads with "intro" in the introduction forum in a matter of 2 minutes?

We can see the tags as they're being created, and can see when someone does something like that. It's been happening with increasing frequency... and I simply became fed-up that a custom technology no other boards have, that took me a few days to create, for the purpose of helping members categorize and find content, has been calously abused to gain arbitrary point totals.

By "very proficient" do you mean tagging 100+ threads with "intro" in the introduction forum in a matter of 2 minutes?
**************************************************************
How is this even humanly possible???

I cannot even open a thread in two minutes. I do support the crackdown on tagging abuse though.

Thank you SkepticOverlord for creating a very helpful way to find threads. You put lots of hard work into making the board a better place and do not deserve for things to be abused like that.

well...I sure hope I wasn't considered an "abuser".

I will admit that I did a lot of tagging. And, I got a lot of points for it. But, as a serious student of History (which greatly benefits from a thorough system for collating information) I felt that helping ATS develop it's file system was a useful
thing. So I tried to post relevant tags; although, I will admit to writing
"dgtempe's cool avatar" on a couple of them, and I apologize to the community-at-large if that was a part of the problem.

(As a side note, I also received a whole bunch of points and a nicely crimson color change for stuff I posted on the "member photography" thread in BTS, and I greatly appreciate the mods' willingness to reward posting efforts)

I'll continue to tag because of the value of it for collating information and I hope others will as well...but I will refrain from any more comments on dgtempe's fixation with beautiful eyes in her avatars

If you just consider the amount of research and writing that is out there it becomes obvious that we do not suffer from any dearth of information, but simply the means to find it.

Edit: Now that I see this actually posted I realize what an exercise in self-absorption it must seem; other than the mods who have been on the "member photos" thread, I doubt if anyone even recognizes me...

I reckon I'm just enjoying the sense of community I find here on ATS.



[edit on 03o06e304706e 47 by apocalypticon]

A scam of the system was made widely available to some members... and exploited in a manner contrary to the spirit of the tagging concept.

You have done the right thing as far as i'm concerned. I have been a member of ATS for over a year now but have only really started to participate over the last few week (testing the water), I must say, of all the discussion forums iI have frequented over the years this one has by far the highest level of integrity

I thought the points for tags idea was nice, a bit of encouragement, but the second thought to cross my mind was 'boy is this gonna get abused', sad to see I was right. I have, on occassions, spent upwards of five minutes trying to think of a suitable tag for a thread, only to give up when nothing relevant comes to mind. My upload space is a little larger because of those tagging points but I shalll not miss the irrelevant claptrap that some people seem to have added to the system, a prime example being the addition of 'april fool' to the tags for this thread, did I miss something? is it not June? Unfortunately idiots seem to be an all pervasive part of internet life, and indeed life in general!

BTW, I feel I should own up to cross referencing the 'does anyone have a spare 14million vietnamese dong?' thread with the words 'loose change' relevant and amusing I thought, a little comic relief while researching a more serious subject?
Yes my SOH gets the better of me sometimes!

Anyway, I digress, ALL HAIL TO THE STAFF AT ATS!
Was what I came here to say, your forum has made me laugh and cry and left me with much to think about every time I visit, what more could we all ask for?

Keep up the sterling work.
Regards,
Q

I know this may sound a bit sad, but i spent about 30 minutes tagging different threads that interest me today.
It was only after i had called it a day, that i noticed my points tally had not increased.

I used the suggestion button airing my problem, to which SpittinCobra replied with the answer. I wasn't aware at this time there was a problem with tagging, but i now know that it has been abused big time. This Will not stop me tagging, as i tend to tag any thread i read as a matter of course.

I would like to give out a big thank you to those people, and you know who you are, for the way the system has been abused.

Does it matter how many points you have? You are here, among thousands of individuals who can offer any information that you care to seek. That alone is far more worthy than any points.

My only bug bear is that those that have abused the system, will no longer bother to tag anymore, because there is no visible reward for them.

If you go back to the 'beginning' there are a massive amount of tags. Because they accumulated the most amount of points. Come forward to the present day and you will find the tags are less, or don't even exist.

I have to say that this redundancy of points for tagging is a good idea, and has, and will end the idiotic tags that have been made in the past.

To all those that have tagged in an adult manner, with no thought to raise points, i say thank you.
To all those that abused the system, then shame on you..........

Edit for just noticing the tags on this thread. What the hell as April fools got to do with this? This just goes to show the mentality of some people. Its not hard to see why the points for tagging was dropped.

[edit on 22-6-2006 by Bikereddie]

Nothing.

Tag removed.

Special thanks to that particular member for being one of the straws that broke the camel's back. I won't mention your name in public because I'm better than that, but just so you know yourself... you helped ruin it for everyone else.

Bravo!!