'important info' on thread tagging please read

Hello ATS!

I am rather OCD about tagging threads, and I notice a BIG MISTAKE being made so often concerning the tagging of threads.
I think it needs to be addressed being all OCD about it so here I go..........

You MUST put a comma between each descriptive tag......or they will NOT be traceable tag-wise......

GOOD EXAMPLE: tag, thread tagging, site information, tag rules, how to tag

BAD EXAMPLE: tag thread tagging site information tag rules how NOT to tag

You see, in able to do a tag search one must write the EXACT MATCH to the tag that is tagged, and if you tag a thread with allot of information but NO comma....like....
(alien abduction UFO gulf breeze sighting florida flying saucer)
then a person would need to write that out exactly as written,
(alien abduction UFO gulf breeze sighting florida flying saucer)
for it to match in the computer brain and send you to that exact thread.......the comma between information tags will allow for the thread to be searchable by just writing......gulf breeze (with a comma after gulf breeze, then a comma after )......and you will then find all the gulf breeze threads. Kapeesh?

With the comma between each descriptive tag, then all the descriptive words will bind those common threads together.

I see so many excellent tag words for threads wasted by being in a long stream of words that have no commas between them.

PLEASE remember to break up the tag streams with commas.

Thank you very much ATS for your time spent reading this!

(this rant was brought to you by TRG)

Flagged and tagged theRiverGoddess.

I've seen this going on for a while and I'm glad you brought it up.
I'd really like to see a tag search box put somewhere on ATS so that they would get more use.


Hey folks, read it and tag it............

Thanks for bringing this up TRG.

More on this subject in an OCD vein.

Stick to the subject matter when tagging a thread, please?

The thread tagging function is not intended to be an editorial medium, it's for better facilitating search functions.

Relevant comments on a particular thread's topic should be posted in the thread itself, not inappropriately inserted into the thread's tags.

And it should go without saying, irrelevant, juvenile comments don't belong anywhere on ATS, save those for YouTube.

Thanks

reply to post by theRiverGoddess

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I like to tag.

But a lot of my motivation evaporated when they took the points away that they used to give for tagging old threads. I would really like them to bring that back.

It is a valuable thing to have the vast database tagged meaningfully. And, with tons of librarian experience, I think I'm a pretty good tagger.

You are one of the top taggers BO XIAN, (5,381)

I think the points were offered at the beginning to get the system going. We had every member going through all the threads to get them tagged and it got a lot accomplished in a short time. It was a good thing at the time, but it also devalued the point system.

points groints..............tag for taggings sake not for points.
Be good for goodness sake not for good Karma............


TAG YOUR IT!

1. Thanks much. I didn't know it was over 5,000. Is that info readily available?

2. hmmmm devalued the point system?

3. THEN CHANGE the value of each tag. Even 1/10th or 1/20th of a point per tag is a lot more motivating than 0.000.

4. There's a LOT of useful info in the archives--even in the long dead ancient threads. Particularly about some topics. And even though I like tagging, I hate doing it for zip, 0.000. It's insulting of my time.

5. I do think the point system and tagging system needs to be changed somewhat with regard to tagging.

6. Certainly tagging dead threads should earn more points or fractions of a point than tagging current threads. It may be that higher priority topic dead threads should earn more points.

7. I think there should be a way for a tagger to rate a dead thread in terms of likely interest or usefulness AS WELL AS to note if such a thread has 1-3 posts; less than 10 posts etc. As a librarian, that sort of info can be quite useful to researchers and would be easy to add with the tagging. But the system would need to provide for it.

8. I'd really appreciate the leadership taking another look at this issue. The FOIA documents and a ton of ancient archive stuff all needs a quality tagging system. There is no reason to avoid giving SUITABLE, FITTING point/fraction of point value for the tagging. Lots of stuff in behalf of ATS deserves points. This activity requiring members' time, thoughtfulness, intellect, perspective, experience etc. to do well--deserves points as well as any other IN-BEHALF-OF-ATS activity, imho.

9. I think this is more than an academic issue. Any number of contingencies could arise when finding the data in ATS archives COULD result in life and death situations perhaps for 10's of thougsands of individuals. INFORMATION is more than valuable--it can be priceless. But UNINDEXED INFO is almost the same as NO info--which is the same as IGNORANCE.

Springer? Anyone? how about reconsidering this issue?

Which reminds me . . . no way to ping folks to individual posts. Sigh.

Which reminds me . . . why is it so derned difficult to select text out of a posting quote to delete it? It just does not work about 80% of the time.

cheers and Happy New Year to all of good heart.

reply to post by BO XIAN

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You bet, all the information is readily available.

An alphabetical list of all members that tagged threads is at this page:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

A handy search box for all tags is at this page:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

The reason I said it devalued the point system is because a new member could open an acct. and have 5,000 point within an hour when tagging only 3 year old threads that paid 50 points per tag.

Thanks for your kind reply.

I can understand that some would think that 50 per tagging of old threads was too high a salary! LOL. As though the points were REALLY WORTH tons.

Well, then, make them worth 5 points or 10 compared to 3 or 5 for recent threads. Whatever.

But to throw out the baby with the bath seems counter productive toward getting all the archives tagged.

I think those who do good tagging should be rewarded and maybe given extra points for such quality work or even some minimal hourly pay. I think it's that important.

But I really would like to see the threads rated on 1-3 dimensions along with the tagging.

Maybe on:

1. number of posts
2. meaningfulness of the posts
3. importance of the topic to average daily life

and maybe

4. potential importance of topic for

A) END TIMES/DISASTER/TRAUMA contingencies
B) ET/UFO contingencies
C) ECONOMIC contingencies

whatever few such would be a very high prioity. Thread titles can help on such score but some titles are quite obscure.

Sure, it would be subjective--but the software could average the scores amongst different taggers. And those of us with librarian experience would likely be reasonably objective. We have had to be in our librarian roles.

anyway--Thanks for your kind words. Have a blessed, fulfilling and safe New Year.

well I am STILL seeing LOOOONG tags that will not help anybody.

Noone is going to come on here and do a search using:

nasa is making an announcment on may 15th

I am DEAD SERIOUS that the above example is a real tag SOMEONE put up

People, a TAG is one or 2 words.

NOT a flippen sentence of words...
such as: space moon stars mars the universe....
That is an example of a LAME and waste of time tag.
Using a COMMA between those words turns them into helpful tags.

People think they are SMART enough to post on ATS yet they are not smart enough to figure out the tag system and this makes me wonder......
What are they thinking?

reply to post by theRiverGoddess

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This is something i only came to realise a few weeks or a month ago. I was guilty of the long tags, not because they were sentences but because i did not realise a comma break was required.

Lesson was learned and now i continue lol. I do think people knowing how to tag threads properly REALLY increases the value of this website.

Good to know, rivergoddess. I've been doing it wrong too and it's usually the last thing I think about. I will start tagging more often.

Rush