Private tags instead of bookmarks?

September 11, 2005 11:59 PM

On bookmarking of threads, especially in Ask Metafilter. [more inside]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken to Feature Requests at 11:59 PM (13 comments total)

Especially in AskMe, I find myself bookmarking threads on my work PC, or my home PC, or my work laptop, or being smart when I think of it and saving them to delicious, or finding them in gleuschke's feed and saving them in Bloglines, and basically it's a mess.

I remember I pointed out when tags were new that quonsar was tagging threads with his username, which seemed counterproductive, but this would actually be one way for me to do it, I was thinking today -- just flag everything I wanted to find again with 'wonderchicken'.

Of course, that'd be peeing in the pool, and if everyone did it, it'd be an unholy mess.

So, like I suggested back when we started talking about folks(faux)onomizing the filters, how about private tags as well as public? Or better, tags that can be public, private, or both? That'd allow us to delicious-like keep track of threads we want to, privately, as well as growing the tagbase publicly.

Or, if anyone has a better idea, well, that'd be cool too.

I know Matt's busy, and there's a pony backlog, but I thought I'd throw this out there to see if anyone has any ideas.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:00 AM on September 12, 2005

It'd be cooler still if Matt would just whip up a del.icio.us API using thingy that like flagging a thread/comment allows one to bookmark it.
posted by riffola at 12:08 AM on September 12, 2005

I don't really understand. We still can't tag the majority of other people's posts, so why not get into the habit of using del.icio.us, so you can tag anything, as many times as you like, making it much easier for you to find what you want?

Also, even if twenty people did tag a post with their username, I don't think that counts as an unholy mess -- that counts as people using the system.

I wish Matt would open up tagging. MeFi is not yet a folksonomy; and del.icio.us is the only option in my view.
posted by nthdegx at 12:29 AM on September 12, 2005

Might be helpful for Mac OS X 10.4 users who want to drop links into del.icio.us.
posted by Rothko at 12:53 AM on September 12, 2005

you're not asking for private tags mr. chicken, what you want is a favorites system.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:20 AM on September 12, 2005

Well, sir, that's true. But the brainfart I had while posting suggested to me that maybe leveraging the existing tags stuff might be easier to implement and more flexible.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:31 AM on September 12, 2005

just flag everything I wanted to find again with 'wonderchicken'.

And I just realized, belatedly, that I can't tag threads other people have posted (yet?), only that I have posted, so things kinda collapse in a puff of logic, anyway. Damn brain of mine.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:34 AM on September 12, 2005

...or what nthdegx said. I give up for today.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:41 AM on September 12, 2005

To simplify the process howabout using a del.icio.us metafilter bookmarklet?

Just add it to your favorites, change the del.icio.us username appropriately and you're done. Then, just 2 clicks (and no typing) and it's added to your del.icio.us bookmarks with a "metafilter" tag.
posted by freshgroundpepper at 4:03 AM on September 12, 2005

doh! Matt's javascript screening screwed it up. After bookmarking it, replace everything before "location" with "javascript:".

It worked on preview :)
posted by freshgroundpepper at 4:05 AM on September 12, 2005

I, for one, favour the mefi tag.
posted by nthdegx at 4:14 AM on September 12, 2005

I agree with nthdegx. And askme for the green.
posted by grouse at 7:30 AM on September 12, 2005

Now that this is off the front page, I can say: hey, thanks for the namedrop, Stav. Warmed the cockles, it did.
posted by gleuschk at 1:56 PM on September 12, 2005