Retrotag Project - details and requests

May 28, 2007 8:39 AM

So we've been working on backtagging old posts for about five days now. We've gotten about 10% of them done. I just wanted to drop a note here for anyone who missed the sidebar note, the podcast note or the other MeTa thread. If you'd like to help with tagging old untagged posts, drop me an email or IM with your usernumber and email address and I'll get you set up. If you're already helping, thank you very much, we're making great strides.
posted by jessamyn to feature requests at 8:39 AM (105 comments total)

MeFi: 30,643 untagged posts. | 2,920 tagged so far.
AskMeFi: 7,784 untagged posts. | 1,642 tagged so far.
posted by jessamyn at 8:41 AM on May 28, 2007

quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar quonsar

how hard could it be?
posted by quonsar at 9:20 AM on May 28, 2007 [7 favorites]

Guess who's not getting a back-tagging badge?
posted by Mid at 9:47 AM on May 28, 2007

When this is finished, how about the ability to flag a post for addition to a tag repair queue? Not that I'm still angry about the time I wasted preparing an awesome post that would have effectively doubled this or anything.
posted by nowonmai at 9:48 AM on May 28, 2007

Its really cool just watching these numbers go up. There are about 50 people helping out at this point.

MeFi: 30,400 untagged posts. | 3,163 tagged so far.
AskMeFi: 7,660 untagged posts. | 1,766 tagged so far.

If everyone also wants to go back and make sure their own posts are tagged, that would help.
posted by jessamyn at 10:15 AM on May 28, 2007

jessamyn, what date was tagging first introduced?
posted by peacay at 10:23 AM on May 28, 2007

Looks like January 18, 2005, but tags weren't mandatory until more recently.
posted by jessamyn at 10:28 AM on May 28, 2007

What nowonmai said. For example, this post about super-expensive playgrounds is not playground (and the fact that it is tagged playrounds is not very helpful).
posted by alms at 10:29 AM on May 28, 2007

Is there any indication of what tags have been applied by the poster and what tags have been applied by the committee?
posted by Mitheral at 10:42 AM on May 28, 2007

I fixed it, though the OP could have changed that and an email to him probably would have resulted in the same effect.

Ultimately we'd like to open up the tagging so that people can edit and fix stuff like this, but we want to make sure we've got a system in place so that it doesn't become a platform for edit wars and snarkiness to get in the way of whatever usefulness decent tags add to the place.
posted by jessamyn at 10:43 AM on May 28, 2007

I'm really having fun doing this! I'm kind of slacking, though, because I'm finding so many things to check out on the web that I missed before.
posted by trip and a half at 11:12 AM on May 28, 2007

I sort of want to volunteer, but I'm so afraid that I'll do it badly.
posted by chrismear at 12:00 PM on May 28, 2007

Just to add a note of whiny dissent into this, I still don't get smooshing up names; "KurtVonnegut" and "EastBerlin" strike me as being really counter-intuitive, search term-wise.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 12:21 PM on May 28, 2007

I encourage you all to use the "delicioushumanflesh" tag wherever appropriate.
posted by baphomet at 12:46 PM on May 28, 2007

nowonmai: "When this is finished, how about the ability to flag a post for addition to a tag repair queue?"

Allowing anyone to tag anything would solve this. Not that I'm still angry about the tag oligarchy decision.
posted by Plutor at 12:53 PM on May 28, 2007

Weeeeeee! This is fun!
posted by brundlefly at 12:54 PM on May 28, 2007

I've been working too much; I keep reading the linked text as backdating old posts.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 12:54 PM on May 28, 2007

Alvy, there's no reason why you can't do both- I do "kurtvonnegut" and "vonnegut". I figure most people will not be trying to find Vonnegut posts by searching for "kurt".
posted by oneirodynia at 12:59 PM on May 28, 2007

Baby steps Plutor. This was the simplest thing we could get rolling on this week.

MeFi: 29,726 untagged posts. | 3,837 tagged so far.
AskMeFi: 7,313 untagged posts. | 2,113 tagged so far.
posted by jessamyn at 1:02 PM on May 28, 2007

MeFi: 29,612 untagged posts. | 3,951 tagged so far.
AskMeFi: 7,259 untagged posts. | 2,167 tagged so far.

w00t.
posted by Tuwa at 1:32 PM on May 28, 2007

d'oh! The perils of not refreshing an oldish page first.
posted by Tuwa at 1:32 PM on May 28, 2007

Just to add a note of whiny dissent into this, I still don't get smooshing up names; "KurtVonnegut" and "EastBerlin" strike me as being really counter-intuitive, search term-wise.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 3:21 PM on May 28

Same here. And occasionally it makes for strange combos that can be read in more than the intended way (e.g. "barrecommendations," and probably more common/more easily mistaken ones)
posted by Tuwa at 1:34 PM on May 28, 2007

Unless it's in quotes, though, shouldn't a search for Vonnegut find KurtVonnegut? I suppose a note could be added to the search page regarding how best to search for proper names, although I wonder how many people actually click on the search link instead of just typing in their search in the box at upper right.
posted by booksherpa at 1:41 PM on May 28, 2007

As I understand it, the idea with tags is that you wouldn't just have 'kurtvonnegut'; you'd have 'vonnegut' as well, thus catching both common search terms.
posted by chrismear at 1:41 PM on May 28, 2007

Why would you smoosh together "barrecommendations"? It's a post about bars and recommendations. Or barre commendations. As a general rule, you smoosh proper names because people are not going to find very relevant results when searching for "mike" while looking for a specific person; or "west" while searching for "west egg". I realize there are still people new to tagging conventions, but hopefully as they come i to more general use the idea that "greatbritain" is going to yield more specific results than "great" and "britain" (if indeed searching for the country), will make perfect sense.
posted by oneirodynia at 2:01 PM on May 28, 2007

omg I just tagged one of mathowie's old posts. Heh.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:08 PM on May 28, 2007

most of my moldy oldies tagged. gawd, the memories.
posted by moonbird at 2:11 PM on May 28, 2007

omg I just tagged one of mathowie's old posts. Heh.

Eh, the link was broken anyway.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:14 PM on May 28, 2007

im in ur threads taggin ur posts
posted by GuyZero at 2:17 PM on May 28, 2007

You smoosh any multiple-word tags because a space is the delimiter between tags. So "newyork", "harddrive", "sexuallytransmitteddiseases", etc.
posted by Tuwa at 2:17 PM on May 28, 2007

I'm tagging my old posts... I was even nerdier in 2000 than I am now, believe it or not, with about 60 NewsFilterish posts with now-dead links. Using the "deadlink" tag hurts...
posted by wendell at 2:18 PM on May 28, 2007

I don't understand the point of a deadlink tag. Are people going to be searching for dead links?
posted by taz at 2:33 PM on May 28, 2007

Seeing it on a post you've found while searching for something else will save you an unnecessary click

And it reminds me never to post news stories ever again.
posted by wendell at 2:45 PM on May 28, 2007

When in doubt, overtag. "kurt", "vonnegut", "kurtvonnegut" if you like.
posted by cortex at 2:47 PM on May 28, 2007

war, gulfwar iraq iraqwar bush georgewbush gwb

One thing to say about the newsfilter posts is they really don't age very well.

Mefi: 29,107 untagged posts. (4,456 so far.)
Ask: 7,042 untagged posts. (2,384 so far.)
posted by jessamyn at 3:27 PM on May 28, 2007

wendell writes "And it reminds me never to post news stories ever again."

No kidding.
posted by brundlefly at 3:38 PM on May 28, 2007

It's been pretty fun tagging so far! Even if you don't want to help tag other's posts, you could so us all a favor and tag your own (I'm looking at YOU, mathowie, whose post I tagged the other day. Bwa ha ha).
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 3:39 PM on May 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

Heh. I've tagged a couple of mathowie's posts, too. But right now I'm getting a ColdFusion error at the tagging link.
posted by trip and a half at 3:43 PM on May 28, 2007

Yeah, just saw that CF error. Not sure what it's about, but the batsignal has been lit.
posted by cortex at 3:46 PM on May 28, 2007

taz writes "I don't understand the point of a deadlink tag. Are people going to be searching for dead links?"

Lets Matt (and any willing to scrape the site) do some queries to determine things like percentage of dead links, who has the most, etc.
posted by Mitheral at 4:43 PM on May 28, 2007

So far I've tagged 3 posts about legalization of marijuana. "marijuana" is now in my top 10 tags.

*hits it... exhales*

Far fucking out...
posted by brundlefly at 4:51 PM on May 28, 2007

Pawn shop has my thumbs.
posted by buzzman at 5:09 PM on May 28, 2007

I like it that it gives a completely false picture of my posting history.
posted by Tuwa at 5:19 PM on May 28, 2007

If anyone who is already tagging would like a link to a version of the tagging tool that has words already inserted via some yahoo words thing, email or IM me. I don't know if it would be better or worse, but it would be interesting to try out.
posted by jessamyn at 5:31 PM on May 28, 2007

It's just now occurred to me that I may be giving a false impression of the conditions the questions were posted under, for instance when someone comes back with the answer and I tuck the answer into the tags. Hm....
posted by Tuwa at 5:32 PM on May 28, 2007

I have been tagging when I am on the Reference Desk (so it is sort of work related). Hard not to have the cataloguer in me take over and add too many tags (if that is possible). Very fun seeing some of the old posts again.
posted by Razzle Bathbone at 5:38 PM on May 28, 2007

I don't understand the point of a deadlink tag

Well, it would be pretty dumb to go through every old post, click on the links, and then not record when they are dead.
posted by smackfu at 6:30 PM on May 28, 2007

There's also the descriptive function that tags serve— along with searching, other tags being available on a post mean that a user (or at least I use tags like this when I search) can quickly browse and get a snapshot of what the post is like. Which means that GreatBritian can be a bit more handy from that perspective. Plus, if you click on that and you get other things that have been tagged with the same scheme, that's handy too...
posted by klangklangston at 7:08 PM on May 28, 2007

I like it that it gives a completely false picture of my posting history.

I have a minimal posting history around here, but according to my tags I'm about 40% of a famous Portuguese writer.
posted by Hadroed at 7:09 PM on May 28, 2007

I've been using brokenlink. deadlink has fewer letters though...
posted by carsonb at 7:11 PM on May 28, 2007

Mefi: 28,530 untagged posts. (5,033 so far.)
Ask: 6,754 untagged posts. (2,672 so far.)

We're at 18% right now, this is really exceeding my expectations. Nice work everyone.
posted by jessamyn at 7:26 PM on May 28, 2007

Thanks for the patient response!

In my previous comment I meant to add "Seconding trip and a half." It's been really fun seeing slices of MeFi history, AND I came across a sweet Neal Stephenson interview the other day!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:28 PM on May 28, 2007

I've been using "brokenlink", too. About 5% of what I've tagged are dead, so far.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:33 PM on May 28, 2007

The "Give Me More" button on the new auto-suggested-word interface spits me out onto the old setup. This is my sad face.
posted by carsonb at 7:58 PM on May 28, 2007

ok carsonb, put on your happy face. should be fixed.
posted by pb at 8:13 PM on May 28, 2007

the batsignal has been lit.
posted by cortex

Did someone say 'hatsignal???????
posted by The Deej at 8:22 PM on May 28, 2007

As long as we're on the topic of tags, it looks like the AskMe top 150 page could use some re-calibration. It looks a little samey, size-wise.
posted by carsonb at 8:24 PM on May 28, 2007

(This is my happy face. =o)
posted by carsonb at 8:26 PM on May 28, 2007

I just got one of my husband's posts from before we met. Aw.
posted by sugarfish at 8:31 PM on May 28, 2007

Awwww, that's so sweet. Not a batshitinsane tag I hope.
posted by The Deej at 8:38 PM on May 28, 2007

It's either late at night—or very interesting that there's a doublepost tag. I was wondering, what is one to do with an undeleted double in this grand tag scheme of things?
posted by carsonb at 11:14 PM on May 28, 2007

It wasn't until I looked at my profile that I realized I've been using "deadlink" and "brokenlink." Yay inconsistency!
posted by brundlefly at 12:00 AM on May 29, 2007

I'm using brokenlink because last time I checked it had more tags. Yay conformity!
posted by liquorice at 4:15 AM on May 29, 2007

I'm using "brokenlink", as well. But I just used "double" instead of "doublepost". Feh.
posted by trip and a half at 4:36 AM on May 29, 2007

Haha, no, not batshitinsane. I made him come in the office and pick tags and then he realized it was his post.
posted by sugarfish at 6:15 AM on May 29, 2007

MeFi: 27,888 untagged posts. | 5,675 tagged so far.
AskMeFi: 6,462 untagged posts. | 2,964 tagged so far.

20% !
posted by carsonb at 6:18 AM on May 29, 2007

We can do find/replace for stuff like deadlink/brokenlink at some later time, so don't worry too much about it. Also I'm pretty sure that CamelCase and lowercase all turn out the same [i.e. BatShitInSane and batshitinsane are all the same] so feel free to save some time and ignore the shift key.

20%!
posted by jessamyn at 6:25 AM on May 29, 2007

Did someone say 'hatsignal???????

*rushes in panting*

Here I am to save the day!

*looks around*

Oh, you were just riffing. Bah.

*goes back to hatcave, takes hatnap*
posted by languagehat at 7:56 AM on May 29, 2007 [1 favorite]

CamelCase and lowercase all turn out the same
MeRdE or mErDe anyway merde, I spent a long time correcting myself; now what about speling cokups?
posted by adamvasco at 8:19 AM on May 29, 2007

Oh, you were just riffing. Bah.

Sorry! I shall keep the signal hidden until needed.

But I thought he said... you know...
posted by The Deej at 11:16 AM on May 29, 2007

I'm gaining new respect for news outlets that have maintained permanent links to articles posted years ago. Especially in comparison to, for example, Yahoo News - I think every one of their links I've clicked on has been broken.
posted by lalex at 11:31 AM on May 29, 2007 [1 favorite]

It's kind of freaking me out that I am modifying posts of mefites that have been here far longer and are vastly more prolific than I.

It feels kinda... powerful. That I could change the intent of your words... I could make you look like fools,

I could be KING!

*shakes*

Woah. That must be what cortex and jess feel like all the time.
posted by quin at 2:53 PM on May 29, 2007

Well, if you add in the cocaine, pretty much.
posted by cortex at 3:09 PM on May 29, 2007

Y'know those posts that consist of a few links woven into one, two, maybe three words - and nothing else? The ones that the poster carefully crafted hoping for, and possibly receiving, golfclaps because of their wit?

Yeah. No golfclaps for them after the links are broken.
posted by CKmtl at 3:20 PM on May 29, 2007

But that's OK, because some people can move on after they post something.
posted by dg at 3:25 PM on May 29, 2007

So, are y'all using the brokenlink tag solely for literally broken links, or also for links that resolve, but not to the intended content? For example, one of the posts I got was a generic link to Amazon, intended to display some easter egg something that's long gone. The link - www.amazon.com - is not broken, of course, but it doesn't do what the (lame) post wanted it to do.

Man, I can't believe that back in the day, a single link post to the front page of amazon was all good.
posted by donnagirl at 3:25 PM on May 29, 2007

It feels kinda... powerful. That I could change the intent of your words... I could make you look like fools

You know we can see all the tags you're adding, right? And that not only could we remove them, but we could erase every trace of not just your tags, but the sheer fact that you ever existed on this lonely blue planet? Stay humble, ponyboy.
posted by jessamyn at 3:32 PM on May 29, 2007 [2 favorites]

Oh shit... that means you see me adding "thedeej" tags to all the posts????

UNDO UNDO UNDO!!!!
posted by The Deej at 3:39 PM on May 29, 2007

ponyboy

What, we're just telling them everything now?
posted by cortex at 3:41 PM on May 29, 2007

I've been using "brokenlink" for those links that resolve to some unintended site. (Especially because sometimes it is almost impossible to tell what some posts are about without the intended link's content.)
posted by divka at 3:52 PM on May 29, 2007

I'm hitting about 20% brokenlinks. Oversees media (BBC/Guardian) seems to do better about keeping original links then most of the homegrown.
posted by edgeways at 3:56 PM on May 29, 2007

*starts adding thedeej tags, chuckles to self*

Look jess! The Deej is making a mockery. Disappear him!

*runs and hides*
posted by quin at 3:57 PM on May 29, 2007

quin, you bastard, I thought you were dead!

Oh. The sequel.
posted by The Deej at 4:02 PM on May 29, 2007

Oh, hey, while I have you all here (including you, quin, you zombie bastard) I have an off-topic question that I don't want to make a whole new MeTa post about because I don't want to add clutter to the MeTa front page and because I am embarrassed and want to keep the ridicule as unobtrusive as possible.

How do I make my flickrs show up on my profile page? I entered my flickr name. I searched. I FAQed. What else must I do?
posted by The Deej at 4:11 PM on May 29, 2007

Oh. The sequel.

I think I just saw quin on the holodeck, getting a jolly rogering from Spock.

I'm gaining new respect for news outlets that have maintained permanent links to articles posted years ago.

If you go back far enough, news sites didn't utilize the wonder that has become permalink. But from '02 or so on I blame the posters. They're the ones using bad links, not digging for and posting the permanent link to whatever heyday newsfilter they read. The news sites provided proper deep links, but they're often ignored in favor of the quick click from the front page that day. Even including the links that work, this project has illuminated the banality of US daily news and provided me a newfound disgust in newsfeatures on the blue.

On preview: How do I make my flickrs show up on my profile page? I entered my flickr name.

Folks in the thread announcing that pony were having similar trouble. mathowie clarified that it's not the name you use to log into flickr, it's not your yahoo id, it's the name flickr uses to greet you once you've logged in. "Tere* __________!"

* Flickr tells me that 'Tere' is 'Hi' in Estonian.
posted by carsonb at 4:17 PM on May 29, 2007

The Deej, try this to find your real Flickr username. And check to make sure you have some public photos.
posted by pb at 4:19 PM on May 29, 2007

I might be wrong.
posted by carsonb at 4:21 PM on May 29, 2007

TA DAAAAA!
Thanks!!! It's done! But why does flickr call me "asshole"?

Oh well, it works. Yay. My life is complete. Off to the holodeck.
posted by The Deej at 4:22 PM on May 29, 2007

"...why does flickr call me 'asshole'?"

Web 3.0 is pretty intuitive.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:50 PM on May 29, 2007 [1 favorite]

I just got this post from Quartermass. Is it worthy of a 'metafilterhistory' tag?
posted by tellurian at 7:07 PM on May 29, 2007

I dunno, but in one session I used the tags tampon, vomit, and fossil.
posted by The Deej at 7:45 PM on May 29, 2007

Nice photos, Deej.

Tagging question - what if I really can't come up with a decent tag (or twelve) for a post? Can I not tag it and have it go back into the pool to be tagged?
posted by deborah at 7:57 PM on May 29, 2007

deborah - it will go back into the pool, feel free to skip it entirely if you can't think of anything decent.

tellurian - thanks, I added a metafilterhistory tag.
posted by jessamyn at 8:02 PM on May 29, 2007

What I love about this project is being introduced to stuff I've never seen before, and with the double-post policy, would be much less likely to ever see again.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:43 PM on May 29, 2007

Nice photos, Deej.

Yeahhhhh, welllll..... they DID work a bit ago. Stoopid intarnets.
posted by The Deej at 9:13 PM on May 29, 2007

What Blazecock said. (And not for the first time.)
posted by Jofus at 1:47 AM on May 30, 2007

27%!
posted by carsonb at 10:31 AM on May 31, 2007

MeFi: 24,798 untagged posts. | 8,765 tagged so far.
AskMeFi: 4,702 untagged posts. | 4,724 tagged so far.

We're more than halfway done, at AskMe.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:19 PM on June 2, 2007

We're at almost 37% so far, thanks again to everyone who has taken some time and tagged someposts.
posted by jessamyn at 6:28 AM on June 10, 2007

Damn, I just checked out the "badlink" tags, and realized they were all me. Somehow I remembered incorrectly what to title bad links...
posted by Bugbread at 2:01 PM on June 16, 2007

Oh, wait. Even worse: I checked out some other things that people have tagged with "brokenlink", and I realize that, in addition to "brokenlink", they're all tagged up with other tags. I'd been using "brokenlink" (well, er, "badlink") by itself, thinking that the FPP was useless without its link. Now that I see others fully tagging pages with broken links, I gather that we're tagging them for the possible discussion about the link?

Matt, Jess, it would probably be a good idea to take out all the "badlink" tags I put in, instead of changing them to "brokenlink". That way, they will all revert to tagless form, and go back in the queue. Otherwise, they'll be lonely little orphans with only the single tag "brokenlink".
posted by Bugbread at 2:05 PM on June 16, 2007

Matt, Jess, it would probably be a good idea to take out all the "badlink" tags I put in

I have a bunch of posts that are just "brokenlink", don't at all worry about it and we won't either.
posted by jessamyn at 2:38 PM on June 16, 2007

Does that mean "don't worry about the ones you've already done", or "just tagging FPPS with brokenlink alone is groovy, feel free to continue doing so"?
posted by Bugbread at 4:11 PM on June 16, 2007

both.
posted by jessamyn at 4:47 PM on June 16, 2007

Thanks.
posted by Bugbread at 5:07 PM on June 16, 2007