Your tags are bad and you should feel bad

February 5, 2009 12:20 PM

What to do about crap tags?

Is there any recourse if one thinks a post has crap tags? For instance, this post has only one tag, Huffington, which has nothing at all to do with the subject of the post. The poster has no contacts, so there isn't any opportunity for another user to add tags. What's the best course of action here? Comment in the thread? Flag it? (Which flag then?) MeMail? Contact the mods directly? Get a life?

I'll take my answer off the air, thanks.

posted by carsonb to Etiquette/Policy at 12:20 PM (45 comments total)

You can also use the contact form, and we can add some informative ones.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:22 PM on February 5, 2009

this post is tagged huffington which isn't super helpful.....

but yeah we'll handle it, simple and easy.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:23 PM on February 5, 2009

See? I added some better tags. Problem solved.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:24 PM on February 5, 2009

:|

I got the torches lit and everything...
posted by iamabot at 12:28 PM on February 5, 2009 [3 favorites]

hooray!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:28 PM on February 5, 2009 [6 favorites]

Another alternative is to use your wiles to convince the poster that you are a good friend and worthwhile correspondent, and then after months of patient cultivation, they finally add you as a contact, once they do that you return the favor and BAM! You now have the all powerful ability to alter their tags to suit your whims.

Machiavellian, no?
posted by quin at 12:44 PM on February 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

jessamyn, did you ever find the Calvin & Hobbes you were looking for on the podcast?
posted by desjardins at 12:45 PM on February 5, 2009

Aren't crap tags more commonly known as dingleberries?
posted by mudpuppie at 12:45 PM on February 5, 2009 [3 favorites]

Has there ever been an FPP about Michael Huffington?
posted by box at 12:47 PM on February 5, 2009

My favorite tags are of, the and and.
posted by ook at 12:53 PM on February 5, 2009 [2 favorites]

The.
posted by Caduceus at 12:57 PM on February 5, 2009 [4 favorites]

I now plan to tag EVERYTHING huffington.

Fun to say too: huffington huffington huffington.
posted by CunningLinguist at 1:06 PM on February 5, 2009

And fenugreek should be a tag on that post.

Fenugreek fenugreek fenugreek.
posted by CunningLinguist at 1:08 PM on February 5, 2009

Huffington Huffington Huffington Pie
A fly can't bird, but a bird can fly.
Ask me a riddle and I reply:
Huffington Huffington Huffington Pie.
posted by steef at 1:11 PM on February 5, 2009 [5 favorites]

What to do about crap tags?

Very strongly recommend not to eat it.
posted by Lemurrhea at 1:13 PM on February 5, 2009

desjardins: ND¢ found it back in the podcast thread.
posted by zamboni at 1:13 PM on February 5, 2009

We also need to have a discussion at some point about laser tags.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:16 PM on February 5, 2009

Another alternative is to use your wiles to convince the poster that you are a good friend and worthwhile correspondent, and then after months of patient cultivation, they finally add you as a contact, once they do that you return the favor and BAM! You now have the all powerful ability to alter their tags to suit your whims.

One can alter tags of posts made by one's contacts? Wha?
posted by odinsdream at 1:23 PM on February 5, 2009

But no back tags.
posted by yhbc at 1:27 PM on February 5, 2009

One can alter tags of posts made by one's contacts?

Mutual contacts.
smock smock smock
posted by carsonb at 1:28 PM on February 5, 2009

jessamyn, did you ever find the Calvin & Hobbes you were looking for on the podcast?

yes!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:36 PM on February 5, 2009

My favorite tags are of, the and and.

You'll love these posts, then.
posted by Johnny Assay at 1:39 PM on February 5, 2009

<>?

(I dunno how to except things so I can use the pointy brackets close up)
posted by klangklangston at 1:47 PM on February 5, 2009

Whoa, that was weird. It should say "crap" between those <>.
posted by klangklangston at 1:47 PM on February 5, 2009

<crap></crap>
posted by carsonb at 1:50 PM on February 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

One can alter tags of posts made by one's contacts?

Mutual contacts.

amazing[x] surprising[x] mindblowing[x] revelatory[x] worldaltering[x] earthshattering[x]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 1:51 PM on February 5, 2009

huffington[x]
posted by CunningLinguist at 2:10 PM on February 5, 2009

If you don't want to read questions involving crap, you should just skip them & move on to the next post.
posted by Pronoiac at 2:17 PM on February 5, 2009

evergreentopic[x]
posted by Pronoiac at 2:21 PM on February 5, 2009

dangerous[x] enticing[x]
posted by The Light Fantastic at 2:53 PM on February 5, 2009

Sometimes I flag it with HTML error if the tags are really bad.

I assume it's ignored, but it makes me feel like now it's someone else's problem.
posted by smackfu at 2:54 PM on February 5, 2009

Wrong thread Horace.
posted by Meatbomb at 3:00 PM on February 5, 2009

shrimp[x] aluminum[x] friendship[x]
posted by The Light Fantastic at 3:24 PM on February 5, 2009

posted by klangklangston at 4:16 PM on February 5, 2009

Nope, not working.
posted by klangklangston at 4:17 PM on February 5, 2009

Are you trying to do <this> sort of thing? You have to throw out named entities instead of actual brackets, like &lt;this&gt; .
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:18 PM on February 5, 2009

&amp;lt;this&amp;gt;
and per se &
posted by carsonb at 4:29 PM on February 5, 2009

Ah, OK. Yeah. <crap>. Gotcha.
posted by klangklangston at 4:38 PM on February 5, 2009

I've said it before, because it bugs me more than it rationally should, but this would be an awesome project for the Backtagging team.

If it's a recent post, I just MeMail the poster, but I know there are some older ones in there that only have like 1 or 2 tags on them.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 5:01 PM on February 5, 2009

Can you edit mutual contacts taggage?
posted by tellurian at 5:17 PM on February 5, 2009

no.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:03 PM on February 5, 2009

Missing "crap" tag.
posted by Mister_A at 8:41 AM on February 6, 2009

I'm waiting to use "poopsocking" as a tag. One day, one day....
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 1:36 PM on February 6, 2009

I'm relieved that KevinSkomsvold is not my mutual contact.

I like ArgentCorvid's suggestion, because I like fixing tags.
posted by Pronoiac at 4:01 PM on February 6, 2009

I just stumbled across Posts tagged with tags.
posted by paduasoy at 12:12 AM on February 7, 2009