this is not a chawade

July 3, 2012 8:04 AM

What was that tag where...

Is there a "standard" or recommended tag on AskMe for those questions where you're trying to identify some vaguely remembered tv show/movie/song/painting/other cultural artifact? I'm not saying we need this, but it might be a nice idea for mindful posters who feel like adding one. Y'know, 'going forward.' If there isn't one already, maybe "whatwasthat" or something like it?

This came to me because I wanted to show a friend the power of AskMe for tracking down obscure things we barely remember. I had thought there was such a tag, but I can't remember/find it. Just a suggestion, more to the userbase than the moderators.

posted by Eideteker to Etiquette/Policy at 8:04 AM (54 comments total)

It could even be extended to MetaTalk, for those "What was that post/comment where...?" questions! Neat!
posted by Eideteker at 8:05 AM on July 3, 2012

Can't Remember Shit would be applicable, or just CRS.

otherwise an embedded video of Barbra Streisand singing The Way We Were.
posted by elizardbits at 8:08 AM on July 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

I vote for "allsummerinaday"
posted by Grither at 8:08 AM on July 3, 2012 [21 favorites]

wat
posted by cjorgensen at 8:12 AM on July 3, 2012

We could steal from reddit conventions with Does Anyone Remember or DAR, which will be confusing when discussing out-of-date WASPy social groups but you know, progress.
posted by The Whelk at 8:14 AM on July 3, 2012 [3 favorites]

I always use identify. I've seen lots of other folks use it, too.
posted by phunniemee at 8:15 AM on July 3, 2012 [4 favorites]

Yeah I think flickr uses something like whatisit and has some special groups for IDing things, but AskMe has never had one that stuck.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:16 AM on July 3, 2012

I don't know of any standard tag. My personal inclination if it were my quesiton would be "itisamystery" but that's just me being amused by silly things and not so helpful.

More generally, standardized tags are hard to make happen, because it's a mindshare issue and there's no really great practical mechanism for letting everyone know. Fine to jaw about, though.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:16 AM on July 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

Reddit also has a /r/tipofmytongue, but I guess this would be more tipofmycerebralcortex.
posted by fight or flight at 8:17 AM on July 3, 2012

I'm just going to refer to the power of AskMe to remember obscure stuff for you as "The Midnight Mystery Club" from now on.
posted by The Whelk at 8:18 AM on July 3, 2012

"helpmeremember" might also work.

(If anyone knows of a current "strongest contender," that would be cool, too. I'd still love to link my friend to a number of examples.)
posted by Eideteker at 8:21 AM on July 3, 2012

Eideteker: ""helpmeremember" "

I like that one. :)
posted by zarq at 8:26 AM on July 3, 2012

cjorgensen: "wa"

If that was in reply to me, I am referencing the question that comes up about once a month about that story they once read about those kids and the rainy days and finally it was sunny and oops there was a girl locked in the closet for the only sunny day that any of them would ever experience in their lives it was so sad what was it called again??
posted by Grither at 8:27 AM on July 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

Oh, and has anybody seen that 't' I lost? Thanks.
posted by Grither at 8:28 AM on July 3, 2012

Eideteker, lots of examples for your friend.
posted by phunniemee at 8:29 AM on July 3, 2012

DAR, which will be confusing when discussing out-of-date WASPy social groups but you know, progress.

Hey, hey, I'm WASPy but not out of date!
posted by jgirl at 8:31 AM on July 3, 2012

Oh, great, mee. Thanks!

cortex, I wholeheartedly agree. This is one such way to increase mindshare. =)
posted by Eideteker at 8:37 AM on July 3, 2012

My friend Andrew really liked WASP a bunch back in junior high. I was into metal as well but never could see their appeal.
posted by item at 8:43 AM on July 3, 2012

More generally, standardized tags are hard to make happen, because it's a mindshare issue and there's no really great practical mechanism for letting everyone know

Well, you could have a dropdown. But it would get overfull very quickly as people add tags to the system. So then you pare it down to a few that should cover everything...and I just reinvented top-down taxonomy.

Basically, tags don't work. Or they do, but they aren't used right. They are a great way for users to create their own taxonomy that the implementors didn't think of. But they are a terrible way for users to share taxonomies with each other.

In my own project, there are a handful of users in constant communication. They can create their own tags and define them how I want without my help. It helps them organize on the go without a new release or feature request. That's a good use of tags.

But the way the majority of the Internet seems to use them (in user-facing ways) makes no sense.
posted by DU at 8:45 AM on July 3, 2012

So pointless for a lame joke, but here's the proper WASP link.
posted by item at 8:46 AM on July 3, 2012

If that was in reply to me, I am referencing the question that comes up about once a month about that story they once read about those kids and the rainy days ...

Not any more. *sniff*
posted by Mitheral at 8:46 AM on July 3, 2012

"fuckifIknow"
posted by Think_Long at 8:54 AM on July 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

I started following the "identify" tag after this discussion. So far, to no avail.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:06 AM on July 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

(Meaning I haven't actually identified anything. But people do use the tag.)
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:11 AM on July 3, 2012

This won't work.

The problem is that on MetaFilter, the number of people who can tag a post/question is very very small and quite randomly selected (in the sense of representativeness.) LibraryThing tagging works exactly as one would hope it to - this is the tag cloud of other people's tags for my books, for instance, and here are the tags for a random popular book. It's very helpful for finding "a thing which is like this other thing I am currently looking at," which to me is the main point of tagging.

I tend to think the specific way that tags are implemented here makes them very unhelpful, though I'm pretty sure I know why they were done this way.

(I nonetheless vote for "identify," and if I ever ask such a question, I hope I will remember to use that tag.)
posted by SMPA at 9:15 AM on July 3, 2012

RemindMe was kind of spitballed as a tag in 2009, but there are only a couple instances of it.
posted by Pronoiac at 9:23 AM on July 3, 2012

Do people really go back and read the children's books they ask about?
posted by desjardins at 9:49 AM on July 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'll tell you this much: Everyone Poops does not hold up as well as one might have thought.
posted by Grither at 9:57 AM on July 3, 2012

Do people really go back and read the children's books they ask about?

I have.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:19 AM on July 3, 2012

We could steal from reddit conventions with Does Anyone Remember or DAR

I'm a subscriber to /r/tipofmytongue , which uses TOMT .
posted by Jpfed at 10:21 AM on July 3, 2012

I'll tell you this much: Everyone Poops does not hold up as well as one might have thought.

Maybe I'm mythologizing them just because they've broken up after a long and fruitful career, but Everyone Poops was a great REM song.
posted by Jpfed at 10:22 AM on July 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

wat was my tag suggestion.

I was also making a joke. (I think.)
posted by cjorgensen at 11:17 AM on July 3, 2012

Do people really go back and read the children's books they ask about?

I did, even though it turned out not to be the right book. Oh and for another book too, although that was partly because it took me so long into the book to figure out it was wrong.
posted by DU at 11:47 AM on July 3, 2012

Don't you guys remember the tag we decided on?
posted by TwelveTwo at 12:05 PM on July 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

My friend Andrew really liked WASP a bunch back in junior high. I was into metal as well but never could see their appeal.

The blatant obscenity of "Animal (Fuck Like A Beast)" was fun and "Schooldaze," was a nice update of "School's Out.' The fact that they pissed of Tipper Gore was a bonus.
posted by jonmc at 12:10 PM on July 3, 2012

EOA? (Early Onset Alzheimer's)
posted by Cranberry at 12:11 PM on July 3, 2012

For some of us it's not early.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:18 PM on July 3, 2012

> I'll tell you this much: Everyone Poops does not hold up as well as one might have thought.

I'm guessing you're reading it from a formalist or perhaps Marxist perspective. Try it from a Freudian point of view and it comes alive!
posted by languagehat at 12:59 PM on July 3, 2012 [8 favorites]

I think Zizek has a new essay up at the LRB that involves a Marxist/Lacanian reading of Everyone Poops.
posted by en forme de poire at 1:44 PM on July 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

> I'll tell you this much: Everyone Poops does not hold up as well as one might have thought.

"A one hump camel has a one hump poop. A two hump camel has a two hump poop. Just kidding!"

How is that not poetry!
posted by cjorgensen at 2:21 PM on July 3, 2012

this is not a chawade

You are building an AskMe tag of extraordinary magnitude. We are forging MetaFilter in the spirits of our ancestors. You have our gratitude.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 2:29 PM on July 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

One children's book that should be the subject of more asks is おならうた, or quite literally, Fart Songs. It's the best present Mrs. Ghidorah has ever given me. It describes the different sounds your farts make while doing different actions. Eat a sweet potato? BOH. Eat a chestnut? Buuu.

Great book. Vital to my growth as a Japanese speaker.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:30 PM on July 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

My grandmother was a DAR and also a member of the Mayflower Society. And she voted for Nixon three times.

Despite this, she was an exceptionally nice lady and I miss her a lot. So consider this my vote for DAR, because "SidhedevilsGrandma" would be a useless tag.

I like "helpmeremember" too, even though it also says "help mere member" which seems unnecessarily self-abnegating.
posted by Sidhedevil at 2:48 PM on July 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

The blatant obscenity of "Animal (Fuck Like A Beast)" was fun and "Schooldaze," was a nice update of "School's Out.' The fact that they pissed of Tipper Gore was a bonus.

As soon as I hit post, the thought flittered through my head that jonmc probably likes WASP enough to challenge my comment. It's been a good long while since the two of us have had anything remotely resembling a throwdown about music, though, so I've completely forgotten what tag I'm supposed to use here.
posted by item at 4:24 PM on July 3, 2012

desjardins: "Do people really go back and read the children's books they ask about?"

Yes! I asked about two books (here and here) and I bought used copies through Amazon and read them.
posted by deborah at 4:48 PM on July 3, 2012

Moviefilter, bookfilter, etc. seem to get used for those posts, albeit pretty rarely.

(Oddly, though, it's more usual to start the question itself with "moviefilter:" or whatever and not put it in the tags. WTF, people!)

And sometimes those tags are used for "What are more x like this?"
posted by Sys Rq at 5:28 PM on July 3, 2012

Sidhedevil: "I like "helpmeremember" too, even though it also says "help mere member" which seems unnecessarily self-abnegating."

There are no mere members, NOS confirmed it today.
posted by arcticseal at 7:25 PM on July 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

Maybe I'm mythologizing them just because they've broken up after a long and fruitful career, but Everyone Poops was a great REM song.

I dunno, man. I think a band that big has an obligation to be role models. And in light of the dangers of teenage constipation, "if you feel like letting go then hold on" seems like really terrible advice.
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:03 PM on July 3, 2012

For no particular reason, here are the top 100 tags in order from least popular (800 uses) to second most popular (7000 uses). The top tag is of course "resolved" with ~28000 uses.

xp london politics fiction house
diy literature linux legal love
dvd camera clothing cars television
uk marriage canada firefox wireless
mp3 repair pc dog blog
google employment newyork itunes apartment
ipod chicago kids anxiety science
phone cat children wedding exercise
insurance website online programming school
relationship games movie depression family
gift shopping vacation home history
jobs college law iphone moving
email book film audio writing
dating movies business laptop design
sex language education web tv
osx photography cooking computers apple
career art money car job
relationships nyc video windows health
internet software computer books work
food mac travel music
posted by Meta Filter at 8:08 PM on July 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

Maybe I'm mythologizing them just because they've broken up after a long and fruitful career, but Everyone Poops was a great REM song.

Eh. It's a bit ignorant actually, and insensitive to people with chronic diarrhea. Because, no, Michael Stipe, everybody does not poop "...sometimes"; a lot of people poop constantly.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:15 PM on July 3, 2012

It would be so easy to board up and shoot and edit an Everybody Poops parody video with just a ton of people sitting around thinking about pooping.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:37 PM on July 3, 2012

Why just thinking?
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:39 PM on July 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

Wow, with only a few changes, you can get surprisingly far through that list singing it to the tune of "We Didn't Start the Fire"

xp london politics
fiction house diy lit
linux legal love dvd
camera clothing
cars television uk
marriage canada fi'fox
wireless mp3 repair
pc dog and blog
posted by SpiffyRob at 5:03 AM on July 4, 2012 [1 favorite]

OT (ON topic): my vote is 'idplease', which lends itself to many use cases (what is this bug in my house?! as well as 'what was the name of xyz'). There's a very popular Flickr group that uses it.
posted by softlord at 10:44 AM on July 4, 2012