Comments on: It was not Treaty of Westphalia length

It was not Treaty of Westphalia length

Chrysostom — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 14:26:42 -0800

What is the maximum character length for a tag?

I had a lengthy tag fail to appear on post preview. What's the longest a tag can be?

By: m@f

m@f — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 14:37:16 -0800

pb must be in the bathroom or something. Usually he's all over these tech questions like a jelly sandwich.

By: 2bucksplus

2bucksplus — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 14:42:10 -0800

Here's the longest one I remember offhand: honeyhoneylaunderingbeesstickyfingers

By: pb

pb — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 14:42:20 -0800

A single tag has a maximum length of 50 characters.

Sorry about the delay, I'm at lunch.

By: lazaruslong

lazaruslong — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 14:42:57 -0800

I bet it's cause it's in metafilter related instead of bugs. I bet he has a super loud alert klaxon for posts in the bugs category.

By: lazaruslong

lazaruslong — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 14:43:11 -0800

Darn.

By: 2bucksplus

2bucksplus — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 14:44:24 -0800

Your tag was buffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalo, wasn't it?

By: ryanrs

ryanrs — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 14:47:02 -0800

If you have to ask this question, you're bad at picking tags.

By: zarq

zarq — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 15:18:05 -0800

lazaruslong: "I bet he has a super loud alert klaxon for posts in the bugs category."

*cue bug report alarm*

The iPad Begins Speaking:

"Good afternoon, pb. 



A bug has been detected on the front page of metafilter. 



Please click the glowing periplaneta americana icon for further details. 



Your mission: Restore site to normal operation before mathowie returns from lunch.



The fate of the site is in your hands. 



This iPad will self-destruct in 10 seconds."

By: Blasdelb

Blasdelb — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 15:32:17 -0800

16 minutes later,

"Sorry about the delay, I'm at lunch."

Ummm... has anyone outside of the Mod Cabal ever actually seen pb with their own eyes?

Is it possible that the true story of Metafilter's origin began with a deal matthowie made with Satan to trade his immortal soul in exchange for the perfect corporation that would bring happiness but not without that little bit of interesting frustration, wealth but not to much, and a day job that mostly involves surfing the internet? Where Satan then crafted the eternal soul of matthowie into a perfect lidless ghost in the machine who would answer queries in seconds, fix bugs in minutes, and maintain the website indefinitely, but be doomed to program Hell's SQL servers for all eternity.

By: unliteral

unliteral — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 15:55:39 -0800

Previously.

By: GenjiandProust

GenjiandProust — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 16:22:09 -0800

Where Satan then crafted the eternal soul of matthowie into a perfect lidless ghost in the machine who would answer queries in seconds, fix bugs in minutes, and maintain the website indefinitely, but be doomed to program Hell's SQL servers for all eternity.

We might be able to assess the accuracy of this speculation if we knew what pb had for lunch. If it was the mewling souls of the banned, the answer may be "yes."

By: DarlingBri

DarlingBri — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 18:15:41 -0800

Sorry about the delay, I'm at lunch.

That was 20 whole minutes, you slacker.

By: Chrysostom

Chrysostom — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 19:18:27 -0800

2bucksplus: "Your tag was buffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalo, wasn't it?"

Yes!

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 19:38:06 -0800

Blasdelb writes "Metafilter's origin began with a deal matthowie made with Satan to trade his immortal soul"

I remember the JRUNs; not even Satan would have been able to twist the knife that deep.

By: arcticseal

arcticseal — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 19:54:49 -0800

The clue is in his name: pb(j).

By: Grither

Grither — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 05:30:02 -0800

unliteral: "Previously."

I was REALLY hoping that was referring to the comment preceding it, rather than the post...

By: daniel_charms

daniel_charms — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 05:56:52 -0800

A single tag has a maximum length of 50 characters.

There goes the post I was going to make about Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

By: JohnnyGunn

JohnnyGunn — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 09:03:50 -0800

Ah, one of those 2:30 in the afternoon lunches where the tags for that lunch would be wingsbeerpizzabeermorebeer and heyareyougoingtoeatthatlastslider

By: XMLicious

XMLicious — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 22:35:52 -0800

Also, at least as of a few years ago non-Latin Unicode characters in tags caused problems. In case length turns out to not be the real problem.

By: KevinSkomsvold

KevinSkomsvold — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 05:56:01 -0800

I was always told that using tags with over 10 characters killed a unicorn. I only know this because of the pile of dead unicorns in my yard.

By: russm

russm — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 17:19:24 -0800

so I went back to an old post of mine to see if it's 50 characters or 50 bytes, and I found something confusing - in a closed post, the tag add/remove UI appears, but only the remove actually works.

By: pb

pb — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 21:30:33 -0800

Thanks for the report, russm. We'll take a look at that.