Scatter pony June 14, 2013 8:04 PM   Subscribe

I have a dual-foaled pony request for AskMe: 1. That there be a separate category for identification requests, for everything including Flora and Fauna, Music and Movies, etc. 2. When these ID questions are marked as resolved, the asker has an additional prompt to add the correct/bestest answer to the tags, in addition to resolved.

I request this as a dedicated "name that bug" answerer, when increasingly the answer is "carpet beetle" or some such domestic pest. Having the tags contain the answer could potentially cut down on tens of questions per year...just think of the savings on pixels!
posted by Cold Lurkey to Feature Requests at 8:04 PM (12 comments total)

Thanks for the suggestions. Can you describe a bit why you think identification questions should be in their own category? If people tune into categories they're familiar with, I'm not sure why you would want to separate them. I'm not sure that "identification" is strong enough to stand on its own.

I'm also not sure on the tags. If a question-asker is not sure what they're after, they won't know what tags to look for before they ask their question. More generic tags like "bug" and "identification" might be more helpful then "carpetbeetle" before someone knows what they're looking at.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:26 PM on June 14, 2013


Upon reflection, perhaps ID request might be a sub-category, for all main categories. The launch into the tags then, would be a pre-posting search for questions containing the terms or tags the Asker has put in, with the resolved questions hopefully containing that tag with the answer.
Primarily, I'm looking to see the answer/answers show up in the tags of resolved questions.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 8:49 PM on June 14, 2013


It's an interesting suggestion. I like the idea of tagging resolved questions with the answer.

dual-foaled
I see what you did there.
posted by arcticseal at 9:00 PM on June 14, 2013


I love the idea of having a specific tag that is generalized sort of like flickr does (did?) for identifying questions. Whatisthis or whatisit or idmybug or I don't know. I do think it would be a great idea if people could put the name of the thing in the tags when the question was resolved because hey that would be great.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:15 PM on June 14, 2013


I'm struggling to see what benefit tagging the post with the answer serves, unless it is some sort of flickr-esque machine tag (resolved:carpetbeetle) to enable the nerdery. I mean, if you're searching AskMe for carpet beetle info, do you care about finding those 5 posts where people don't know what a carpet beetle is? (I have no idea what a carpet beetle is)
posted by misterbrandt at 9:31 PM on June 14, 2013 [1 favorite]


Category term: NameMe.
I've already talked to your branding consultants and they concur.
Edited to add: I've consulted with my "what do I have to do tomorrow?" consultants and they concur that I have to go to bed.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 9:48 PM on June 14, 2013 [2 favorites]


Whatisthis or whatisit or idmybug

I would love a list of tags with some sort of special meaning like that. The only ones I can think of on the green are resolved, stumped, and unresolved. MetaTalk has metafilterhistory. And the blue has brokenlink and, of course, batshitinsane.
posted by grouse at 11:01 PM on June 14, 2013 [1 favorite]


Perhaps such questions could be tagged with identify?
posted by booksherpa at 7:22 AM on June 15, 2013 [2 favorites]


Thanks, grouse for posting the link to batshitinsane. I really didn't feel like cleaning house today, anyway.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 8:35 AM on June 15, 2013 [2 favorites]


I like this idea!
posted by windykites at 11:55 AM on June 15, 2013


and, of course, batshitinsane

Oh my god, that tag brings back so many backtagging project memories. We need a new MeFi project.
posted by donnagirl at 10:05 PM on June 15, 2013


How about a backtagging ID request project? I'm only partially joking.

The idea of instituting it as a category, rather than a optional, easily forgettable tag, is because, as evidenced by the previous suggestion, thanks booksherpa, getting people to remember to add something is far more difficult than them choosing it from among the initial category options.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 10:22 PM on June 15, 2013


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