tag,tagging,tagging rules

Opinion by RON on Jun 07, 2009

I spent my whole day today cleaning up useless tags from our database, and trust me guys; I’ve only cleaned 5% of our total tags. I’m sorry to say this but some users are making pointless tags ( most of the tags you see in our Tag Could at the forum) and it’s causing our Tag Cloud functioning properly.
I remember my early days at the forums and tagging every single word I read. I got moderated couple of times and I’ve learnt my lesson :P But those moderations came handy later on. At least now I know how to make proper tags.

So, I felt like sharing few points regarding Tagging with all of you. Though I know most of you already know all these stuff.

What is Tag:

A tag is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information (such as an internet bookmark, digital image, or computer file). This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching. Tags are chosen informally and personally by the item's creator or by its viewer, depending on the system. On a website in which many users tag many items, this collection of tags becomes a folksonomy. Source

Dos:

1. Use words which you’d actually use to search a similar article/thread you are tagging. eg: if you are tagging any E3 2009 article or thread and use a separate tag ‘2009’; do you think you’ll ever find that article if you search at any search engine (google, ask, msn, yahoo etc)? Even if you search any E3 2009 article; you’d use E3 2009 not 2009. So, a proper tag for E3 2009 can be the followings: e3,e3 2009 or E3,E3 2009

2. Use a comma at the end of each word.

3. Use the words other will use too.

DON’Ts:

1. Don’t use any space between the tags. eg: not tag, writer, noobfeed, forum but tag,writer,noobfeed,forum

2. Don’t use any symbol (- , . / - + _ % & * @ " etc) unless it's part of any word. But never at the beginning of any word.

3. Don’t make too many words under one comma. Two words are sufficient but not more than three.

4. Don’t use preposition words ( to, of, with, and etc )

5. And, also don’t get scared reading this blog.

We haven’t introduced the moderation system for tags, as we never thought it’d be necessary. Though I still don’t think it’s necessary. All you need to do is care a bit more about what you are returning to NoobFeed for its expansion :)

See the difference between our Tab Cloud and a Proper one. Now, I leave everything under your judgment.

Vs.