Tag Abuse in MacRumors

[Huntn]

Check out this thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...g-9-11-ceremony.1994428/page-22#post-23398725

These tags which are not being used for the intent for which they are intended, helping to locate subject matter, but have turned into defacto anomonous critiques, inappropriate, and off the wall statements distracting from the thread. My reccomendations is that tags only be allowed to be applied by the author of a thread.

 

[OllyW]

I've removed the tags from that thread but we will need input from the administrators about controlling permissions. Please report any others which you think are pushing the boundaries and we will check them out.

Any ideas? @annk @Doctor Q @HexMonkey @arn @WildCowboy

 

[LizKat]

Check out this thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...g-9-11-ceremony.1994428/page-22#post-23398725

These tags which are not being used for the intent for which they are intended, helping to locate subject matter, but have turned into defacto anomonous critiques, inappropriate, and off the wall statements distracting from the thread. My reccomendations is that tags only be allowed to be applied by the author of a thread.

That sounds like a good idea indeeed, but it may not be good enough, all things considered in this season at least in PRSI forum. Members who add tags should maybe start by considering whether a tag they think to apply would warrant protection under the First Amendment. Always a good place to start when nudging a tag into the territory of "personal opinion".

 

[Huntn]

I've removed the tags from that thread but we will need input from the administrators about controlling permissions. Please report any others which you think are pushing the boundaries and we will check them out.

Any ideas? @annk @Doctor Q @HexMonkey @arn @WildCowboy

Thanks for the prompt attention. Now check out the tags in this thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...school-professor.1994624/page-2#post-23398489

A trend?
Clown shoes.
I killed JFK
I'm not a doctor, but.
The Clinton death list grows.
The conspiracy trash of macrumors.
The warm white hands of immortality.
Wingnut vernality?
It's where your veins forgot what they are doing.



[doublepost=1473689762][/doublepost]

That sounds like a good idea indeeed, but it may not be good enough, all things considered in this season at least in PRSI forum. Members who add tags should maybe start by considering whether a tag they think to apply would warrant protection under the First Amendment. Always a good place to start when nudging a tag into the territory of "personal opinion".

Ultimately tags are to help locate content during a thread search. I murdered JFK helps no one. I doubt most thread authors would apply ridiculous tags to their content, and if they do, they would be subject to appropriate critique.

 

[LizKat]

Thanks for the prompt attention. Now check out the tags in this thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...school-professor.1994624/page-2#post-23398489

A trend?
[doublepost=1473689762][/doublepost]

Ultimately tags are to help locate content during a thread search. I murdered JFK helps no one. I doubt most thread authors would apply ridiculous tags to their content, and if they do, they would be subject to appropriate critique.

Yah my suggestion is more to the mods about making a rules change. What tags can represent, just in case people are inclined to make them into mini-opinions or such. I mean come on, some of those were just over the top. I'm glad you brought up this topic here which is where it belongs rather than back in one of the over-tagged threads that are probably going to a final resting place soon, maybe not soon enough.

 

[OllyW]

Thanks for the prompt attention. Now check out the tags in this thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...school-professor.1994624/page-2#post-23398489

A trend?
[doublepost=1473689762][/doublepost]

Ultimately tags are to help locate content during a thread search. I murdered JFK helps no one. I doubt most thread authors would apply ridiculous tags to their content, and if they do, they would be subject to appropriate critique.

I think they need to be turned off in PRSI because we can't tell who is adding them and we can't trust everyone who posts there to behave in a responsible manner.
[doublepost=1473690599][/doublepost]

Yah my suggestion is more to the mods about making a rules change. What tags can represent, just in case people are inclined to make them into mini-opinions or such. I mean come on, some of those were just over the top. I'm glad you brought up this topic here which is where it belongs rather than back in one of the over-tagged threads that are probably going to a final resting place soon, maybe not soon enough.

Unfortunately we can't tell who is adding the tags so we can't deal with those members who are abusing them. As far as I know, the only sensible option is to turn them off.

 

[Huntn]

I think they need to be turned off in PRSI because we can't tell who is adding them and we can't trust everyone who posts there to behave in a responsible manner.

This is why I suggest only authors be allowed to apply them. Then you know who applied the tag and can treat any abuse like other MR infractions. Hopefully you made a record of the tags before you removed them. I wrote down some of them down in my previous.

 

[OllyW]

This is why I suggest only authors be allowed to apply them. Then you know who applied the tag and can treat any abuse like any other MR infraction. Hopefully you made a record of the tags before you removed them. I wrote down some of them down in my previous.

I'm sure the admins will have a good idea what has been posted.

 

[Renzatic]

Yeah, uh...some of those are mine. I saw I could edit the tags in PRSI, so I used it honestly to add an appropriate tag. Then I thought of something funny, so I added it. Then I added another funny one because I could. Then it kinda took on a life of its own after that.

I'm at least partially to blame for this.

 

[Weaselboy]

Unfortunately we can't tell who is adding the tags so we can't deal with those members who are abusing them. As far as I know, the only sensible option is to turn them off.

Heh... interesting. I have never even used the tags and just assumed they could only be added by the thread starter. So is there no record of tag deletions either? I just tagged this thread with "hurrdurrtest" then a minute later removed the tag. Is there no record of that either.

It does seem ripe for abuse. Welp, I'm off to tag some of @Renzatic 's threads.

 

[Huntn]

Yeah, uh...some of those are mine. I saw I could edit the tags in PRSI, so I used it honestly to add an appropriate tag. Then I thought of something funny, so I added it. Then I added another funny one because I could. Then it kinda took on a life of its own after that.

I'm at least partially to blame for this.

Shammmmeeeeee! You could so you did. At least you admitted to your childish impulses.

Under the circumstances, as to where this can lead, I think only allowing authors to tag their threads is an appropriate response. As you know the purpose of tags is assist in locating subject matter, not make anonomous funny, or sarcastic critiques, (with no ability to indicate seriousness or sarcasm), which are of absolutely no help in a search.

 

[Robisan]

Unfortunately we can't tell who is adding the tags so we can't deal with those members who are abusing them.

I'll admit guilt, though I wasn't first on the offending thread mentioned in the OP. Frankly, I was surprised anyone other than the thread starter could add tags, which is how it should be IMO. When it was obvious that they were open for anybody on that thread and were being used mostly for humor, well I couldn't resist. Some of them were pretty funny. Sorry, no harm meant.

 

[LizKat]

Unfortunately we can't tell who is adding the tags so we can't deal with those members who are abusing them. As far as I know, the only sensible option is to turn them off.

Soounds like a good idea. So much more merciful than killing the entire subset of us who post to PRSI and letting God (or some bot) sort us out.

Or we could just vote to grow up but that's so idealistic and impractical...

 

[OllyW]

Or we could just vote to grow up...

I thought you was talking about the PRSI forum.

 

[ericgtr12]

Soounds like a good idea. So much more merciful than killing the entire subset of us who post to PRSI and letting God (or some bot) sort us out.

Or we could just vote to grow up but that's so idealistic and impractical...

Believe it or not that forum was fun at one time. At this point it's fair to say that any tools provided with the intent of making a post more informative and useful will gladly be used to hurl insults and bolster hyperbolic points instead.

 

[Renzatic]

Well, I did use them as intended. Somewhat. The tag "sunny d brand spray on tan" linked to a few Trump posts. "The icy black hands of death" I used to link to some posts concerning Hillary Clinton's alleged health issues.

 

[LizKat]

Believe it or not that forum was fun at one time. At this point it's fair to say that any tools provided with the intent of making a post more informative and useful will gladly be used to hurl insults and bolster hyperbolic points instead.

Yah I'm afraid at least during the election season, the usefulness of tags on threads in PRSI will run from dicey to zero.
[doublepost=1473708038][/doublepost]

Well, I did use them as intended. Somewhat. The tag "sunny d brand spray on tan" linked to a few Trump posts. "The icy black hands of death" I used to link to some posts concerning Hillary Clinton's alleged health issues.

And then you saw where others were willing to go with the idea... give us an inch in PRSI and the mile is gone.

File under why we can't have nice things in PRSI. Maybe revive tagging after the eleciton. Well after the inauguration. Well after the impeachment...

 

[chown33]

It was me. I started it as a simple experiment. It quickly ran from wry to awry to amok, and here we are.

It began simply enough, when I noticed a few tags made by this thread's creator:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...e-a-“who’s-who”-of-the-warfare-state.1993473/

I added "i like turtles" to that thread, then tried it elsewhere, along with a few tests on tag length, content, etc. At that point, I wondered who else could add tags, so I asked Renzatic to test it and let me know. Some of his tags were pretty funny, and then some of the others were, too, so I just let the experiment run. And now here I am feeling rather like Dr. Frankenstein, with a trail of murdered bodies lying in the wake of my errant experiment.

Last night I started drafting this as a PM to send to the mods:

As an experiment, I tried adding tags to a thread I didn't create, and was a bit surprised the system let me do it. I then tried adding tags to a few other threads, to see how they worked. This worked everywhere I tried it, except in locked threads or the Wasteland.

A bigger surprise was that tags I added were visible to everyone, including visitors who hadn't logged in. My surprise came because this scope for tagging strikes me as having the potential for thread vandalism, especially in PRSI. Anyone can add them and everyone sees them, just like "tagging" graffiti spray-painted on real-world walls or buildings.

I mention this as you might want to restrict tagging in PRSI, especially if more folks notice tags and use them in unruly ways.​

Today, I see my experiment has escaped and gone on a murderous rampage, only to be nixed by timely adult supervision.

I should have reported the abuse potential earlier, and not contributed to it "in unruly ways". I apologize to all for having started this, and for all the inconvenience to the moderators of having to clean it up.

 

[Weaselboy]

I apologize to all for having started this, and for all the inconvenience to the moderators of having to clean it up.

Well, in your defense... who doesn't like turtles?

 

[annk]

There's really good feedback here, thanks to all of you who have contributed. We'll discuss and get back to you! Personally I think that both the bits about only allowing authors to post and/or turning off the function in certain forums make a lot of sense.

 

[Renzatic]

I should have reported the abuse potential earlier, and not contributed to it "in unruly ways". I apologize to all for having started this, and for all the inconvenience to the moderators of having to clean it up.

Honestly, most of it is my fault. You had honest intentions, and I took it too far.

If I ever do something that makes me laugh a bit, it's never ends well. I was laughing quite a bit as I posted more and more tags to be linked together. Yeah, I had a little too much fun there.

"It's where your veins forgot what they're doing". It's what happens when you have vascular dementia. Had to throw that in there. Also, "the warm white hands of immortality" is mine, because I needed a counterpoint tag for "the icy black hands of death".

 

[Robisan]

If I ever do something that makes me laugh a bit, it's never ends well. I was laughing quite a bit as I posted more and more tags to be linked together. Yeah, I had a little too much fun there.

In all seriousness, tags can be funny and useful. These are not mutually exclusive concepts. (E.g see the tags used at Balloon Juice.) However, you have to limit tag entries to thread starters or you'll have the chaos just seen in PRSI.

 

[Huntn]

Well, I did use them as intended. Somewhat. The tag "sunny d brand spray on tan" linked to a few Trump posts. "The icy black hands of death" I used to link to some posts concerning Hillary Clinton's alleged health issues.

But no one would think to use any of those as search terms, so they are not being used for the purpose they were intended, and instead become anonymous satirical comments or worse depending on motivation, and they are beyond moderation other than being removed.

Personally, I'd be irritated if third parties were decorating my threads with a bunch of anonymous silly/critical/sarcastic non- functional tags.
[doublepost=1473773257][/doublepost]https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...il-the-war-is-over-anything’s-legal’.1994989/

Tag: Rudolf the red nosed reindeer

 

[LizKat]

and/or turning off the function in certain forums

Well I'm not going to nominate the entire iPhone section right now, with seasonal accomodations to other gear releases, but it's probably good that the alt-intent functions of tags appear to have been discovered in PRSI where as crazy as we are we can usually take a joke (or, a vacation).

 

[Robisan]

But no one would think to use any of those as search terms, so they are not being used for the purpose they were intended, and instead become anonymous satirical comments or worse depending on motivation, and they are beyond moderation other than being removed.

Tags aren't just for search. Presumably you should be able to click on a tag and bring up all posts that have that tag. If I saw a funny tag like the ones you call out I'd be interested in see the other threads that have those tags. That's a legitimate value IMO.