PLEASE - Put your multi-word tags in quotes

[Troy D. Bertrand]

This is a network for creators of other Ning networks so you'd think everyone will know better. Why are users of this network tagging their forum posts with entire sentences? To make it worse, these sentences aren't even in quotes so all the words gets rearranged in alphabetical order and all that's left is a bunch of gibberish and one word tags such as "to" "be" "is"...and the list goes on.

PLEASE PUT YOUR MULTI-WORD TAGS IN QUOTES 

This is a problem that plagues my network, The Discernible Business Reviews. I find myself constantly editing tags to reflect what the user intended. For those who use out of quotes multi-word tags, I can only imagine what the tags on your network looks like. Get with the program and use " ".

Regards

TDB

The Discernible Business Reviews

 

[SweetPotato]

We shouldn't have to use quotes, many other platforms are simply comma separated. Hopefully this will be a fix for the new blog module and then rolled out across the platform.
Sp

[Troy D. Bertrand]

You're right.

We shouldn't have to but for now that's the gas we're cooking with so until there's an upgrade we should use what we have the right way.  Let's see how long it takes Ning to roll this out. High ranking members like you should keep pushing for these kind of improvements.

TDB

[Eric Suesz]

Great points, folks. 

[Troy D. Bertrand]

WoW!

Just read the weekly digest and saw mention of this post.

Thanks Eric!

[Patrick Chappelle]

You're right SP, but you still have nc's inserting entire sentences into the field. They have no idea what a tag is for. Maybe Ning could provide us with a tool tip? 

[Scott Bishop]

Another method that I use is the dash or underscore: tip-on-tagging or tip_on_tagging

[Nor Cal Social Media]

Quit interesting Troy,

Perhaps Ning can make it so that our tags are exactly as we write them.

Best, Anthony

 

[Janettee McCrary]

My tags are as follows:

Group URLs for content related to a group (which is then linked to in that group) - these tags are the URL, so often contain "smooshed" words: oklahomacityok

Quotes (for multiple words together, that are not group URL's): past event| how to

Single Words: announcements | poetry

Type of profile: Personal Profile | Nonprofit Profile | Business Profile

I'm always adding new types of tags, and these aren't all of them, but I try to keep an organizational structure that is easy for others to follow:)

[Patrick Chappelle]

I've been griping about this for a long time now! You would think that nc's would know better, but so many of us don't. It also makes it difficult for new members to find content. Not only do some of us use the wrong tags, but post discussions under the wrong category. No surprise though since many new nc's don't even take the time to visit the Ning Help Center and learn the basics, but come here to the forums wanting help learning everything, or want someone to do everything for them.

[Troy D. Bertrand]

Well said Patrick. It really makes it super difficult to find like-content. I understand and sympathize with those that say we need a more advanced tagging system but until we get there I say we use what we have the proper way.

[Jeff Bean]

I was creating and using Ning networks for three years before I learned here on Creators that it would even accept multi-word tags. Most other systems allow simple comma separation which is consistent with the development of printed English over the several hundred years of its development. And other tagging systems like Wordpress. 

I can promise you that nearly none of the users in my networks will stop to use quotes, even if they knew that they were necessary.

When a system requires a process that 95% of the users don't even know about, you can rail against their failure to learn. Or you can upgrade your process to accommodate the way they work.

[Nor Cal Social Media]

This is a web usability problem. In the pages where tagging is possible, some simple instruction- or even better yet intuitive tool.

For the time being, the tag system as it is, we can at least suggest the tagging system is effective for single word alphabetical. Now this might not work for everyone, but if you don't say a thing about how to use the system and let people do whatever they want, then there will become a natural incentivation to improve tagging as people learn how it works. In other words, some creators might adopt a philosophy they will go ahead and let people waste their time if they don't care either. Comedian George Carlin had this bit on letting a kid stick its finger in a light socket. Either they will learn not to do that again, or we'd have less stupid people around to worry about.

"What's wrong with tagging in a sentence?" It's simple boolean. Quotes mean 'exactly', and probably it's the first word that gets indexed alphabetically. In some cases, search might be in an exact sentence. Search engines like Ask Jeeves were able to socialize this way, and I think I heard of new developments in what I'd call intelligent search, such as a wiki collaborative where information is selected and categorized however preferred, and some people might even proactively help people find what they are looking for.

If Ning has a boolean logic for quotes built in, perhaps they can simply program that as default, and only recognize comma separation. In the mean time, consider the prospect that talking about proper tagging and how the search works is another opportunity for constructive engagement that might be appreciated in some communities.

Best, Anthony