[Mod Post] A tags apocalypse, oh no D:

[onefishjyuufish.livejournal.com]

So we've actually hit 1000 on the tags list. According to lj, that's the limit and I can't make more than that.

Firstly, I need to know if it's actually useful. Does anyone use the tags to find things or whatnot, or should I just give it up and leave it where it is or perhaps erase them all?

Alternate possibilities include: removing author tags for anyone who has only ever posted a query or any sort of non-fic post, condensing fandoms with multiple media (ie; if something is both a play and a film, it would then have one tag prefaced with play/movie: ), or something else I haven't considered yet.

Any ideas or suggestions would be wonderful, as would any sort of input at all. *tugs on your hem with a hopeful look*

Comments

[i-want-2.livejournal.com]

Oh my group, we go by fandom, pairing genre, rating. There are a few misc. tags like moderator, announcement, links.

[fangirlism]

Remove the "actor" tags and just make a "fandom: rps" tag if it doesn't already exist. People can always see the actors names in the header.

Edit: Okay, so there is a "rps" tag. Still think actors don't need individual tags though.

[sushis.livejournal.com]

I would think the individual tags by actor name would be helpful for people who are interested in a particular actor, rather than in actors in general. What would be the benefit of not having individual tags?

[fangirlism]

Less tags... that's what the mod's trying to do. Get rid of unnecessary tags.

I mean, the actors names are listed under "pairing" in the header anyway. It'll take more digging to find the actors they wanna read, but in the long run it'll be better.

[ladygray99]

I use the tags to find stuff. I would have to second the idea for removing the actor tag since it takes up two tags per story. And I'd take out author tags for non fic posting. leave them for fic since I do search by author sometimes. that should clear up a few.

[awils1.livejournal.com]

Generally, if I’m on a fanwork hunt, I use the fandom tags, and that’s about it. I agree with the idea that non-authors shouldn’t have author tags, but don’t, however agree, that multiple media fandoms should be merged into a single tag. There are canonical differences to consider.

Perhaps if there is no limit to memory entries, you could memory each fanwork post under the author as a keyword and remove the author tags?

[onefishjyuufish.livejournal.com]

That's what my concern with the merging was, so I don't think I'll be doing that.

I'm not sure if there's a limit to memory entries - I can't find anything that says, so I suppose there's potential for a lot of room. It'd be a project in itself keywording all those past entries though.

[annakovsky.livejournal.com]

For me, I would only really search by the fandom tags, so I'd get rid of, say, the author tags.

[mllesatine.livejournal.com]

Seconded. I've never searched by author tag.

[greenapple.insanejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

yep.

[penumbren]

I suspect the main way I've used tags is for fandom. Authors would probably be secondary, but I can't imagine needing author tags for... well... non-authors. Unless you're talking essays or something.

ETA: After taking a look at the tags list again, I'd also suggest perhaps condensing some of the very rarely-used tags, such as "comics" to just "comics", rather than having a dozen different tags which are each only used once. The actor tags I think could go, but there aren't that many of them to start with.

One comm I've been part of had a minimum number of uses in order to keep a tag, around 3, I think. If any specific tag wasn't used that much, it was just tagged with a more common general tag instead. ("Book", "comic", "mythology", "play", "sports", "video game" tags, I'm looking at you. :)

[hard-death.livejournal.com]

In a fic comm where only one fandom, is being posted, it makes sense to want to follow your favorite authors. But in this comm, the thing that readers are on the lookout for, usually, is a particular fandom, rather than the author, since for most of these fandoms it's lucky if there's *anything* written for them, let alone your favorite authors. I say get rid of the author tags because it doesn't seem as important in this comm's case.

I use the fandom tags a lot, and so getting rid of them altogether seems counter-productive to me. There's nothing in the memories, so how else are we supposed to search for the fandoms we're into, other than doing a seriously pain in the ass search page by previous page every single time. Also, tags are better than mems because, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think memories have an even shorter number of classification available. crack_van had to stop saving recs to the mems section because it wouldn't support a large enough number of fandoms, and it had to go to tags.

Maybe you could dump only the author tags, and make author searches available in the mems if it didn't take up too much room?

I like the specific actor tags because they make things easier, but I could live without them if they took up too much room as long as they were at least under an rps tag so I could find them some way. It's also possible that some actors/pairings could be grouped by what movie/tv show/network (the CW, for ex) the actors have in common. I know that there's a fandom called 6 Degrees of Canada, or something like that, that basically all Canadian actors - esp. Callum Keith Rennie et al - fall under. Course, that won't necessarily work for every situation with actors, but maybe it's a start.

I hope that helps a little and didn't just seem too complicated or confusing. ;)

[rispacooper.livejournal.com]

I look at the fandom tag more than the author tags, if that helps. :)

[cellshader.livejournal.com]

I vote get rid of author tags as well.

[hi-falootin.livejournal.com]

In addition to nixing the author tags for non-fic posts, could you maybe nix the author tags for authors who've only posted once? Then they could add their tag back if they post again? IDK if that would work, it could get messy...

supernaturalfic does a thing where authors who haven't posted 6 or more stories are tagged in an alphabetical index (one tag for each letter, I think) and that seems to work pretty well for them. Not that 6 is the right number necessarily and that would be a lot of work obviously, but I just wanted to throw that out there :)

[tarlanx]

I'd go with removing actor tags and non-authors.

[duckgirlie.livejournal.com]

I don't think author tags are important for this comm, because most people browse by fandom instead of by author. And having separate tags for every actor is a bit excessive, especially if they're only in one fic. A general RPS tag would be easier, and it doesn't take much more effort to scroll through a few entries.

[lemorttoussaint.livejournal.com]

I use fandom tags to find what I want. Otherwise you're just sifting through a LOT of posts with no idea if what you're looking for even exists.

I've seen some communities that have an "archive" page, using the memories function on lj. It would be a lot of work, but it could be worth it.

[onefishjyuufish.livejournal.com]

I never was entirely fond of the way the memories worked, but it's a thought. Thank you. :)

[ozsaur.livejournal.com]

I think the fandom tags are the most important. I use those more than anything. I've noticed that most of the authors listed only posted one story. As someone above mentioned, the authors who have more than six stories posted here can have their own tag.

You could probably get rid of the actor and celebrity tags also, and maybe group other things together under a single tag.

[hammerxsword.livejournal.com]

Indeed, fandom tags are generally what I search by, sometimes genre, but I would only really do that in a single fandom community. Author tags can be useful, but for a community like this, I'm more interested in the fandom then the author (mostly).

[quack.livejournal.com]

I cuncur withthe group, i always use fandom tags but not so much the author tags