Feedback: Tag Discussion

[KholdStare]

So pretty much we're all on the same page here. The problem will be what kinds of tags and how many are predefined. As long as we can request a tag that's not on the pre-defined list, I'm 100% okay with using a pre-defined list. It'll be the same as posting in a restricted forum in a pre-created thread and suggesting opening a new thread to a moderator.

Speaking of which, do we really need a "yes we can" tag in the US Election 2008 thread? I'm not sure why the "grandpa" tag is there also.

[Slice of Life]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

I will tell you that, in my mind, this (your proposal in the consolidation thread) has always been the way I imagined tags could work, though I'm not necessarily so in favour of using the anidb listings verbatim -- I would rather see us use other sites as guides/suggestions as opposed to a strict standard (mostly because, frankly, I often find other sites wrong )

Just for the record, I didn't propose the anidb system because I think that it is the best or even the only way of doing things (although it's probably ten times better than everything that I could come up with from the scratch) but because it protects us from having lengthy and pointless ideological discussions about the right choice of tags just to turn a to 90 percent working system into a 100 percent system.

[KiNA]

Originally Posted by KholdStare

Speaking of which, do we really need a "yes we can" tag in the US Election 2008 thread? I'm not sure why the "grandpa" tag is there also.

-099 tag in Bleach latest chapter is hardly informative as well..

[KholdStare]

Originally Posted by KiNA

-099 tag in Bleach latest chapter is hardly informative as well..

Maybe, but what do you think of the "bitch-ownage" tag in that same thread?

[KiNA]

To be honest, I dont think that thread need any of them

I just feel redundant tags like manga, or images for images threads or one time use like -099 are really .. well.. redundant

[KholdStare]

Yeah, numbers/episode numbers shouldn't be on tags... There's no point, and why would someone search for all episode 99's of all anime?

[relentlessflame]

By the way, for those who thought my last reply was "tl;dr", I should have just posted this version. It has bullets rather than walls of text. I don't think there's been a formal agreement by the staff yet, but this is my understanding:

• Though there are a lot of ways tags can be used in a lot of settings, the opinion of the staff is that the best fit for this forum would be a more controlled/guided/managed approach.
• That being said, the staff acknowledge that this is not something they can or should manage alone, and that many forum members can provide valuable guidance, input, and assistance as part of this process. We want the use of tags to be driven by all interested parties, and not just the staff.
• To that end, we are proposing the creation of a "Tag Team" that would have the following key purposes:
  • To establish standards/guidelines on good tags and their use
  • To create new tags as needed, including reviewing tag suggestions by the wider membership*
  • To discuss and remove, as needed, improper tags
  • To lead the way in tagging initiatives, including tagging relevant existing threads in major sections
• Membership in said "tag team" would be completely voluntary, and any interested forum member could participate with no strictly-defined requirement. Members who act in a method contrary to the Tag Team's defined objectives may be removed from the team at the staff's sole discretion. Interested staff members will participate in the team both as equals and to serve as moderators as needs arise.

I think that the first of those sub-items ("establish standards/guidelines") would be one of the first items on the "agenda", and would address some of the current questions. As NSW mentioned earlier, our very-talented admin NightWish is currently working on improving vBulletin's tag moderation system (or rather, is creating one, since there really isn't one in the base install). But I don't think the lack of that is really stopping work on that first sub-bullet. Unless anyone sees any massive red flags with the above plan, I think we should be able to move forward on that very soon.

* One proposed alternative is that tag creation remain open but the Tag Team has sole discretion to remove any and all bad tags, and that bad tagging would be infractable. So anybody could tag whatever they want, but they'd need to follow the Tag Team's guidelines of what's acceptable. There are merits and demerits to each approach, but I guess I'll just throw it out there.

Originally Posted by Slice of Life

Just for the record, I didn't propose the anidb system because I think that it is the best or even the only way of doing things (although it's probably ten times better than everything that I could come up with from the scratch) but because it protects us from having lengthy and pointless ideological discussions about the right choice of tags just to turn a to 90 percent working system into a 100 percent system.

That's actually a pretty convincing argument to me. At the very least, it would provide a starting point that we could apply to the current pool of threads, and once that exercise is complete, deviations could be considered. With that logic in mind, I could be sold on that approach.

This post still sort of looks like walls of text... sorry... it really isn't that bad!

[Solace]

@relentlessflame - Your words suggest that the moderators are leaning more towards categorization than description with regards to tag usage, am I correct in this understanding or are the moderators still deciding on that matter?

Also, in regards to the outline of the tag team proposal - I'd be willing to rework the outline I posted earlier here into something a little more reflective of the changes in this discussion, depending on what the staff decides they want the focus of tags to be. I would also be willing to throw together a general FAQ once things are ironed out.

[Slice of Life]

For the sake of concreteness, here's the category list from anidb with a few comments.

Two introductory remarks.

1. The tags below are meant to be useful in the Anime Discussion subforums only. Maybe also in the Suggestions subforum with a few additions like air date tags (70s, 80s, 90s, 'noughties') or length tags (short, one season, two seasons, three or more seasons). Other subforums need other tags and for something like General Talk it's probably impossible to come up with something structured.

2. Apart for the categories as defined below there would be tags for studios and persons. Can you think of a fourth type of tags that would be useful?


So now to the category tags. First, there would be ...

Audience tags: Josei, Kodomo, Mina, Seinen, Shoujo, Shounen

Now here's already the first problem. How much Japanese do we want? Who will be using the tag system? Noobs or certified otaku? I don't think everybody understands what 'Mina' means.

Content tags: Nudity, Sex, Violence

We have no hentai anime here but these tags are useful nevertheless. Mnemosyne fits all of the above for example.

Dynamic tags: Plot Continuity, Stereotypes,Twisted

I don't really understand this set. Looks like three terms thrown together. Are there anime without stereotypes? And 'twisted' referred to both Kaiba and Monster. But reading 'Plot Continuity' I think Plot driven, Episodic and Slice-of-Lify might be useful tags.

Instead of following the alphabetic order I skip to:

Fetish tags: Bishounen, Breasts (1), Female Students(2), Female Teachers, Housewives(3), Juujin(4), Lolicon, Maids, Nuns(5), Nurses, Office Lady, Shotacon, Tentacles, Traps, Waitresses(6)

(1) Subcategories: Gigantic Breasts, Large Breasts, Small Breasts. Do we really need that?
(2) Too common to be useful. Swimsuits, bloomers maybe.
(3) LOL. I don't know many anime serving a housewife fetish.
(4) Subcategory: Cat Girls. 'juujin' is again something few people will understand.
(5) What about Miko?
(6) Fusion with maids?

Original Work tags: Game (sub: Action Game, Dating Sim - Visual Novel, Erotic Game, RPG), Manga, Movie(1), New, Novel(2)
All tags could need a "from .." in front for clarification.
(1) Replace by "Live action' maybe?
(2) Add subcategory 'Light Novel' maybe?

Setting tags (place and time): Earth (sub: Americas, Asia, Europe, Middle East)(1), Fantasy World (sub: Dystopia, Parallel Universe, Virtual Reality), Space (sub: Other Planet, Shipboard), Future (sub: Post-apocalyptic), Past (sub: Alternative History, Historical)(2), Present (sub: Alternative(3))

(1) I skipped the subsub categories (countries).
(2) Here too (epochs).
(3) Fusion with Fantasy World: Parallel Universe?

What remains are the element tags and theme tags. The difference between elements and themes is a bit fuzzy in my eyes but that doesn't need to concern us:

Element tags: Action (sub: Gunfights, Martial Arts (subsub: Ninjas), Super Power, Swordplay (subsub: Samurai)), Adventure, Angst, Anthropomorphism, Comedy (sub: Parody, Slapstick (subsub: Violent retribution for accidental infringement(1)), Super Deformed), Detective, Ecchi (sub: Boing, Pantsu), Fantasy (sub: Angels, Contemporary Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Demons, Dragons, Elves, Goddessess, High Fantasy, Magic, Vampires) Harem(2), Horror, Incest, Mahou Shoujo(3), Romance (sub Love Polygon(4), Shoujo Ai, Shounen Ai, Sudden Girlfriend Appearance), SciFi (sub: Aliens (subsub: Humanoid, Parasites), Human Enhancement (subsub: Cyborgs, Genetic Modification), Mecha (subsub: Androids, Piloted Robots, Power Suits, Robot Helpers, Transforming Robots, Space Travel, Time Travel)), Sexual Abuse, Thriller.

(1) Too long
(2) Put it under Romance
(3) or Magical Girl?
(4) Love Polygon is too nondescriptive. Rather: Triangle (boy + 2 girls), Harem(boy + 3 or more girls), Reverse Triangle, Reverse Harem, 'Network' (no clear central character, School Rumble).

And finally:
Theme tags: Art, Coming of Age, Conspiracy, Cooking, Cyberpunk, Daily Life, Law and Order (sub: Cops, Special Squads), Military (sub: Airforce, Feudal Warfare, Navy), Music (sub: Band, Idol), Performance, Proxy Battles, School Life (sub: Clubs, College, Delinquents, Elementary School, High School, Middle School), Sports (sub: Baseball, Basketball, Combat, Driving, Football, Golf, Gymnastics, Tennis, Volleyball (1)), Tragedy, Underworld (sub: Bounty Hunters, Mafia, Yakuza)

(1) Way too many subcategories.

I hope I didn't lose anything during editing.

So my meta-suggestion would be to make this list the basis of discussion. The list can be changed by a broad consensus among the tag moderators. They would try to modify other tags to fit into this list where possible. Tags that don't fit at all aren't forbidden but the mods would look at them more closely if they are really useful or if one could even include them into the official list.

I want a beer.

EDIT: The tag cloud itself over at anidb is a good example how not to do things IMHO, starting anywhere and seeing tags like "just wrong", "knightmare frames", "kyuun kyuun", "lacking", "lame", "l33t", "lia is awesome". But maybe I just don't understand Web 2.0. I still want a beer.

[Daniel E.]

Originally Posted by Slice of Life

Audience tags: Josei, Kodomo, Mina, Seinen, Shoujo, Shounen

Now here's already the first problem. How much Japanese do we want? Who will be using the tag system? Noobs or certified otaku? I don't think everybody understands what 'Mina' means.

Don't have a clue about the meaning for the first three.

And I seriously hope the tag system is not something that could end up being used as a tool for 'certified otakus' to isolate everyone else without "proper anime knowledge".

[KholdStare]

Josei = for an older female audience
Kodomo = for children (guessing, based on Kodomo no Jikan )
Mina = for everyone?

I personally think that a "for everyone" tag is not needed.

[Daniel E.]

Originally Posted by KholdStare

Josei = older female audience
Kodomo = for children (guessing, based on Kodomo no Jikan )
Mina = everyone?

Ah, thanks for the fast reply!

Still, I think the tags should aim for terms people are familiar with (i:e:furry) and not for words only a fraction of the comunity knows.

[Slice of Life]

KholdStare is right and I agree with Daniel. I'd rather have a system that even my old mother understands. Insofar I approve "erotic game" over eroge.

[felix]

I agree as well. I know it's stupid, but words which are not immediately understood should be avoided.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Solace

@relentlessflame - Your words suggest that the moderators are leaning more towards categorization than description with regards to tag usage, am I correct in this understanding or are the moderators still deciding on that matter?

Also, in regards to the outline of the tag team proposal - I'd be willing to rework the outline I posted earlier here into something a little more reflective of the changes in this discussion, depending on what the staff decides they want the focus of tags to be. I would also be willing to throw together a general FAQ once things are ironed out.

I think I can best summarize what I've seen the mods and admins saying about it by quoting Slice of Life's little edit:

Originally Posted by Slice of Life

EDIT: The tag cloud itself over at anidb is a good example how not to do things IMHO, starting anywhere and seeing tags like "just wrong", "knightmare frames", "kyuun kyuun", "lacking", "lame", "l33t", "lia is awesome". But maybe I just don't understand Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 "says" that tagging should be totally user-driven, and if people want to make tags like "lame" or "l33t", so be it. "Let the bad tags weed themselves out in time", they'd say, or "who should decide on what is and isn't a good tag?". I think most of the mods and admins here would agree that we don't see this approach as maximizing the benefit of the feature (which I see as a very easy-to-use way of linking related threads).

That being said, beyond saying "we don't think totally user-defined is the way to go" (especially after seeing the plethora of useless and bad tags created in the last few weeks), I don't think any of the mods or admins want to drive the decision-making on which tags to use, so long as they're "useful". In other words, so long as there is a system, I don't think the mods/admins want to control it.

My personal approach is to look at it this way: what are the factors people generally would want to use to find related threads? That's why I personally think things like genre, season, animation studio, original creator, and so on would be useful. But like I said, that's just my personal opinion; it doesn't look like there will be some sort of "official position" coming from the admins that I've seen (but they can obviously correct me!).

Originally Posted by Slice of Life

For the sake of concreteness, here's the category list from anidb with a few comments.

Yeah, after reviewing that list, my main reaction was basically "yuck"... On a personal level, I'm still not that impressed with the way anidb does things in terms of categorization, but then again I do still appreciate your argument that it gives us a starting point. But if we're already being editorial in our application... hmm... Well, it's a good starting point for a discussion anyway.

Originally Posted by Cats

I agree as well. I know it's stupid, but words which are not immediately understood should be avoided.

Well, I sort of agree, but at the same time, you want to use terms that people will be familiar with. Where do you draw the line? How do you decide which are "immediately understood" and which aren't? Just based on the ones that you personally don't understand? I mean, some would say "shounen" and "shoujo" are "not immediately understood" by a new-viewer audience, but many anime/manga fans would expect such categorization (because they're used to it by now). You'd almost have to pick your target demographic/audience, I guess. Some would also argue that use of the tag will help foster an understanding of the meaning of the term (i.e. if people just avoid terms that "no one knows", then no one will ever become familiar with the correct terms).

So I think there are arguments that could be made, anyway. Personally, if you're going to use "shoujo", "shounen", and "seinen", it doesn't make sense to ditch "josei", "kodomo", and "mina" for a more understandable term set, because it's just selective use of the Japanese language. If you're using the Japanese terms, use the Japanese terms, I think. That being said, it wouldn't be so bad to have a second tag that's for the translated version of the term, I guess.

[Daniel E.]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

So I think there are arguments that could be made, anyway. Personally, if you're going to use "shoujo", "shounen", and "seinen", it doesn't make sense to ditch "josei", "kodomo", and "mina" for a more understandable term set, because it's just selective use of the Japanese language. If you're using the Japanese terms, use the Japanese terms, I think. That being said, it wouldn't be so bad to have a second tag that's for the translated version of the term, I guess.

Probably the only way to go if you ask me. >_<

Don't know if it's possible but, can tags be chained to other similar ones? I mean, let's say that I do a search using "Furry" and as the forum displays the results I could see a message saying:

For similar content look also for kemonomimi

Or something like that.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Daniel E.

Don't know if it's possible but, can tags be chained to other similar ones? I mean, let's say that I do a search using "Furry" and as the forum displays the results I could see a message saying:

For similar content look also for kemonomimi

Or something like that.

Don't think it can be at the moment, but that would be an interesting idea. Sort of like "related terms", hmm... I guess it may all be a matter of how "deep" we want to get in altering vBulletin here.

[PEDOS_GRANDE]

Seriously. I just read that laundry list of stuff that relentlessflame posted, and my god. Clearly you guys are thinking faaaaaaaaaaaaaaar too much about this. I mean, all this so users can put crappy tags on threads. A tag committee that gets together, sorts out tags, populates lists, just so a user can tag a thread with some term from a predetermined list? Seems like way too much trouble. I knew this was going to happen when this feature showed up. Might as well just shut it off instead of jumping through all of these hoops.

[monir]

Originally Posted by PEDOS_GRANDE

.............I knew this was going to happen when this feature showed up. Might as well just shut it off instead of jumping through all of these hoops.

And where is the fun in that?

[PEDOS_GRANDE]

Well, if you want to treat an anime forum like a job, I guess then by all means. Just seems so unnecessary and a lot of trouble just so I can tag the ZKC or Kurenai thread with "pedo crap".