Back-taggers: Ludicrous speed--GO!

June 25, 2007 8:38 PM

Hey back-taggers! What are the top 10 tags displayed on your userpage? (For both MeFi and AskMe.) Also, we're nearing 50%—let's do a page (or 3 =) today!
posted by carsonb to MetaFilter-Related at 8:38 PM (43 comments total)

It's actually only about 45% right now. Anyway, I'm curious as to what has floated to the top in the course of this project. Maybe get an idea of the overarching themes of the first four years.
posted by carsonb at 8:38 PM on June 25, 2007

Here are mine:

Top 10 Tags on MeFi: brokenlink (67) music (16) politics (12) art (11) photography (10) war (9) books (7) bush (7) iraq (6) movies (6)
Top 10 Tags on Ask MeFi: music (12) computers (8) internet (8) winxp (8) mac (7) osx (7) language (6) software (6) design (5) editing (5)
posted by carsonb at 8:40 PM on June 25, 2007

Top 10 Tags on MeFi: politics (38) brokenlink (35) newsfilter (24) government (23) health (23) business (20) bush (19) internet (19) music (18) crime (15)
Top 10 Tags on Ask MeFi: internet (33) health (28) music (21) software (20) work (19) technology (18) computer (17) home (15) windows (15) apple (14)
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:49 PM on June 25, 2007 [1 favorite]

Top 10 Tags on MeFi: Politics (47) BrokenLink (33) Terrorism (32) bush (25) UnitedStates (23) Art (22) Iraq (22) video (21) Internet (20) Music (19)
Top 10 Tags on Ask MeFi: software (50) Recommendation (28) Internet (27) Music (24) computer (23) Mac (20) Windows (20) Apple (17) microsoft (14) Hardware (11)

Also, for those playing at home:
Top 10 Tags on MetaTalk: snark(100) Flameout(17) Cheezburger (2)
Top 10 Tags on MeFiCabal: Secret(475) Shhhhhh(473) ThereIsNo(444)
posted by blue_beetle at 9:06 PM on June 25, 2007

I was going to post something like this but with a request (again) for people to tag their own - there are a lot of familiar names coming up. I *try* to do one a day.

Top 10 Tags on MeFi: brokenlink (30) photography (18) art (16) war (8) science (7) history (6) music (6) photos (6) Design (5) education (5)
Top 10 Tags on Ask MeFi: art (3) employment (3) job (3) mac (3) tv (3) video (3) blog (2) books (2) browser (2) firefox (2)
posted by peacay at 9:21 PM on June 25, 2007

politics (63) tops the 1717 brokenlink tags.
posted by peacay at 9:24 PM on June 25, 2007

Top 10 Tags on MeFi: america (97) brokenlink (43) art (27) photography (26) britain (25) flash (20) history (18) iraq (16) music (16) war (16)
Top 10 Tags on Ask MeFi: america (11) howto (11) software (8) mp3 (6) music (5) suggestions (5) diy (4) money (4) recommend (4) recommendation (4)
posted by tellurian at 9:30 PM on June 25, 2007

You should really, really go tag another fifty or so right now, because I'm pretty sure I've only tagged that much and I look forward to coming in dead last when this whole thing is done. So get to it.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:38 PM on June 25, 2007

I've been adding tags for longer, so my numbers are a little skewed

Top 10 Tags on MeFi: brokenlink (77) obit (71) iraq (59) obituary (58) bush (28) music (27) war (25) metafilterhistory (20) flash (18) politics (18)

Top 10 Tags on Ask MeFi: travel (21) music (18) email (12) pc (11) windows (11) computer (10) mac (10) osx (10) software (10) xp (10)
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:47 PM on June 25, 2007

Top 10 Tags on MeFi: culture (9) internet (9) music (7) war (7) history (6) art (5) death (5) game (5) iraq (5) language (5)
Top 10 Tags on Ask MeFi: health (8) computer (6) education (5) language (5) music (5) food (4) relationships (4) career (3) dating (3) mac (3)

(i haz ben slackr)
posted by The Deej at 10:17 PM on June 25, 2007

Top 10 Tags on MeFi: brokenlink (68) politics (14) music (12) iraq (11) bush (8) movies (8) religion (8) internet (7) military (7) television (7)

Summer school started and I've been lagging on the retrotagging. I'm going to make an effort to be less lame, um, starting tomorrow.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:17 PM on June 25, 2007

Top 10 Tags on MeFi: brokenlink (15) art (3) photoessay (3) USpolitics (3) america (2) bush (2) elections (2) funny (2) kerry (2) lyrics (2)

Top 10 Tags on Ask MeFi: software (4) catfilter (2) cats (2) google (2) books (1) blowtorches (1) benjaminfranklin (1) benfranklin (1) ben (1) ballots (1)

The Ben Franklin one was fun though!

Off to tag more, now.
posted by librarina at 10:26 PM on June 25, 2007

Jessamyn, you have 71 obit and 58 obituary?
posted by team lowkey at 11:26 PM on June 25, 2007

team lowkey
.
posted by tellurian at 11:37 PM on June 25, 2007

It seems a bit weird to be tagging things 'brokenlink'. The intention of tagging is (arguably) to make it easier for people to find things, but it'd be a bit odd for someone to actually go looking for broken links, doncha think? Maybe it's just me.

Still, go team, yay, all that!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:08 AM on June 26, 2007

Then again, my top tags on Lastfm include

recheesification
retroactive re-education camp
this is the part in the program when we sing a drunk song
boozeppelin
flockofhaircuts
ballsinging
oldbastard
thats not funny goddamnit

and

bc grow-op rock

so I'm probably not worth listening to on this subject.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:14 AM on June 26, 2007

But why the discrepancy between obit and obituary? If you're back-tagging wouldn't you choose one or both? No offense intended... it's just surprising to see "obit" be the second most used tag, and "obituary" be the fourth.
posted by team lowkey at 12:18 AM on June 26, 2007

Yeah, there's only marginal utility from it. If you search and land on an old thread and see 'brokenlink' it might save you from bothering to click through. Or it might suggest that a newer post on a similar subject won't be a double. But it's a simple thing to do while backtagging and at the end it might be an interesting metric for 2.93 seconds.
posted by peacay at 12:22 AM on June 26, 2007

When the back-tagging is finished I heard that cortex will be fixing brokenlinks with links to caches or archives. If these are unavailable he will be finding alternate sources with similar information and linking to that instead. He may also be creating new pages of relevant information to link to if all else fails.
posted by tellurian at 12:59 AM on June 26, 2007

Listing my tags here as a view of MetaFilter's past would be a bit useless, because I don't tag every post, I skip all the political ones: I'm not politically astute enough to know which tags would be best.
posted by Bugbread at 2:02 AM on June 26, 2007

Top 10 Tags on MeFi: brokenlink (14) music (13) history (12) georgebush (9) georgewbush (9) politics (8) bush (7) . (5) cinema (5) education (5)

Top 10 Tags on Ask MeFi: cinema (4) film (4) movies (4) travel (3) firefox (2) gifts (2) health (2) phones (2) bangkok (1) bags (1)
posted by marxchivist at 4:46 AM on June 26, 2007

I will tag my own posts, thank you. Also, do the original posters have the right to change or delete tags which they do not find accurate ? It only seems right that they should.
posted by y2karl at 5:56 AM on June 26, 2007

why the discrepancy between obit and obituary? If you're back-tagging wouldn't you choose one or both?

I wasn't backtagging for most of those. I have the ability to add tags to anyone's posts as do cortex and mathowie. Many many obit threads don't have a basic obit or obituary tag and I figured until the backtagging project [and the new find and replace tag feature, thanks pb!] I wasn't sure which one was more likely to be standard.

y2karl: you can delete tags made by others (but not edit), or you could when the admins were making them and I assume you still can now.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:15 AM on June 26, 2007

I've been totally slacking lately, but here are mine:

Top 10 Tags on MeFi: brokenlink (61) music (22) bush (15) internet (14) politics (12) iraq (11) media (11) terrorism (11) photos (10) america (9)

Top 10 Tags on Ask MeFi: software (11) computers (10) internet (10) music (9) windows (9) travel (7) hardware (6) movies (6) XP (6) audio (5)
posted by trip and a half at 7:22 AM on June 26, 2007

Hey librarina, that Ben Franklin thread was fun! I had missed it, so thanks for mentioning it, because my uncle was named after Benjamin Franklin! (But I'm fairly certain he's not a serial killer.)
posted by trip and a half at 7:36 AM on June 26, 2007

Top 10 Tags on MeFi: brokenlink (321) USA (88) politics (57) internet (45) music (37) technology (35) art (33) law (29) Bush (26) GeorgeBush (26)

Top 10 Tags on Ask MeFi: computers (39) software (26) recommendations (22) music (20) internet (16) advice (15) shopping (13) Windows (11) business (9) Mac (9)

I guess I've been a bit heavy on the brokenlink, since I've been adding it even when just one link of a multilink post is broken or doesn't lead to the intended info (i.e., what was supposed to be a news article comes up as the news site's frontpage instead).
posted by CKmtl at 8:51 AM on June 26, 2007

Cortex, I got you totally beat for slacking. I don't even have to do anything to solidify my win.
posted by allkindsoftime at 10:02 AM on June 26, 2007

I'm such a slacker.

Top 10 Tags on MeFi: brokenlink (22) terrorism (7) humor (4) 9-11 (3) flash (3) music (3) photography (3) accessibility (2) australia (2) bbc (2)

Top 10 Tags on Ask MeFi: audioequipment (3) cooking (3) sightseeing (3) tourism (3) audio (2) chicago (2) friendship (2) honesty (2) how-to (2) internationalrelations (2)
posted by fuzzbean at 10:07 AM on June 26, 2007

Top 10 Tags on MeFi: brokenlink (87) news (54) government (12) humor (12) music (10) terrorism (10) war (9) 911 (7) history (7) iraq (7)
Top 10 Tags on Ask MeFi: computers (17) recommendations (12) howto (9) music (8) windows (8) mac (5) troubleshooting (5) health (4) mp3 (4) web (4)

Anecdotally, almost all those 54 "news" posts are also "brokenlink" posts. Newsfilter sucks at longevity.
posted by donnagirl at 10:13 AM on June 26, 2007

Top 10 Tags on MeFi: brokenlink (26) Iraq (7) war (7) Bush (3) comedy (3) java (3) London (3) september11 (3) terrorism (3) army (2)

Top 10 Tags on Ask MeFi: lyrics (3) Windows (3) wireless (3) linux (2) wifi (2) beat (1) basement (1) bannedbook (1) banned (1) ball (1)
posted by quin at 10:38 AM on June 26, 2007

So, looking through this thread, it seems to be 'brokenlink' for the win.
posted by quin at 10:39 AM on June 26, 2007

I'm surprised there aren't more "relationship" tags on AskMeFi.
posted by misha at 12:40 PM on June 26, 2007

"Backtaggers" sounds dirty. Or illegal. Either way, I have to remember to do more backtagging.
posted by amro at 12:54 PM on June 26, 2007

y2karl: you can delete tags made by others (but not edit), or you could when the admins were making them and I assume you still can now.
posted by jessamyn
I don't think that's correct jessamyn. In the post I pointed out I wasn't able to delete the tags, attempting to resulted in an error message: "Looks like you're trying to delete tags fromto the wrong post. Go ."
posted by tellurian at 3:59 PM on June 26, 2007

WHAT THEY DO!
They smile in your face
All the time they wanna take your place
The back taggers
Baaack taggers ...
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:42 PM on June 26, 2007

In the post I pointed out I wasn't able to delete the tags

What post you pointed out? If you are the author of the post, I'm pretty sure you can remove tags that others add. It's possible that I may be confusing this place's tag system with Flickr's.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:32 PM on June 26, 2007

This one.
posted by tellurian at 6:49 PM on June 26, 2007

Oh okay, I wasn't sure if that was because it was punctuation or not. I added the tag "dot" to that post. See what happens if you try to remove it.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:13 PM on June 26, 2007

I get this message on a plain white screen:
Looks like you're trying to delete tags fromto the wrong post. Go .
posted by tellurian at 7:36 PM on June 26, 2007

Well that's no good. I'll drop in a bug report.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:45 PM on June 26, 2007

You know, I still get that behavior too.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:32 PM on June 26, 2007

I haven't done a huge number, but here they are.

Top 10 Tags on MeFi: politics (12) brokenlink (9) elections (7) internet (4) america (3) art (3) christopherhitchens (3) food (3) history (3) liberals (3)

Top 10 Tags on Ask MeFi: recommendations (5) books (4) icons (2) money (2) printers (2) biography (1) bilingualism (1) automaticgears (1) audiobooks (1) artists (1)

I'm mostly ignoring the American politics ones (hadn't realised there were so many) as I can't tag them intelligently - don't know who's in which party etc. And I was very excited to get one of the Kaycee Nicole posts to tag.
posted by paduasoy at 5:30 PM on June 28, 2007

In the post I pointed out I wasn't able to delete the tags, attempting to resulted in an error message: "Looks like you're trying to delete tags fromto the wrong post. Go ."

Which is exactly the message I have always gotten when I have tried to remove a tag made by someone else on any post I have ever made. I always assumed it was a feature, intentional and by design.
posted by y2karl at 6:54 PM on June 28, 2007