Back-Taggers, Back to Work!

September 3, 2007 3:31 PM

The back-tagging team seems to have languished in their zeal to backtag all old Metafilter and AskMetafilter posts (I know I have fallen behind). I think we should set a goal end-date for ourselves, and really push ourselves to get it all done. Details inside.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero to MetaFilter-Related at 3:31 PM (58 comments total)

So far we've done-

MeFi: 19,310 untagged posts. | 14,253 tagged so far.
AskMeFi: 1,560 untagged posts. | 7,866 tagged so far.

Wouldn't it be great to see 0 and 0 for untagged posts?

I say, we try to finish by.... end of November? end of December?

I'm up for it if the rest of you are!

I also hope this post will encourage people who might want to join the team to do so- fresh blood!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 3:33 PM on September 3, 2007 [1 favorite]

I was just thinking about this yesterday... Anyone interested in helping out, email or IM me with your username and I'll get you started.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:35 PM on September 3, 2007

I would recommend before the Thanksgiving holidays. After that, a lot of Christmas stuff gets in the way and it's kinda setting up for failure, ya know?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:43 PM on September 3, 2007

I had kind of forgot about backtagging and I guess a lot of other people have too. Thanks for the reminder, TPS, I'll be sure to tag a few posts in the next couple of days.

As for a deadline I just don't know. But I think it would be cool if someone posted the tagging progress to MetaTalk every month or week so everyone would be reminded of their (voluntary) tagging obligations. (I know, I know, I could just go to the tagging page to see the progress but I just don't have the attention span to do stuff like this unless I'm reminded regularly.)
posted by sveskemus at 4:33 PM on September 3, 2007

I missed the beginning of this. What exactly is the team doing?
posted by timeistight at 4:36 PM on September 3, 2007

tagging old posts.
posted by delmoi at 4:43 PM on September 3, 2007

Sveskemus's suggestion for regular reminders sounds better. Having a deadline makes it sound like work, while an occasional reminder is like "oh, that fun thing I was doing still needs a bit more love, lemme go help out."
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:52 PM on September 3, 2007

Seems to me the last few (hundred?) may be difficult. I'm skipping tagging things that are tricky (to me, that's often American politics - if I can't work out who's Republican or Democrat, I can't tag meaningfully), especially if the links are broken so I can't check the original. So I wonder if we'll slow down further near the end.

I'm enjoying it - found some fascinating things in the untagged.
posted by paduasoy at 5:01 PM on September 3, 2007

PS If we do set a deadline, it would help to know the number of people bagtacking or indeed backtagging - then we can work out how many we would each need to do to reach it. Having said that, I don't think I'm ever going to be able to do more than 10-20 a day.
posted by paduasoy at 5:06 PM on September 3, 2007

tagging old posts.

~sigh~

All "old" posts or just posts from before tags were available? Are team members assigned blocks of posts or is it catch-as-catch-can? Can team members delete tags, or just add them? Can the original post delete the posting teams tags? Where is this "tagging page" sveskemus mentions -- or is it just for the team? Will the team be finished when all posts have tags or will the team move on to improving and regularizing tags?
posted by timeistight at 5:08 PM on September 3, 2007

I was thinking the same thing: that the ThePinkSuperhero has really been slacking off lately.

And then I thought: so have I! In fact, I didn't even really slack on that much to start with. But, ya... maybe a $1 gift card to Dairy Queen for the top tagger would get things rolling again.
posted by The Deej at 5:13 PM on September 3, 2007

timeistight, the team is tagging all posts that don't have tags but I think that means old posts only as you can't make a post without tags any tags now.

Team members are given a page of old untagged posts which they can add tags to. I have posted a screenshot of the tagging page here. The tagging page is for team members only but the only thing you have to do to join the team is email or IM jessamyn.
posted by sveskemus at 5:16 PM on September 3, 2007

The link to the screenshot seems to be broken. Try this instead.
posted by sveskemus at 5:19 PM on September 3, 2007

timeistight, it's tagging all untagged posts, so yeah from before they were available. You get a big page of ten random posts from both ask and mefi, each with a big tag input field at the bottom of each post. You type in some words and hit a save tags button and type in the next post, and so on until the page is cleared or you're ready for ten new ones. You hit a button to reload the page and ten entirely new ones come up.

It's all totally random so you are tagging stuff from 2001 and 2005 and 1999 with 3-4 keywords. It's kind of fun and fast to do maybe a hundred in about ten or twenty minutes, but I kept finding old interesting posts and following links to read more and I'd get distracted/bored and worn down.

It seems like it should be something you could do thousands of times without taking a break but there's a lot of cool post distractions.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:22 PM on September 3, 2007

Can the original post[er] delete the posting teams tags?

I was wondering about that, too. Was anything decided?
posted by mediareport at 5:23 PM on September 3, 2007

I'm on the team. Thanks to jessamyn for my bionic backtagging visor and retractable claw!
posted by hermitosis at 6:44 PM on September 3, 2007

Can the original post[er] delete the posting teams tags?

I'm pretty sure they can.

Right now there are about 130 people working on this and they only get the option to add tags to totally untagged posts which includes posts form before tagging and also posts made before tagging was mandatory. There's not much cohesiveness, the admins can sort of keep an eye on what folks are doing in case there's someone really unclear on the concept and we have a few rough tools at our disposal [tag find/replace for example] but there's no regularizing project planed at the moment.

If you want, timeistight, I can sign you up and you can see what the setup looks like without any obligation on your part to do anything, we're not picking people, they're just self-selecting.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:49 PM on September 3, 2007

Pretty sure that the original poster can always add or remove tags at any point in time.
posted by Rhomboid at 6:51 PM on September 3, 2007

All of the tags I've added to untagged posts showed up on my profile as my tags, and then they were eventually removed. How will that proceed with this renewed vigor? Another binge and purge, or is the issue resolved so they won't show up on my profile at all?
posted by carsonb at 7:16 PM on September 3, 2007

It's kind of fun and fast to do maybe a hundred in about ten or twenty minutes,

Wow, I was doing it totally differently. I was checking each link to make sure it worked, and then skimming the thread to make sure I didn't misunderstand what the poster was going for. I was probably only averaging one post every five minutes.
posted by quin at 7:17 PM on September 3, 2007

the tags won't show up at all, carsonb. That was a glitch from the first round that we resolved.

And yeah, the original poster has Complete Tag Authority which means they can remove any tags added to their posts. Seems like it'd be a little anti-social to go in and undo the backtaggers' work, though.
posted by pb (staff) at 7:19 PM on September 3, 2007

Here's 4 threads of back tagging back story, in which many questions are answered, and much progress is shown.
posted by donnagirl at 7:20 PM on September 3, 2007

Thanks for clearing that up, pb. ..Though I did kind of like having "brokenlink" as my top tag.
posted by carsonb at 7:23 PM on September 3, 2007

I was checking each link to make sure it worked, and then skimming the thread to make sure I didn't misunderstand what the poster was going for.
Same here quin.

the tags won't show up at all, carsonb. That was a glitch from the first round that we resolved.
They still show here though - america
Users that often use this tag:
tellurian (123)
That should be 26.
posted by tellurian at 7:29 PM on September 3, 2007

thanks, tellurian, we'll throw it on the to do pile.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:04 PM on September 3, 2007

I haven't done any of that in months. I found myself skipping some that that I didn't know how to tag and a few that I didn't trust myself to tag (usually the political ones) and then at some point I dropped it altogether.
posted by Tuwa at 9:58 PM on September 3, 2007

I am a slacker ..... but then its been summer and the beach, and evening walks along the waterfront and in the gothic part of town, and al fresco eating; barbeques on the terrace, and siestas in the hammock....I am a slacker.
posted by adamvasco at 11:11 PM on September 3, 2007

I haven't done any in awhile, but I did almost a hundred AskMes tonight in about 45 minutes. Another day or two of work should help clean up the rest.

The MeFi posts are more work if you take the time to test/browse the links. Back when I tagged MeFi posts I noticed about two-thirds of them had dead links.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:47 AM on September 4, 2007

i'm back in ur untagged posts, taggin...ur untagged posts.

thanks for the reminder TPS, i'll try to re-start my tag-o-tron soon.
posted by allkindsoftime at 1:15 AM on September 4, 2007

Hey. I'm adding tags to AskMe posts on the backtagging page, but the tags are showing up as MeFi tags when I mouseover and/or click on them.

Is anyone else getting this problem? I didn't notice it last night but it's definitely happening this morning. Perhaps this is a lack of coffee situation, if so, someone please tell me what I'm doing or seeing wrong.
posted by mediareport at 5:49 AM on September 4, 2007

mediareport, I see this too. The tags are added correctly, they're just showing up in the wrong place. I dropped pb a note about this. We've got about 150 people doing this now, thanks for all the new signups!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:44 AM on September 4, 2007

Just a note of thanks to all who are still working on this - you guys are doing a bangup job.
posted by grateful at 7:36 AM on September 4, 2007

tags should be routed to correct sites now, thanks mediareport.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:21 AM on September 4, 2007

This is harder than it looks.
posted by timeistight at 3:37 PM on September 4, 2007

Can you sign me up via comment, or would you rather have an email? I think I could bang out a bunch pretty happily.
posted by nevercalm at 3:49 PM on September 4, 2007

Forget it, I'll email. Stupid question.
posted by nevercalm at 3:49 PM on September 4, 2007

Hey, tagging is fun! It's like playing a word association game with all of MeFi. Try it!
posted by houseofdanie at 5:35 PM on September 4, 2007

update. There are less than a thousand untagged AskMe posts. I'm sure we'll finish those soonish. Thanks so much for everyone who signed up to help or who has been helping all along also!

Mefi: 18,663 untagged posts. (14,900 so far.)
Ask: 986 untagged posts. (8,440 so far.)
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:40 PM on September 4, 2007

Let it be known that it was INITAPPLETTE who brought the AskMeta total under 1k.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:54 PM on September 4, 2007 [1 favorite]

Ok, I know we're supposed to go easy on the 'batshitinsane' tag, but old Michael Jackson posts are fair game, right?
posted by mediareport at 7:16 PM on September 4, 2007

No more untagged AskMe posts!
posted by timeistight at 4:05 PM on September 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

There were about 350-400 around noon today. I had a few hours of downtime this afternoon and wrapped them up.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:15 PM on September 6, 2007

Good on ya BP, and thanks. It's a nice feeling, knowing there isn't an untagged AskMe.
posted by carsonb at 6:39 PM on September 6, 2007

So proud!!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:31 PM on September 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

It was tough — so many good questions over the years! There should be a yearly best-of anthology.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:50 PM on September 6, 2007

Yay, nice work BP.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:50 PM on September 6, 2007

I'm doing it the slow way--check the link, scan the thread, etc., but I can still do a hundred a week, trivially. If there are 150 people working on this, and each one can do ten a night we'll finish it by Thanksgiving, hands-down.
posted by tejolote at 8:14 PM on September 6, 2007

That's weird - I just did some tagging and got two untagged AskMe's:

Microsoft Access 2002 -- Problems Running Report
posted by Gator on July 25, 2006 at 4:00 PM

Does image theft worry you?
posted by Gator on November 27, 2005 at 9:55 AM

Is Gator untagging?
posted by tellurian at 8:24 PM on September 26, 2007

Okay. As an experiment I'll untag one of my AskMe's and see if turns up on the tagging page.
posted by tellurian at 10:42 PM on September 26, 2007

Yes! it did.
posted by tellurian at 10:45 PM on September 26, 2007

Now my question is - why did Gator object to the tags that were applied and delete them without providing others?
posted by tellurian at 10:51 PM on September 26, 2007

Excellent. Now what can I do to get tehloki to back-favorite my older posts?
posted by psmealey at 5:36 AM on September 27, 2007

Wow - kick ass. I hadn't seen that AskMe was fully tagged. This went onto my back burner long long ago, but wow: cheers to everyone who actually did all the work!
posted by LobsterMitten at 4:09 PM on September 27, 2007

Because my MetaTalk post has been closed and there is a four day delay on new posts I'd like to post this:
Despite quarsan's prayers, the book is now available. If someone wants to post it for real, I think it would be a good thing. Congratulations to you and Zoe.
posted by tellurian at 6:18 AM on September 28, 2007

I recently joined the backtagging team, and am finding it's a fun way to re-explore MeFi. Napster, the browserwars, Star Wars prequels... good ole days all.

Anyway, just a few minutes ago, the team broke 16,000 unflagged MeFi posts! As of right now, the tally is this:

MeFi: 15,967 untagged posts. | 17,596 tagged so far.
AskMeFi: 0 untagged posts. | 9,426 tagged so far.
10 Random Untagged Posts

So, woo! And, does anyone know what these "random untagged posts" are?
posted by nkknkk at 5:49 PM on October 1, 2007

does anyone know what these "random untagged posts" are?
That's what you get when you enter the URL or say "Give me more". You're not flagging are you?
posted by tellurian at 4:42 PM on October 2, 2007

Flagging? No! Must have just reloaded a page, and not noticed it before. Or since, now that I think about it.
posted by nkknkk at 6:55 PM on October 2, 2007

Oh, I think it was just a browser-loading weirdness. Rather than the page title ("10 Random Untagged Posts"), that designation showed up under the tally on the right, in small font. Anyway, it's fixed. As you were.
posted by nkknkk at 6:58 PM on October 2, 2007