It was not Treaty of Westphalia length

October 11, 2012 2:26 PM

What is the maximum character length for a tag?

I had a lengthy tag fail to appear on post preview. What's the longest a tag can be?

posted by Chrysostom to MetaFilter-Related at 2:26 PM (22 comments total)

pb must be in the bathroom or something. Usually he's all over these tech questions like a jelly sandwich.
posted by m@f at 2:37 PM on October 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

Here's the longest one I remember offhand: honeyhoneylaunderingbeesstickyfingers
posted by 2bucksplus at 2:42 PM on October 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

A single tag has a maximum length of 50 characters.

Sorry about the delay, I'm at lunch.
posted by pb (staff) at 2:42 PM on October 11, 2012 [12 favorites]

I bet it's cause it's in metafilter related instead of bugs. I bet he has a super loud alert klaxon for posts in the bugs category.
posted by lazaruslong at 2:42 PM on October 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Darn.
posted by lazaruslong at 2:43 PM on October 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Your tag was buffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalo, wasn't it?
posted by 2bucksplus at 2:44 PM on October 11, 2012 [4 favorites]

If you have to ask this question, you're bad at picking tags.
posted by ryanrs at 2:47 PM on October 11, 2012

lazaruslong: "I bet he has a super loud alert klaxon for posts in the bugs category."


*cue bug report alarm*

The iPad Begins Speaking:

"Good afternoon, pb. 

A bug has been detected on the front page of metafilter. 

Please click the glowing periplaneta americana icon for further details. 

Your mission: Restore site to normal operation before mathowie returns from lunch.

The fate of the site is in your hands. 

This iPad will self-destruct in 10 seconds." 

posted by zarq at 3:18 PM on October 11, 2012 [9 favorites]

16 minutes later,

"Sorry about the delay, I'm at lunch."

Ummm... has anyone outside of the Mod Cabal ever actually seen pb with their own eyes?

Is it possible that the true story of Metafilter's origin began with a deal matthowie made with Satan to trade his immortal soul in exchange for the perfect corporation that would bring happiness but not without that little bit of interesting frustration, wealth but not to much, and a day job that mostly involves surfing the internet? Where Satan then crafted the eternal soul of matthowie into a perfect lidless ghost in the machine who would answer queries in seconds, fix bugs in minutes, and maintain the website indefinitely, but be doomed to program Hell's SQL servers for all eternity.
posted by Blasdelb at 3:32 PM on October 11, 2012 [8 favorites]

Previously.
posted by unliteral at 3:55 PM on October 11, 2012

Where Satan then crafted the eternal soul of matthowie into a perfect lidless ghost in the machine who would answer queries in seconds, fix bugs in minutes, and maintain the website indefinitely, but be doomed to program Hell's SQL servers for all eternity.

We might be able to assess the accuracy of this speculation if we knew what pb had for lunch. If it was the mewling souls of the banned, the answer may be "yes."
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:22 PM on October 11, 2012 [5 favorites]

Sorry about the delay, I'm at lunch.

That was 20 whole minutes, you slacker.
posted by DarlingBri at 6:15 PM on October 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

2bucksplus: "Your tag was buffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalo, wasn't it?"

Yes!
posted by Chrysostom at 7:18 PM on October 11, 2012 [4 favorites]

Blasdelb writes "Metafilter's origin began with a deal matthowie made with Satan to trade his immortal soul"

I remember the JRUNs; not even Satan would have been able to twist the knife that deep.
posted by Mitheral at 7:38 PM on October 11, 2012

The clue is in his name: pb(j).
posted by arcticseal at 7:54 PM on October 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

unliteral: "Previously."

I was REALLY hoping that was referring to the comment preceding it, rather than the post...
posted by Grither at 5:30 AM on October 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

A single tag has a maximum length of 50 characters.

There goes the post I was going to make about Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.
posted by daniel_charms at 5:56 AM on October 12, 2012 [3 favorites]

Ah, one of those 2:30 in the afternoon lunches where the tags for that lunch would be wingsbeerpizzabeermorebeer and heyareyougoingtoeatthatlastslider
posted by JohnnyGunn at 9:03 AM on October 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Also, at least as of a few years ago non-Latin Unicode characters in tags caused problems. In case length turns out to not be the real problem.
posted by XMLicious at 10:35 PM on October 12, 2012

I was always told that using tags with over 10 characters killed a unicorn. I only know this because of the pile of dead unicorns in my yard.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 5:56 AM on October 13, 2012

so I went back to an old post of mine to see if it's 50 characters or 50 bytes, and I found something confusing - in a closed post, the tag add/remove UI appears, but only the remove actually works.
posted by russm at 5:19 PM on October 13, 2012

Thanks for the report, russm. We'll take a look at that.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:30 PM on October 13, 2012