Request for Feedback: New Tag System for Lemmy

Fellow Lemmy users,

The Lemmy development team is considering adding a new tag system that would allow us to tag posts with keywords. This could make it easier to search for and find content on Lemmy.

Before implementing this, the team would like our feedback as users. Specifically:

  • Do you think having post tags would be helpful on Lemmy? Why or why not?
  • How should tags be displayed and integrated into Lemmy?

Please share your thoughts on whether you’d find a tag system useful, and if so, how you’d want it implemented. The dev team reads the feedback and will use it to decide how to proceed.

To give your input, you can comment or vote here or on the GitHub issue[^1]. You can vote whether or not you want the feature, and the different implementations, so we can see which is the most popular.

Thanks for helping shape Lemmy! This is our community, so please speak up.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

[^1]: GitHub — Post tags

mspencer712,

I’d love to see this become something greater. Consider this challenging problem:

Suppose you have an instance with a community (“C”) that likes to promote subtle but wrong things.

Suppose there’s a community of fact checkers (“F”) who wants to promote actual, verifiable/falsifiable facts by responding to lies with compelling and relevant references. They want to help by directly replying to posts or applying tags in community C, but they are not permitted to contribute by that instance. The community C seems to want their lies to remain unchallenged.

And then suppose there’s some opted-in users (“U”) who want to receive help understanding when posts in community C are not factual. They would like to receive posts or tags from fact checkers, because people they trust have recommended they listen to these fact checkers.

I’d love to see a tagging system that can help “U” and “F” connect, even if the owners of “C” don’t want them to, when browsing content in “C”. Ideally in an extensible way that lets some future implementer come up with novel ways to organize and maintain the fact-checking side of things in response to new threats.

I probably explained this badly, and the letters are probably more pretentious than helpful. But I hope someone smarter can pick this up and run with it, because it’s something the world desperately needs.

RonSijm, (edited )
@RonSijm@programming.dev avatar

I’d like tags, but they’d have to be something different than just communities / categories, since that’s already what communities are for.

I’ve build multiple CMS like systems, and how I’ve implemented tags before, and liked the most was as a node tree - Since a lot of the comments are focused on NSFW, to illustrate an example:

  • SFW
  • NSFW
    • NSFW/Porn
      • NSFW/Porn/Straight
      • NSFW/Porn/Gay
    • NSFW/Gore

This allows users to use tags as a sort of searching mechanism with an hierarchy, and fine-tune how specific they want to search for a specific thing. Do you want all NSFW stuff, or something more specific.

The downside is that it could get complicated to maintain a good tag structure, plus you might run into scenarios where 1 subtag might fall under more categories. In that case a “Parent 1-x> Child tree” doesn’t work anymore, and you’ll end up making an “Parent x-x> Child structure” - which is even more difficult to maintain

The argument against tags, is that posts are already categorized by communities. Though not everything, and not every niche thing needs it’s own community in my opinion. Look at !programming for example - a “general purpose community”. Just taking the top 2 posts there, you could still create a similar note-tree tag structure there like:

  • Programming
    • IDEs
      • VSCode
        • VSCodium
    • Code Style
      • Tabs VS Spaces

These tags could still be “communities”, but communities are non-hierarchical, and at what point to we really need an extreme niche “Tabs VS Spaces” community? If there would be a tag system like this, people could select the “Code Style” tag, and see posts under that tag plus all child tags.

This is just an idea for tag structuring, the concepts of ACLs of “who can make these tags” and “who can move around tags” or “who can append new child tags” - and “Introducing new child tags could require reordering the parent content into those tags” is an whole other discussion

CoderSupreme, (edited )

deleted_by_author

    •
    RonSijm,
    @RonSijm@programming.dev avatar

    I’m not very familiar with the ActivityPub protocol, but there are easy ways to flatten an hierarchy.

    For example, the tag could literally be “NSFW/Porn/Straight” - though I assume then there’s no system in place to request tags by their parents… So posts with that tag would just get 3 tags: “NSFW”, “NSFW/Porn” and “NSFW/Porn/Straight” in the API, and would be hidden / breadcrumbed in the UI.

    Though it’s not ideal to do it like that, as it would make maintaining structure more complicated - though not impossible.

    Just curious, how open / extendable is ActivityPub? Just to say “the protocol doesn’t have it (yet)” - doesn’t mean it can’t be implemented, either properly or through some workaround like mentioned above

    moomoomoo309,
    @moomoomoo309@programming.dev avatar

    So, I think it depends on what you want out of the tag system. If you want it to be a global tag that tags a post similar to how they’re used on tumblr or something like that (I.E: Has meaning not specific to the community it is in), that should be separate from per-community tags, like they’re done on reddit.
    I think per-community tags should definitely be added, similar to how reddit does them (for a good example of how they are used, see /r/talesfromtechsupport). Global tags, I’m not as sure, and if they are added, I think they should be separate from the per-community ones.
    My hesitation for the global tags is that it will create meta-communities, similar to what happens on tumblr, which blurs the line between communities, which makes moderation a little weird.

    BrianTheeBiscuiteer,

    I liked the idea of “flair” from Reddit so if it’s the same basic idea I’m in favor. The distinction there is that you could only choose flair from a predefined list and not just make up whatever you wanted (some subs did allow that too but mods determined if it was a thing or not).

    So in short, yes if it’s not freeform and mods can decide if it’s enabled.

    CoderSupreme, (edited )

    deleted_by_author

    •
    newIdentity,

    Some communities had a Bot set up that automatically adds the flair from the title. For example

    [Question] what are flairs on reddit

    Some communities also require to post the name the source. A bot then would create and add the flair to the post

    It’s a pretty good system. What I didn’t like about that is that you could only use one tag for each post.

    BrianTheeBiscuiteer,

    As others have said I think communities are already a good way to find or focus on specific content. Having user-defined tags that are essentially freeform seems like a step back. Also seems like it would be more work for mods to police appropriate use of freeform tags vs a short list of “flairs”. I think any tagging solution should assist with browsing rather than finding.

    jadero,

    I’m not convinced that post tags make a lot of sense in a system that is already categorized by community name. I see the primary value of tags in systems with an undifferentiated flow of posts on anything and everything.

    The system as described in the RFC contains the tags to a separate field and the tags themselves are not generated on the fly during posting. This should elimate (I hope) the use of hashtagging within the body of the post, something that I personally detest. It should also reduce the prevalence of tag spamming.

    The system as described also makes it possible for a client to have a “hide tags” setting, to reduce clutter.

    Even though I don’t see the value doesn’t mean others won’t benefit, maybe even my future self! So I guess I’m fine with it.

    MaungaHikoi,

    I’ve seen tags used well in general communities, like country specific ones especially. /r/newzealand was strict about their post flair so that people could filter out politics or shitposts if they didn’t want to see it but still wanted to engage with the other content.

    jadero,

    Yeah, that makes sense. A general purpose community or one with a lot of sub-topics could make effective use of tags. Woodworking, for example, can be anything from detailed hand carving to home construction and renovation, so tags would make sense.

    luckystarr,

    I’m wondering if a field with more detailed information would be helpful for the users. Moderators might want to clarify or explain in more detail the function or intention behind a tag. This doesn’t seem to be considered in the RFC.

    SideshowBoz,

    If it ends up being like Instagram where there’s just a spam of tags at the end of a post, then no? But perhaps that’s more for moderators/communities to decide, instead of programmatically enforcing a limit on tags.

    Pyroglyph,
    @Pyroglyph@lemmy.world avatar

    I’d love tags to be added. I do have a few extra ideas about them:

    • Separate the NSFW concept into NSFW (as in porn / questionable content) and NSFL (gore / generally disgusting things).
    • CW should be different to NSFW/NSFL as some people may not want to see certain content that doesn’t necessarily fall into these categories - e.g. articles mentioning abuse or other potentially (for lack of a better word) triggering content.
    • Spoiler tags should be, as the name describes, used only for content that spoils the plot of a movie/book/game/etc.
    nieceandtows,

    Please add functionality for mods to add a tag to a post.

    fubo,

    While we’re at it, can we abandon the “NSFW” terminology entirely?

    There have been many calls to separate out “porn/erotica” from “gore/violence” from other topics that might be tagged “NSFW”.

    This is a perfect opportunity to do that.

    Vlyn,

    This would actually work well with a tag system. Like you have predefined content warning tags. “Porn”, “Nudity”, “Gore”, “Violence”, “Sexual assault”, or whatever might be in the text/image/video. Users could then filter tags in their settings.

    Defining the tags and enforcing them in communities would probably be the biggest hurdle.

    SideshowBoz,

    This makes a lot of sense👌

    natecox,
    @natecox@programming.dev avatar

    All the support for this. I don’t even personally care much but I’ve seen this requested so many times.

    Pyroglyph,
    @Pyroglyph@lemmy.world avatar

    I thought it was generally accepted that porn was NSFW and gore/ick was NSFL.

    fubo, (edited )

    That distinction is not expressed in the way “NSFW” is used on Lemmy today.

    In any event, “NSFW” as currently used has other things wrong with it from a social standpoint.

    For example, it centers employers as our source of social standards, which is a position of extreme submission to capitalist control of social spaces.

    It implicitly asks posters to tag their posts according to their understanding of other people’s employers’ opinions rather than according to their knowledge of the content itself.

    For that matter, some people’s work is making porn. Erasing sex workers is regressive bullshit.

    Pyroglyph,
    @Pyroglyph@lemmy.world avatar

    it centers employers as our source of social standards, which is a position of extreme submission to capitalist control of social spaces.

    Have you considered the possibility that the general public’s social standards have been inherited by offices, and not the other way round?

    The “work” aspect of the phrase makes sense because it’s generally understood that a great many people browse various websites in an office where it’s easy for other people to glance over and see what’s on your screen.
    You’d be ostracised (or even fired) in most workplaces if caught viewing content we currently mark as NSFW, much like you would be in any other public place like a library or a park (though people seeing your screen in these locations may be less frequent).
    Work is chosen for the phrase because a) it’s the most likely place you’ll be when viewing content, and b) the place you’ll get in the most trouble for doing so.
    Knowing this, it makes sense.

    It implicitly asks posters to tag their posts according to their understanding of other people’s employers’ opinions

    I think you’re taking the acronym a bit too literally here. Plus I already explained why it it is the way it is above.

    In any case, what else would you have everyone call it? “Content you wouldn’t want people looking over your shoulder and seeing”? Or perhaps “media that you would be embarrassed if your phone blasted it in public”? It’s a bit long winded, don’t you think?

    fubo,

    Hmm. When was the last time you saw a discussion of race hatred or religious bigotry labeled “NSFW”? Those things are also “bad” in American workplaces.

    Pyroglyph,
    @Pyroglyph@lemmy.world avatar

    I haven’t seen any labelled NSFW. In fact, I luckily haven’t seen any at all. Though if I were to take a guess: the reason such discussions aren’t marked NSFW is because the people who take part in them don’t care about anyone but themselves and their own opinions. Asking them to be considerate and correctly flair their posts is meaningless as they are seemingly incapable of considering others.

    I’m not sure what any of that had to do with what I said before though.

    fubo, (edited )

    You seemed to be offering a complicated explanation of why “NSFW” is just fine and my objections to it are dopey.

    But it’s not just fine. It doesn’t even do what it supposedly promises to do, namely mark things that someone would get in trouble with their employer for having up on their screen at work.

    Because “NSFW” is used to mean “porn, and maybe gore” it doesn’t even succeed at marking other things that are not, y’know, safe for work.

    And it’s still not a great idea to use “some generic (but probably American) employer’s standards” as part of the core rules for social interaction online.

    DirigibleProtein,

    Maybe rambling a bit, tired and drunk, sorry not sorry.

    Have you considered the possibility that the general public’s social standards have been inherited by offices, and not the other way round?

    Like it or not, I feel that the general public’s social standards have historically been dictated mainly by religion, and therefore are (1) different in certain areas/countries; and (2) slow to change. Think of, for example, Sunday trading, holidays for Christmas and Easter, the wearing of certain items of clothing, the use of certain words in public, to name a few. What was common and acceptable 20 or 50 years ago in a white christian country may be NSFW now, and vice versa (such as girly calendars in the workplace, the hiring and treatment of ethnic minorities). Even within a country, different areas may have different social standards.

    NSFW makes a direct reference to the workplace, but could also refer to material (not necessarily just visual media) that you might not want your child(ren), parent(s), partner, general public to see on your screen, and as someone else pointed out, could also refer to NSFL.

    What could offend one person or group could be fine and acceptable to another; but a discussion of “political correctness”, “wokeness”, and reaction to being offended, is probably better suited to another time and place.

    For these reasons, I think that NSF[WL] is too narrow a category; on the other hand I can’t think of a better, unless you use a completely different system, for example video ratings (adults only, [extreme] violence, mature themes, supernatural, parental guidance required).

    jadero,

    I think it is, but NSFW has quite a bit of metaphorical use, too. I’ve seen particularly beautiful examples of craftsmanship labeled jokingly (?) as NSFW to highlight the the difference between merely masterful work and artistry. That’s one of the reasons I manage by subscription rather than by filter.

    Even the word “porn” doesn’t really work. There are various Porn groups on Reddit, like EarthPorn, which was dedicated to amazing examples of completely natural landscapes.

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