Your candidate's tags suck...
Wed Jan 02, 2008 at 07:21:34 PM PDT
Hi there!
I don't want to get anyone upset, and, yes, I'm a fascist, controlling, creativity-stifling SOB, (and sadistic, too, if anyone needs an unconventional dating experience...) but I'd like to ask that some of you pay a little more attention to tagging. Why? I'm glad you asked....
Tags are the kossian equivalent of the Index in the back of a book. Tags help organize the Daily Kos library. What's in it foru you? Tags help other people find your work. So, when November 5, 2008 rolls around, and [insert your candidate's name] wins, everyone can do a tag search, and find all the stuff you, and everyone else has written about your candidate!!! Or for all the machinations around the election, they can search 2008 elections, and see all the dirty tricks that [not your candidate] tried to pull. People writing diaries years from now will be able to find your wise counsel, in this most critical of times, if you take a moment or two to tag carefully.
For example, the candidates (and everyone else) have first names. "Bush" is either a gardening term, or something seen in pre-90s porn. And, in the case of Hillary, and Barack, they have last names. (Please, please, don't write a diary about Madonna, she may not even be a Democrat, and I have tsores enough.) Also, today's general may be tomorrow's Congressman, today's president may be tomorrow's, well, hopefully, war criminal, so please don't use titles, just names.
Yes, I know what it says in the tag tips, but there's a difference between 2008, 2008 election, and 2008 elections. Those of you who are looking for peoples diaries dealing with their hopes, plans, or resolutions for 2008 will find yourself weeding through a lot of election stuff, that's not at all what you want. And vice-versa, for whomever wants to write the definitive "How the Daily Kos changed the 2008 election cycle" diary series/book. I have a request in to the PtB that asks that the "tag tips" suggest that there's a distinction between 2008 and 2008 elections.
I know how stiffening it is to your personal creativity, but please, try to use existing tags. There are lots of them. If you use a unique tag, many people using the tag search tool, won't see your tag in the results. Some poor newbie will never see that your diary was right, that you were right, before anyone else.
So, please, take an extra minute, and tag, so that, someday, maybe even after you're gone, someone will read your words, and know that you were really, really, annoyingly, right.
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