Here at DeadSplinter, content is created and posted by you, the astute, savvy, fun, snarky, compassionate commenter. And while a few folks around here have nominal responsibility for a few categories (Splinter for DOT, Keitel for DUAN, etc.), article organizational chaos is prevented by the consistent use of categories and tags.
Some of us are even a bit fussy about ensuring that consistency in category and tag assignment is, well, consistent. And while there is case to be made for hobgoblins and little minds, in this particular case the consistency is not foolish. So here is how to think about categories and tags:
- Example One: In a family tree, the Smiths and the Joneses are categories; the Smiths have two children named Sheila and Alistair; the Joneses have two children named Robert and Alistair. The children are tags. Thus, you can click on the tag “Alistair” which will lead to posts of all family surnames (categories).
- Example Two: Within the DeadSplinter Entertainment category, there is a post about silly party jokes, including whoopee cushions and rubber chickens. The author tags it as Chicken and Party. There is also a Food You Can Eat (category) post about party foods, including bite-sized chicken croquettes. That author tags that post as Chicken and Party. So, should you happen to click on the “Chicken” tag, you will see both the Entertainment post and the Food You Can Eat post.
- Example three: In the library, there is a section on Home Decorating and a section on Agriculture. These are both categories. Within Home Decorating there are books on decorating with evergreens for the holidays; within Agriculture there are books about evergreen tree farms. If both books are given the tag Evergreen, then both books will appear if such tagged is clicked.
One may wonder why you would ever want to search for a post about rubber chickens, but that isn’t the point. The point is that with the correct application of tags, you have all posts about any chicken(s) at your fingertips.
Category = the major DeadSplinter content area, and is a required designation. Tags = the subject matter within the post, and is an optional designation.
Now please go forth and create content (and have fun with categories and tags)!
If FYCE were around in my younger days, a case could be made for a Food You Can Eat: Rubber Chicken post.
I am absolutely not ready for Rubber Chicken We Can Eat , but I wanted to let you know I am both grateful and floored (just got your last message).
Going to try to accelerate my learning curve (had been trying to read over here and get up to speed to get the “tone” right (but also figure out my icon so it’s not just a black box , lol).
WOW! Is it ever great to see you here @rooo
and feel free to pm me if you need any assistance. A lot of the GTers joining are having issues with their avatars but I’ve been putting the issue off to get some Kinja blogs backed up.
Some of your posts, I stuck to the top of the site for a bit so people would see them but the rest I didn’t…they are timestamped to the dates/times you posted them on TSB so no one has seen them (as in don’t be discouraged by the fact that they haven’t received the love they deserve!)
And I promise…no rubber chicken you can eat.
…I know of old that you always seem to be trying to do more things than it seems reasonable to think a person could squeeze into the regular number of hours in a day
…but any time you might feel like adding a post by @rooo to our little corner of the web would be a good day in my world?
Thanks, Ellie, for putting this together. Turns out that a year in I’ve been doing this wrong. I was using my username as a tag for my posts. Oops.
We were encouraged to do that, if I recall correctly. I’ve been doing that as well.
That would be my fault…the idea to have usernames as tags was in case we had co-authored posts, the authors could be tagged. Quite a few were asking how categories and tags worked so in order to at least get people familiar with creating and using them, I had everyone create a tag for themselves.
As elliecoo pointed out, they were redundant and completely unnecessary:
Ach, Butcher, I’d been using my username as a tag as well. But no longer, especially now that I realize I can just click on author name and see all their stuff.
Once you schedule to publish – can you edit? I didn’t put any categories or tags on the one I just did.
You can edit even after it’s published.
@elliecoo will be able to edit that for you if you reach out 🙂
Thanks! I think she already did. @elliecoo – Thanks Elliecoo!
Actually, I see that was your Happy Hour so that would be @hannibal
There will be a post indicating who everyone can reach out to if they’d like to write one of the regularly scheduled posts…
Happy Hour and Coffee Break: Hannibal
FYCE and Brain Drain: Elliecoo
Open Threads: SplinterRIP
DUAN: KeitelBlacksmith
Cool! Thanks!!! @hannibal
Here is an official invitation – it would be delightful to have more folks join in on FYCE and Brain Drain.
Brain Drain is especially in need of fresh voices. Perhaps someone who likes cinema, or who reads non-fiction? Or someone who wants to chat with their internet friends on a Saturday morning?
As for Food You Can Eat, there can never be too many cooks in our kitchen. More players means more days of posting!!!
Please PM me about taking part in either.
Huh, I just noticed there are PMs. That shows how carefully I poke around the corners here. But then I never set up the little picture thing either. I really should pay more attention.
…it’s not obligatory or anything…but although they aren’t always obvious the fruits of myo’s efforts are pretty nifty in a lot of ways
…& for what it’s worth it can be kind of handy to have the little avatar pic if you’re on a mobile device & interested in knowing who liked a comment since you can’t hover over the silhouette to get a name to match it…or at least if you can I haven’t figured out how?
This is all so complicated, plus I’m very stupid. So if I’m reading a post, where would I see the category? I’m looking at last night’s DUAN, and at the bottom I see tags (DUAN, LOVESHAQ, RAMOUNS), but I don’t see categories. Can we just go back to the Deadsplinter MySpace pages? Or geocities or something that makes sense?
…up at the top of this post where it says
HOME > COMMUNITY > Deadsplinter How To: Categories & Tags
…the category is “community”…those are the ones that show up in the long list under the heading “sticking points”
…the tags are in the middle tab of the “sticky notes”
[…I’m pretty sure that’s a more deadpan reply than your comment deserves but I don’t want to get into the doghouse with myo for kidding around & confusing anyone about this stuff since he’s the one it can cause headaches for]
No, I got it now. I like learning stuff. Thanks, pal.
hey! that’s just for tech issues (my anxiety peaks when there are tech issues in the comment section).
Pointing others in the right directions is always a good idea.
hi @Elliecoo – I got excited with the power and posted an NOT — do you want me to take it down and reschedule for tomorrow so we don’t have a cluttered front page tonight?
@brightersideoflife, your NOT is perfect! I think that either @Myopicprophet or @SplinterRIP are the gentlemen who co-ordinate daily and nightly open threads. I co-ordinate Food You Can Eat and Brain Drain. You’ve got the power!
@brightersideoflife
You are in charge of the NOT so feel free – & similarly when it comes to writing whatever other posts you want to, pretty much whenever you want to. Just please try not to schedule or publish them at a time when other posts are due to go up. You can check the dashboard for scheduled posts, so hopefully that’s not too hard a thing to ask?
Hi @myopicprophet
Totally not an issue! I recalled seeing a bunch of scheduled FYCE last night when I was prepping my post but I didn’t notice this one. And then after I published it I was like ohhh shit someone else just posted do I need to take mine down…