As far as I recall, plugin authors do not have the ability to remove topic tags but I thought you could add tags…?
Thread Starter
fuxia
(@thefuxia)
Yes, I can add tags. But the existing tags on this thread make no sense, they should be removed.
Does that mean I can mess up every plugin author’s search results (tag pages are indexed by Google) with nonsense tags, and the author cannot do anything about that?
Moderator
Jan Dembowski
(@jdembowski)
Forum Moderator and Brute Squad
How can I change the tags for a support thread?
You can’t and unless the tags are abusive (some members tag their topics with er, some really not helpful tags) then there’s no reason to worry about it.
Those topic tags are placed there by the original poster. There really do not do anything negative for a plugin search result and do not need any modifying.
Plugin tags are handled by the plugin author and have nothing to so with the topic tags.
Moderator
Jan Dembowski
(@jdembowski)
Forum Moderator and Brute Squad
Does that mean I can mess up every plugin author’s search results (tag pages are indexed by Google) with nonsense tags, and the author cannot do anything about that?
Yes. But again, don’t give it much thought. Plugin authors shouldn’t be using the forums for Search Engine Juice™ anyways.
Thread Starter
fuxia
(@thefuxia)
I don’t need the forum to promote the plugin. But being associated with network set up problems and removing isn’t exactly funny either.
When I tag the thread with modlook and add an explanation in the thread – will those tags be removed?
Moderator
Jan Dembowski
(@jdembowski)
Forum Moderator and Brute Squad
When I tag the thread with modlook and add an explanation in the thread – will those tags be removed?
*Puts on moderator hat*
Nope. It’s just not a big enough deal to edit and it’s not a problem.
Can you imagine if everyone started tagging modlook all the posts that had tags that they thought would “mess up every plugin author’s search results (tag pages are indexed by Google) with nonsense tags” like that?
It’s not an abusive use of the tags but using modlook like that would be.
Thread Starter
fuxia
(@thefuxia)
I’m a moderator too (four communities with thousands of users) … and I care about every single tag. It must be useful or it has to go away.
Do you really think tags like Multilingual Press network set up problems and removing multilingual press are useful for anyone? If tag cleaning is a job only moderators can do, well … then it is part of their duties, or the system needs to be improved.
99% of this work could be done with a single SQL query: replace all tags which are used just once with untagged or with the plugin’s name on plugin support threads.
How much do you care about this site?
Andrew Nevins
(@anevins)
WCLDN 2018 Contributor | Volunteer support
Nope, moderators on WordPress.org have no duty to do this.
How much do you care about this site?
Why are you asking this?
It must be useful or it has to go away.
We feel that would be over-moderating people. So we leave alone the tag of ‘OMG WHY DOES THIS NOT WORK!?’ (… which may actually be a tag out there).
Thread Starter
fuxia
(@thefuxia)
Why are you asking this?
I made a reasonable, constructive request – let me clean up the tags in the little corner I am responsible for – and got an exaggeration as a counter-argument, combined with something I have seen as a … slightly authoritarian gesture. I apologize for the polemic.
I still see a need for improvement, and there are some rather simple options:
- Let theme and plugin authors tidy up “their” corner. Askers can still require mod attention when someone is misusing this privilege. I don’t expect much misuse.
- Improve the tag UI: auto-complete, a tooltip, maybe something else?
- Remove tags that aren’t used more than once for two months or so.
We feel that would be over-moderating people.
It helps all users, because it makes the useful tags easier to find and to use. Basic example: There are two tags categories and category. If I have a problem related to categories, I have to look into both right now. Merging both would really help.
People don’t think the same way, though. You think ‘category’ and someone else thinks ‘categories’ and both are valid, but merging means only one person is ‘right’ when that isn’t the case.
I get what you’re wanting, the clean up, but right now it’s outside of scope. MAYBE later, when we do the forum revamp we’ve been working on, we’ll clean that up, but we have a lot of technical hurdles we’d rather spend time in first 🙂 better plugin author integration, so YOU can mod your own section is one!
(Also I think the ‘why?’ Question was for clarification, and nothing more. Sometimes understanding your thought process is really helpful.)
