[Discussion] Tale tagging

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[Discussion] Tale tagging

psychicprogrammer 05 Oct 2023 09:50

04 mirror: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-16381268/discussion-tale-tagging

For the last few years there has been a project by the Collections subteam to create tale tags. This project has stalled for the last year or so due to widespread burnout. However, they were able to create this list of proposed tags: https://05command.wikidot.com/sandbox:tale-tags

This list is missing some definitions, which I will crowdsource in this thread/related discord discussion.

Tag creation

Now as only a subsection of tales on the site have been read by Collections the list in incomplete and may over estimate the size of certain tags. As these tags cast a very broad net they should require a significant amount of articles to justify their existence. Thus I propose a minimum 25 article requirement for additional theme and genre tags.

In addition, after one year of implementing these tags, any tag with less than 25 uses will be dropped.

Tag implementation

Implementing this will require a frankly enormous amount of work, given the 5000 tales on this site. As such I propose doing this to be partially left up to the community.

Under this proposal the following users will be allowed to tag tales:

Staff

Former staff in good standing

Any user with one successful page on the site

Any user who has had an idea greenlit

Any user who has passed a crit flight

Any user a member of staff (including JS) deems capable of doing so

These permissions are broad to allow for as many users to aid this endeavor while still requiring that the user be integrated enough into the site to understand it.

Any disputes on this should be brought up to the Tagging Team who have final say on what genre tags an article should have.

And one other thing

There are two tags not on this list that I want to bring up specifically as options.

Firstly LGBT: we have a lot of queer fiction on the site, however a tag may invite bigots to target and downvote LGBT fiction

Secondly _genreless, a hidden tag for if an article does not have any genre or theme tags to keep track of what articles have been looked at and what don’t fit into any of our boxes.

Last edited on 06 Oct 2023 19:41 by psychicprogrammer Show more

Re: [Discussion] Tale tagging

psychicprogrammer 05 Oct 2023 19:18

One thing I forgot to mention, due to the subjectivity of this, the authors word on tagging should be authoritative as long as it is deemed to be done in good faith.

As a note, the timer has been shorted to 7 days so we can have two threads on this.

Last edited on 06 Oct 2023 19:41 by psychicprogrammer Show more

Re: [Discussion] Tale tagging

Jerden 05 Oct 2023 10:09

I'm glad we're moving forward with this - given that the number of tales will only increase with time, and the ongoing issue with discoverability, I think we should get this going even if only some tales are tagged, and hope that over time tagging becomes more comprehensive.

I actually ended up writing most of the tag defintions myself with aid from the rest of the Tech team and Wikipedia. Unfortunately, Bleep was unable to actually convey the distinction between Absrurdism and Surrealism to me, jotted down the basics but I wouldn't know how to apply those tags short of the work literally telling me which one it is.

The identity based tags at the end are tricky - I'm unsure how Collections have used them (e.g. is it location, ethnicity of characters, or particular themes) and it's unclear if LGBT (or whatever else we go with for that tag name) would apply to any work with a non-heterosexual character, or if it requires a certain level of emphasis on LGBT identity as a theme in the work. I realise these things can't always be rigidly defined but I think it would help for everyone to be working off the same page if we do decide to include these.

Last edited on 05 Oct 2023 10:12 by Jerden Show more

Re: [Discussion] Tale tagging

psychicprogrammer 05 Oct 2023 10:23

My thoughts are the the LGBT tag requires LBGT themes. EG an article that has Dr Clef in it (noted pansexual) doing whacky doctor stuff that doesn't mean it should be tagged LGBT.

Last edited on 05 Oct 2023 10:24 by psychicprogrammer Show more

Re: [Discussion] Tale tagging

Jerden 05 Oct 2023 10:49

That one seems reasonable and workable, up to us whether or not we actually think thats a good idea.

As noted I'm similarly unsure for the rest of the identity based tags (African, Asian, Hispanic, Middle-Eastern), but they probably need a slightly different definition, I'm not sure that there are "African themes" in the same way as LGBT themes. I suppose any hesitations about having an LGBT tag could also apply to these for similar reasons, but I don't think that's quite as much of a concern.

I figure that "takes place in or features characters originating from" that part of the world would work, but I'm not sure if thats sufficient, or if Collections had something different in mind for that one. The most African story on the wiki that I can think of is probably Heart of Darkness, not sure what else would be eligible for the tag, or how much it's intended to include diaspora communities (e.g. works about African-Americans, Asian-Americans, ect).

Last edited on 05 Oct 2023 10:53 by Jerden Show more

Re: [Discussion] Tale tagging

Jerden 06 Oct 2023 08:48

I'll add that I agree with the comments about these ethnicity tags being a bit too broad and reductive, but since none of them apply to me as a person I figured I should focus on the more practical objections. Maybe it would work on the level of a specific country, but Tech is against tagging for IRL locations, and you can do a full text search for names if you're looking for articles that mention a specific country (not quite the same as setting, but I think you'd have reasonable results if you searched for places like Japan or Mexico).

Re: [Discussion] Tale tagging

Cicada3301Fan 05 Oct 2023 10:36

I like the idea of using the community to help do tag implementation, as yes, it would be a Herculean task if it were only allowed by staff. The year long rule here also makes sense as well. The hidden _genreless tag is also a good idea. I agree with not having the LGBT tag as bigots and trolls alike could specifically target those pages and possibly harass the authors too. I’m not entirely sure there should be any tag about orientation altogether due to this reason, but I’m not 100% sure.

Re: [Discussion] Tale tagging

Fish^12 05 Oct 2023 11:22

While I understand the concerns with having an LGBT tag, I also think that its usefulness will outweigh its cons. That is, people who are interested in this tag will outweigh the bad faith actors. At the end of the day, we can easily suss out the latter while the former will have access to a bunch of tales that feature themes that they identify with. In this case, I believe discoverability is far more important than upvote totals.

---

bloop

Re: [Discussion] Tale tagging

Cicada3301Fan 06 Oct 2023 18:50

I see. Well, when you put it that way, I am inclined to agree with you!

Re: [Discussion] Tale tagging

AriadnesThread 05 Oct 2023 14:09

I think this is a great idea, and I look forward to improving tale discovery! Nothing but thumbs up.

Re: [Discussion] Tale tagging

S D Locke 05 Oct 2023 15:48

I am ecstatic that this is finally being considered, given the breadth of our library. I hope that we can open it up to SCPs as well in the near future, as the backlog is only going to get even larger and more imposing to approach, and at the end of the day, they’re stories as well, and worth genre categorization.

The crowdsource-setup is a great way to handle this — hopefully our most avid readers can assist in tagging (I know I’ve read somewhere in the ballpark of 500¹ tales, and I’ve a good idea of where I’ll focus in the beginning).

Something I’m a little confused about: with certain tags, will pages see both top-level and secondary tags applied (eg: both Horror and body-horror on Treats)?

While I think it is sensible to phase out underused tags after a year, if we do settle on parameters for cultural/identity-based tags, even if we’ve only a handful, I think I would appreciate the ability to find stories like those in perpetuity.

Given the demographics of the main branch skews western/American to begin with, it could be incredibly useful to highlight things that step outside that perspective to tell stories celebrating or featuring different cultures and groups. Even having a handful that readers can easily find may help to inspire future writers with the confidence that those kinds of stories will find an audience on our branch (btw, I feel we should have one for indigenous peoples).

Footnotes

1. looking at my old account, actually about 1,500, minus art pages, author pages, hubs and things of that nature

Last edited on 05 Oct 2023 15:54 by S D Locke Show more

Re: [Discussion] Tale tagging

Jerden 05 Oct 2023 16:50

One of my hesitations about implementing those ethnicity/region tags (aside from the fact that I think most of the time they're just going to be tagging for real world locations?) was the fact that they may not apply to many works on the site just because of our demographics, but it would kind of suck to implement them for a year and then phase them out later. If we do decide to use them we probably should exempt them from that rule.

If genre tags work like attribute tags I think they'd supersede and replace each other, but I don't think we should do that here since it makes the horror tag less useful for tale discovery. Probably just apply all tags that are relevant, including both the general and the specific.

Last edited on 05 Oct 2023 16:50 by Jerden Show more

Re: [Discussion] Tale tagging

S D Locke 05 Oct 2023 17:02

Okay, I was hoping it’d work the opposite of attribute tags. It’d make little sense to obscure most works (there’s like 5 sub-categories for horror that cover p much every subtype) to the point when a reader is simply searching horror alone.

Re: [Discussion] Tale tagging

DrBleep 05 Oct 2023 18:09

It's a deeply satisfying to see such a long term project that I helped push as captain of MAST reaching fruition and the implementation point. I only wish I had been able to be more involved in pushing over the finish line.

Re: [Discussion] Tale tagging

GlassAutomaton 05 Oct 2023 18:33

Happy to see this finally starting up. As for the LGBT tag, I think we should include it, but I'd personally make it so that it applies to tales with LGBT identity as a theme, as that's what I'd imagine people looking through the tag are looking for. That criteria is a bit vague, yes, but categorizing genre in general can tend to be. I feel like readers and writers will be discerning enough, which is sort of a concession of the crowdsourcing plan (which I also support).

Edit: After giving it some thought, I'm somewhat concerned about the implementation of the ethnicity tags. It seems like a well-intentioned feature that's only going to put us into a tough spot, like we're eventually going to get to a point where we tell someone that their work isn't "ethnic enough" or something. Making any solid standards is going to be exclusionary. That's not to mention the concerns other users have raised about the various categories being too broad or not accurately representing ethnic groups.

Last edited on 05 Oct 2023 23:34 by GlassAutomaton Show more

Re: [Discussion] Tale tagging

Prismal 05 Oct 2023 19:20

Been a long time coming. Glad to see this moving forward.

Re: [Discussion] Tale tagging

OriTiefling 05 Oct 2023 22:08

I'm really not sure how to feel about a Hispanic tag, or any racial/ethnic tags in general. I get the idea, it's a way to find stories featuring themes relevant to those cultures, but I'm not sure the site as a whole has a strong enough definition of what would and would not deserve those tags to really make that effective. Part of that is just in the proposed tag- Hispanic/Latin American. These are not interchangeable identities. Hispanic refers to anyone coming from a country that speaks Spanish (this includes Spain). Latin@ refers to anyone coming from a Latin American nation (this includes Brazil). These are the nuances that we need to understand and figure out in order to implement tags like these… and to a degree I'm just not sure we as a whole have the ability to make that happen, especially when opening up the tags to members of the community (which I support wholeheartedly).

Not fully convinced on the current proposed tag list, but I support the rest of the proposal.

EDIT: Note for nuance, these identities refer to people with heritage tracing back to countries matching the descriptions above.

Last edited on 05 Oct 2023 22:09 by OriTiefling Show more

Re: [Discussion] Tale tagging

LORDXVNV 06 Oct 2023 00:31

Largely in favor of both the substance of the proposal and the details of the implementation. The remainder of this comment will focus on the two points of contention everyone else has brought up.

In favor of an LGBT tag. Here's my back of the envelope cost benefit:

• Clear sign of inclusion and acknowledgement that a good portion of our active authorbase identifies as LGBTQ+
• Good for navigation
• Clear statement that the site is a suitable place for LGBTQ+ fiction
• Bigots will downvote stuff for having LGBTQ+ themes anyways, but without a way of tracking what fiction is meaningfully LGBTQ+ it's impossible to prove
• I realize that's an incredibly callous way to look at it but "downvoted 80% of the things with the LGBTQ tag" is a lot more suggestive of malice than "downvoted 65 pages with a pride SCP logo" and if I'm not mistaken that's been considered for disciplinary action before

My point here really is that there's no great reason not to have the LGBTQ tag because ultimately if someone uses it as a way to hunt down and harass gay members of our community they'd just be expediting their own removal from the community.

On principle, if someone tags their stuff with an ethnicity tag or LGBTQ tag it should be accepted by author choice. At some point it's a matter of self-identification.

I don't think the ethnicity tags are a good idea in their current form because they're too Anglo/Euro/Americentric. I could maybe support them in their current form if we added three additional tags — "European", "United States Fiction", "Native American" — which are very broad brush, but the current 4 suggested tags are both equally wide if not wider. I think there's probably utility in having some tags of the sort, but I honestly think we'd need a large amount of granularity for the tags to be both reflective of the diversity of human experience and helpful for navigation and would recommend a discussion thread of their own, both here and 04, to determine exactly how much demand for granularity there is. My instinct is that someone searching for fiction about either China or Japan would not be satisfied by a grab-bag of "Asian"; the same would go for someone hunting for stories about Egypt having to dig through both the Middle Eastern and African tags and seeing all of the stories not about Egypt; Therefore, these tags should be granular at least at the level of country.

I'm almost certain these three examples would hit the 25 threshold on their own. Yes, I'm aware if this suggest is adopted we'd pretty much immediately have "Canadian" and "Polish" tags with a large amount of overlap with two existing canon tags. But I think the existing categories are too wide to the point of not being useful and also making reasonable people mad.

edit: UE on 04 has a point with the definition of the tragedy tag. Tragedy is a very specific genre. Can we have a "sad" tag, defined as "intended to evoke negative emotions" to go with "heartwarming" and "bittersweet" tags. these are more mood tags than genre tags.

Last edited on 06 Oct 2023 01:01 by LORDXVNV Show more

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