Many updates to The Feature Formerly Known as Comment Tagging

Deimos
Wed, 26 Sep 2018 19:57:44 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, I re-enabled the comment tagging feature. Since then, I've been keeping an eye on how it's being used, reading all the feedback people have posted, and have made a few other small adjustments in the meantime. Today, I'm implementing quite a few more significant changes to it.

First, to try to head off some confusion: if you're very new to Tildes, you won't have access to this feature yet. Currently, only accounts that are at least a week old can use it. Also, the docs haven't been updated yet, but I'll do that later today.

Here's what's changed:

The name has changed from "tag" to "label". I think it's better to use a different term to separate it more easily from topic tags since the features are very different, and "label" shouldn't have the implications that some people attach with "tagging".

As suggested by @patience_limited, "Troll" and "Flame" have now been replaced with a single label named "Malice". I don't think the distinction was important in most cases, and the meanings of them were a bit ambiguous, especially with how much the word "troll" has become over-used lately.

Basically, you should label a comment as Malice if you think it's inappropriate for Tildes for some reason - whether the poster is being an asshole, trolling, spamming, etc.

This new Malice label requires entering a reason when you apply it. The reason you enter is only visible to me.

Another new label named "Exemplary" has been added, which is the first clearly positive one. This label is intended for people to use on comments that they think are exceptionally good, and it effectively acts as a multiplier to the votes on that comment (and the multiplier increases if more people label the comment Exemplary). Like Malice, it requires entering a reason for why you consider that comment exemplary, but the reason is visible (anonymously) to the author of the comment.

Currently, you can only use this label once every 8 hours - don't randomly use it as a test, or you won't be able to use it again for 8 hours.

The interface for some of these changes is a bit janky still and will probably be updated/adjusted before long, but it should be good enough to start trying them out. And as always, beyond the interface, almost everything else is subject to change as well, depending on feedback/usage. Let me know what you think—comment labels have a lot of potential, so it's important to figure out how to make them work well.

Comments URL: https://tildes.net/~tildes.official/6ue/many_updates_to_the_feature_formerly_known_as_comment_tagging

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