To me, the "/s" tag is just another emoticon, like a smiley for sarcasm. I'll use it if I think my tone isn't clear enough from my text alone - and, given that my tone gets mistaken a lot, I find...
To me, the "/s" tag is just another emoticon, like a smiley for sarcasm. I'll use it if I think my tone isn't clear enough from my text alone - and, given that my tone gets mistaken a lot, I find tags and emoticons quite useful at times.
Interpreting tone in this text-only medium can be very difficult, and I think that anything which improves communication is a good thing.
Little late, but here's a Wikipedia article concerning this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation. It looks like some Ethiopian languages have a mark called an emherte slaqî to indicate...
Little late, but here's a Wikipedia article concerning this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation. It looks like some Ethiopian languages have a mark called an emherte slaqî to indicate sarcasm, but I don't if it's actually really used in practice.
I agree that people use them unnecessarily a lot of the time, but this is a good point. It's also worth mentioning non-native speakers. A lot of the "obvious" indicators of sarcasm are fairly...
I agree that people use them unnecessarily a lot of the time, but this is a good point. It's also worth mentioning non-native speakers. A lot of the "obvious" indicators of sarcasm are fairly subtle phrasing/word choices that may not be obvious at all to people that don't have a very high level of fluency.
I think once users tagging comments is implemented, text tags like /s won't be needed. The /s not being used might actually encourage more people to use the tagging feature.
I think once users tagging comments is implemented, text tags like /s won't be needed. The /s not being used might actually encourage more people to use the tagging feature.
For tildes this might be the solution. No /s just tag the comment as sarcasm. Shit I'm a native speaker and tone can often be hard to read! In English you can change the meaning of something just...
For tildes this might be the solution. No /s just tag the comment as sarcasm.
Shit I'm a native speaker and tone can often be hard to read! In English you can change the meaning of something just by putting emphasis on one word rather than another in the same exact sentence.
You probably weren't around then, but comment tagging was in place before an incident where the system was abused and lead to a ban. The feature has since been disabled. If I recall correctly, it...
You probably weren't around then, but comment tagging was in place before an incident where the system was abused and lead to a ban. The feature has since been disabled. If I recall correctly, it will be enabled again when there are other features in place to handle problems more gracefully, e.g. through the future trust system.
I think the idea is that other people would tag someone's comments. There's not much point you tagging my comment as "Noise" if I can just remove that tag. So, a user probably wouldn't be able to...
I think the idea is that other people would tag someone's comments. There's not much point you tagging my comment as "Noise" if I can just remove that tag.
So, a user probably wouldn't be able to apply a tag to their own comment.
What's the point in having someone else tag my comments as sarcasm? Basically, that means someone else thinks I failed at my attempt to write sarcasm, so they need to tag my comment for other...
What's the point in having someone else tag my comments as sarcasm? Basically, that means someone else thinks I failed at my attempt to write sarcasm, so they need to tag my comment for other people because people won't recognise it as sarcasm without the tag.
That's a big disincentive to attempt sarcasm. Even if you get it right, someone is going to slap a big "SARCASM" tag on it and totally ruin the subtlety involved in a really good sarcastic comment.
I know that someone else here believes that sarcasm might not "be entirely congruent with the goals of Tildes", but I believe that sarcasm, along with other forms of humour, have their place to add some occasional flavour to remarks - so we don't all end up sounding like unemotional robots. But I'm not even going to try if someone else is going to spoil the fun by giving the "punchline" away in GREAT BIG LETTERS at the top of my comment (instead of me adding a small "/s" at the end, just in case).
I do like sarcasm. I believe the tag is kind of a voting system, where hopefully most of the time it isn't needed, but if it's poorly phrased and unclear, someone tagging it means 'I think this is...
I do like sarcasm. I believe the tag is kind of a voting system, where hopefully most of the time it isn't needed, but if it's poorly phrased and unclear, someone tagging it means 'I think this is sarcasm' while a serious tag is a vote in the other direction. As for giving it away, I think comment tags should be at the bottom anyway so readers make their own judgment before seeing what others think.
Honestly, if there ends up being an official "sarcasm" tag, then odds are the tagging system would be broken out into tags that you can use on your own comments and tags you can use on others',...
Honestly, if there ends up being an official "sarcasm" tag, then odds are the tagging system would be broken out into tags that you can use on your own comments and tags you can use on others', with some tags being allowed for both. A "sarcasm" tag would be one you could use on your own, but not on someone else's. Likewise, a "flame" tag would be something that should be used for others', but not for your own. Something like "off-topic" would make sense for both.
You don't have to think about it - it already happened. The very first ban on this site (two months ago) was imposed on someone who abused the comment-tagging system. As Deimos said 'He went...
You don't have to think about it - it already happened. The very first ban on this site (two months ago) was imposed on someone who abused the comment-tagging system. As Deimos said 'He went through and tagged almost all of [a user's] comments as some combination of "troll", "flame", and "noise"—sometimes even all 3 tags on a single comment. That's just blatant misuse of the tags, with no possible reasonable excuse.'
You two have managed to change my attitude about the sarcasm tag immediately. I found myself thinking that they were used unnecessarily quite often on Reddit, but never considered the difficulty...
You two have managed to change my attitude about the sarcasm tag immediately. I found myself thinking that they were used unnecessarily quite often on Reddit, but never considered the difficulty e.g. non-native/non-fluent English speakers might have gauging intent.
Just to add to your point, the oft-referenced "Poe's Law" deals with the difficulty of detecting sarcasm in heated, online debates: I don't often use the /s tag (come to think of it, I'm not...
Just to add to your point, the oft-referenced "Poe's Law" deals with the difficulty of detecting sarcasm in heated, online debates:
Poe's law is an adage of Internet culture stating that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views so obviously exaggerated that it cannot be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the parodied views.
I don't often use the /s tag (come to think of it, I'm not typically all that sarcastic online...) but it can be an excellent tool for clearing up ambiguity in parody. And, as you mentioned, it can be quite handy for people who aren't particularly adept at detecting sarcasm.
One caveat to this is that I'm not sure outright mockery of extreme viewpoints would be entirely congruent with the goals of Tildes (i.e. to cultivate a civil, in depth forum for discourse).
I actually like the '/s' specifically, because sarcasm can still be difficult to convey online and this particular flag makes it clear when someone it being sarcastic while maintaining most of...
I actually like the '/s' specifically, because sarcasm can still be difficult to convey online and this particular flag makes it clear when someone it being sarcastic while maintaining most of it's impact, since it's typically attached to the end of a comment.
I think other flags are unnecessary though. Putting anything other than '/s' just seems smug and I feel like it can devalue a conversation, especially with ones like /thread that only seem to exist to preemptively shut down a discussion.
Hm, I'm not against them in principle, but the more common ones do get on my nerves. "/thread" is unnecessarily smug, "/s" is never used on comments that would actually be ambiguous without them,...
Hm, I'm not against them in principle, but the more common ones do get on my nerves. "/thread" is unnecessarily smug, "/s" is never used on comments that would actually be ambiguous without them, etc. I've seen nice uses where someone will put in "/vainmonologue" or something to make a little jab at themselves that I'm completely fine with.
Like you said, they didn't start with Reddit and they'll probably carry over regardless of what some users want. The extensive use of "/s" in particular is pretty unique to Reddit, though, and we already don't see it that often (probably due to the lack of a downvote), so it seems to me like we're pretty much on par with anywhere else on the internet with this kind of thing.
When I write something sarcastic, I would normal make it italicized to denote at the start of reading that it is to be read slightly differently than normal. It also doesn't make it inherently...
When I write something sarcastic, I would normal make it italicized to denote at the start of reading that it is to be read slightly differently than normal.
It also doesn't make it inherently obvious that it is intended as sarcasm, though may hint at it by providing the question of why is it in italics.
To me, the "/s" tag is just another emoticon, like a smiley for sarcasm. I'll use it if I think my tone isn't clear enough from my text alone - and, given that my tone gets mistaken a lot, I find tags and emoticons quite useful at times.
Interpreting tone in this text-only medium can be very difficult, and I think that anything which improves communication is a good thing.
It's a major hole in our written language that it doesn't include inflection.
Are there any written languages that include inflection? Is there any character for "sarcasm" in any written language?
Little late, but here's a Wikipedia article concerning this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation. It looks like some Ethiopian languages have a mark called an emherte slaqî to indicate sarcasm, but I don't if it's actually really used in practice.
I agree that people use them unnecessarily a lot of the time, but this is a good point. It's also worth mentioning non-native speakers. A lot of the "obvious" indicators of sarcasm are fairly subtle phrasing/word choices that may not be obvious at all to people that don't have a very high level of fluency.
I think once users tagging comments is implemented, text tags like /s won't be needed. The /s not being used might actually encourage more people to use the tagging feature.
For tildes this might be the solution. No /s just tag the comment as sarcasm.
Shit I'm a native speaker and tone can often be hard to read! In English you can change the meaning of something just by putting emphasis on one word rather than another in the same exact sentence.
You probably weren't around then, but comment tagging was in place before an incident where the system was abused and lead to a ban. The feature has since been disabled. If I recall correctly, it will be enabled again when there are other features in place to handle problems more gracefully, e.g. through the future trust system.
I think the idea is that other people would tag someone's comments. There's not much point you tagging my comment as "Noise" if I can just remove that tag.
So, a user probably wouldn't be able to apply a tag to their own comment.
That is what I was thinking, it makes the community to decide to label it rather than just the poster.
What's the point in having someone else tag my comments as sarcasm? Basically, that means someone else thinks I failed at my attempt to write sarcasm, so they need to tag my comment for other people because people won't recognise it as sarcasm without the tag.
That's a big disincentive to attempt sarcasm. Even if you get it right, someone is going to slap a big "SARCASM" tag on it and totally ruin the subtlety involved in a really good sarcastic comment.
I know that someone else here believes that sarcasm might not "be entirely congruent with the goals of Tildes", but I believe that sarcasm, along with other forms of humour, have their place to add some occasional flavour to remarks - so we don't all end up sounding like unemotional robots. But I'm not even going to try if someone else is going to spoil the fun by giving the "punchline" away in GREAT BIG LETTERS at the top of my comment (instead of me adding a small "/s" at the end, just in case).
I do like sarcasm. I believe the tag is kind of a voting system, where hopefully most of the time it isn't needed, but if it's poorly phrased and unclear, someone tagging it means 'I think this is sarcasm' while a serious tag is a vote in the other direction. As for giving it away, I think comment tags should be at the bottom anyway so readers make their own judgment before seeing what others think.
Honestly, if there ends up being an official "sarcasm" tag, then odds are the tagging system would be broken out into tags that you can use on your own comments and tags you can use on others', with some tags being allowed for both. A "sarcasm" tag would be one you could use on your own, but not on someone else's. Likewise, a "flame" tag would be something that should be used for others', but not for your own. Something like "off-topic" would make sense for both.
You don't have to think about it - it already happened. The very first ban on this site (two months ago) was imposed on someone who abused the comment-tagging system. As Deimos said 'He went through and tagged almost all of [a user's] comments as some combination of "troll", "flame", and "noise"—sometimes even all 3 tags on a single comment. That's just blatant misuse of the tags, with no possible reasonable excuse.'
A few days later, Deimos disabled comment-tagging.
He's been trying to work out how to improve them ever since.
You two have managed to change my attitude about the sarcasm tag immediately. I found myself thinking that they were used unnecessarily quite often on Reddit, but never considered the difficulty e.g. non-native/non-fluent English speakers might have gauging intent.
Just to add to your point, the oft-referenced "Poe's Law" deals with the difficulty of detecting sarcasm in heated, online debates:
I don't often use the /s tag (come to think of it, I'm not typically all that sarcastic online...) but it can be an excellent tool for clearing up ambiguity in parody. And, as you mentioned, it can be quite handy for people who aren't particularly adept at detecting sarcasm.
One caveat to this is that I'm not sure outright mockery of extreme viewpoints would be entirely congruent with the goals of Tildes (i.e. to cultivate a civil, in depth forum for discourse).
That is a nice word for it. Less baggage than other terms. Is it in common usage, technical term or...?
I actually like the '/s' specifically, because sarcasm can still be difficult to convey online and this particular flag makes it clear when someone it being sarcastic while maintaining most of it's impact, since it's typically attached to the end of a comment.
I think other flags are unnecessary though. Putting anything other than '/s' just seems smug and I feel like it can devalue a conversation, especially with ones like /thread that only seem to exist to preemptively shut down a discussion.
Hm, I'm not against them in principle, but the more common ones do get on my nerves. "/thread" is unnecessarily smug, "/s" is never used on comments that would actually be ambiguous without them, etc. I've seen nice uses where someone will put in "/vainmonologue" or something to make a little jab at themselves that I'm completely fine with.
Like you said, they didn't start with Reddit and they'll probably carry over regardless of what some users want. The extensive use of "/s" in particular is pretty unique to Reddit, though, and we already don't see it that often (probably due to the lack of a downvote), so it seems to me like we're pretty much on par with anywhere else on the internet with this kind of thing.
When I write something sarcastic, I would normal make it italicized to denote at the start of reading that it is to be read slightly differently than normal.
It also doesn't make it inherently obvious that it is intended as sarcasm, though may hint at it by providing the question of why is it in italics.