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cimoreneI've just been looking for a story that I remembered seeing go by on my delicious network something like a few months ago.
Delicious has a search function that separates results from your own account, your network, and "Everybody". But I never found the result I was looking for, because the tags that included the keywords also included punctuation.
The punctuation ruins the tags, because a search term is everything in between two spaces on delicious. That means that if you tag your story with, for example,
it might look nice in your alphabetized list of tags, but only people who type "!fandom:[neverwhere]:[marquis.de.carabas/richard."dick".mayhew]" in the Search field will be able to find the entry.
Many entries that had tags like this, of one type or another, did come up in my search results, because I tried searching first one thing and then another ("neverwhere", "fandom:neverwhere", "marquis.de.carabas", etc), and several times I hit on a word that happened to show up in the subject line or description of an entry that had been tagged with punctuation which prevented it from showing up on the earlier searches. The fact that punctuation use is by no means standardized means that there's an almost infinitely greater number of search terms to try.
Of course, there are other ways to navigate delicious than search. I often choose a fandom name or pairing term that I think is bound to be used by at least somebody, find the Recent bookmarks, click on the one which has been saved by the most people, and then check its bookmarking history to see, in the sidebar, which tags are the most popular for that fandom.
There will inevitably be, for example, "ncis:la" as well as "ncisla", and "sam/g" as well as "g/sam", but there are also completely different pages for "pinto", "chris/zach", and "quinto/pine". There's a certain amount of overlap between them, but the smaller the fandom and the smaller the total number of bookmarks, the smaller that overlap is. And even in Due South, one of the biggest fandoms, the most popular Fraser/Kowalski stories under "duesouth" are not the same as the most popular Fraser/Kowalski stories under "fraser/kowalski".
So surfing from account to account has its limitations, and is time consuming. By going back and forth from account to account and tag to tag using the more popular stories, you can probably eventually find most variations of tags, but the search function would make that all a lot simpler - if the search terms were searchable.
Of course, some people's main concern with their delicious accounts is their own reference, and they have no desire whatsoever to share them with other people. In past discussions of the site, I have often seen comments from these people loudly and sometimes angrily declaring their unconcern in the comments. It's not a situation of "the fan doth protest too much", because I certainly believe them, but it is - literally - a situation where too much protesting is emanating from them. That is to say, their unconcern is a legitimate stance, but if they use delicious only as a personal tool, I have to wonder why they feel the need to read posts about the use of delicious as a social network, let alone participate in discussions of how it can best be used by the community as a whole. If this paragraph has not been clear enough, allow me to pre-emptively state that I have no interest in the completely separate logisitical concerns involved in using delicious non-socially. No doubt some of the unsearchable bookmarks were created by those people, and though they are an inconvenience to the rest of us, there is no reason why their owners should be expected to care about that, so they need not excuse themselves.
Delicious has a search function that separates results from your own account, your network, and "Everybody". But I never found the result I was looking for, because the tags that included the keywords also included punctuation.
The punctuation ruins the tags, because a search term is everything in between two spaces on delicious. That means that if you tag your story with, for example,
!fandom:[neverwhere]:[marquis.de.carabas/richard."dick".mayhew]
it might look nice in your alphabetized list of tags, but only people who type "!fandom:[neverwhere]:[marquis.de.carabas/richard."dick".mayhew]" in the Search field will be able to find the entry.
Many entries that had tags like this, of one type or another, did come up in my search results, because I tried searching first one thing and then another ("neverwhere", "fandom:neverwhere", "marquis.de.carabas", etc), and several times I hit on a word that happened to show up in the subject line or description of an entry that had been tagged with punctuation which prevented it from showing up on the earlier searches. The fact that punctuation use is by no means standardized means that there's an almost infinitely greater number of search terms to try.
Of course, there are other ways to navigate delicious than search. I often choose a fandom name or pairing term that I think is bound to be used by at least somebody, find the Recent bookmarks, click on the one which has been saved by the most people, and then check its bookmarking history to see, in the sidebar, which tags are the most popular for that fandom.
There will inevitably be, for example, "ncis:la" as well as "ncisla", and "sam/g" as well as "g/sam", but there are also completely different pages for "pinto", "chris/zach", and "quinto/pine". There's a certain amount of overlap between them, but the smaller the fandom and the smaller the total number of bookmarks, the smaller that overlap is. And even in Due South, one of the biggest fandoms, the most popular Fraser/Kowalski stories under "duesouth" are not the same as the most popular Fraser/Kowalski stories under "fraser/kowalski".
So surfing from account to account has its limitations, and is time consuming. By going back and forth from account to account and tag to tag using the more popular stories, you can probably eventually find most variations of tags, but the search function would make that all a lot simpler - if the search terms were searchable.
Of course, some people's main concern with their delicious accounts is their own reference, and they have no desire whatsoever to share them with other people. In past discussions of the site, I have often seen comments from these people loudly and sometimes angrily declaring their unconcern in the comments. It's not a situation of "the fan doth protest too much", because I certainly believe them, but it is - literally - a situation where too much protesting is emanating from them. That is to say, their unconcern is a legitimate stance, but if they use delicious only as a personal tool, I have to wonder why they feel the need to read posts about the use of delicious as a social network, let alone participate in discussions of how it can best be used by the community as a whole. If this paragraph has not been clear enough, allow me to pre-emptively state that I have no interest in the completely separate logisitical concerns involved in using delicious non-socially. No doubt some of the unsearchable bookmarks were created by those people, and though they are an inconvenience to the rest of us, there is no reason why their owners should be expected to care about that, so they need not excuse themselves.
(no subject)
Date: 27 Oct 2009 08:57 am (UTC)Then an update to delicious broke that. I think those people are probably either hoping delicious will eventually fix it so punctuation works the way it used to, or just don't want to change all their bookmarks.
(no subject)
Date: 27 Oct 2009 09:17 am (UTC)Still, it's not that difficult to change them - they have that renaming tool. I use it all the time.
(no subject)
Date: 27 Oct 2009 02:41 pm (UTC)It's unfortunate that they changed the search function, but I didn't even notice, which tells you how much I use it to begin with.
I'm wondering if you came to delicious more recently than I did? The options for using the site will have changed over time, so my expectations of the site would be different than someone who started using it much later.
(no subject)
Date: 27 Oct 2009 06:14 pm (UTC)I really had NO idea delicious had become a fannish standard. When I first started using it no one in my fannish circles used it, had even heard of it. My account is solely for my use only, and I'll be honest, will stay that way.
I think it's cool it's become a standard though, it's just going to be yet another way I don't participate in fandom. :D
(no subject)
Date: 27 Oct 2009 08:39 pm (UTC)I'm surprised you missed the 'social bookmarking' aspect of it; I think it's part of the boilerplate copy around their site.
And, again, I'm well aware that some people don't wish to use it socially, I agree that that is valid, and I don't need or want to discuss that aspect of it.
(no subject)
Date: 27 Oct 2009 09:39 pm (UTC)I go directly to my subscriptions page when I do use it, but my subs. are all really popular fandoms so I never have trouble finding *hundreds* of stories to read using generic terms, I didn't even notice the "HP:harry/draco" tags stopped showing up. But for small and new fandoms that would be a pain if you are using it way more than I am, I can totally see that.
(no subject)
Date: 27 Oct 2009 09:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 27 Oct 2009 09:45 pm (UTC)I've actually spent a good portion of the day going "How did I MISS that?" Heh.
But I think part of it is that many of my closest fannish friends *still* don't use it. Despite the EVIDENCE, hello hundreds of links for certain fics! I still didn't actually pick up on the wide usage of it. I also tend to miss wank until it's long over...I'm kind of oblivious like that.
(no subject)
Date: 27 Oct 2009 09:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 27 Oct 2009 02:56 pm (UTC)I must admit I don't like punctuation in tags - I don't even like the author:name convention. Trying to use delicious as an intro to a new fandom (or to find recs for an old fandom you haven't read in a while - this happened to me just recently with Sentinel) is incredibly frustrating and quickly causes major tab explosion. (I also wish that more people included their personal reaction in the description box. You know, while I'm complaining.)
Actually, I think yours is one of my favourite del.icio.us lists because it matches what I'm looking for in a bookmark very nicely.
(no subject)
Date: 27 Oct 2009 08:43 pm (UTC)Punctuation is rather widespread, but I do think my methods are overall the most popular in the parts of media fandom I frequent, as well as the things I prefer to tag for (fandom, pairing, length, some kind of indication if you liked it extra-much).
(no subject)
Date: 27 Oct 2009 04:55 pm (UTC)but the punctuation problem is part of the much larger issue of the normalization of tags and the normalization of all the conventions of social bookmarking in general. part of the reason the example you give is so broken (though i hope it was hyperbolic?) is not just because of all the punctuation, but because it is generally understood on delicious that one does not combine categories (e.g. fandom and pairing) in a single tag.
i find that pairing naming conventions are the most problematic and contain the most variation. because i AM interested in delicious as a social networking site, my personal policy is to check to see what the most people are doing. for example: merlin/arthur beats out arthur/merlin almost 2:1; and "sam/callen" is already way more popular than "sam/g" or "g/sam". and common sense helps! putting personal feelings about blends aside, searching on "pinto" will turn up bookmarks about beans and horses and cars and freida pinto in addition to gay porn. why introduce ambiguity?
the whole process is fascinating though, especially because most of it happens organically. is there any place in particular where current issues in social bookmarking is under discussion regularly?
(no subject)
Date: 27 Oct 2009 08:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 27 Oct 2009 08:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 27 Oct 2009 08:47 pm (UTC)I try to look around, find the most popular pairing name, and use it, unless it's just too stupid to live. I actually renamed my tag from "quinto/pine" to "chris/zach" when the Way the Wind was Blowing changed on that one about a month after I started reading.
I do not know of any location for discussion of social bookmarking at all. I think discussing them specifically in a fandom context is more worthwhile, for us, since we have special concerns and needs - not that I know of a place where that's going on either, but I think there SHOULD be one.
(no subject)
Date: 28 Oct 2009 08:56 am (UTC)there should absolutely be a place for the discussion of fannish social bookmarking! we could figure out how to tag authors who have gone through multiple name changes and come up with pithy tags for our favorite fannish tropes (huddling-together-for-warmth!fic? awkward!) and spawn flamewars about who has the right to be determining these things anyway, you can't tell me what to do! really though, i just want to complete like a thousand hours of anthropological research on like, pairing naming conventions and the voluntary norming process.
(no subject)
Date: 28 Oct 2009 11:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 27 Oct 2009 05:08 pm (UTC)my personal least-favorite-thing is finding someone who seems to link to things i like... but who only tags about half of them completely. :( so even though they might have 15 AUs set in space, they've only tagged four of them with the "inspace!!" tag (or whatever) and i'm not gonna look through five hundred bookmarks for the rest. :( :( :(
(no subject)
Date: 27 Oct 2009 08:34 pm (UTC)Wordy wordy mcword!
Date: 28 Oct 2009 05:12 am (UTC)For example, there's enormous variability in "the tag I use to mean I LOVED IT", though thankfully, most people are too lazy to tag stories they didn't like, so most tagging is at least a mild rec.
And "slash" is a terrible tag (who cares about that silly guitarist), but man, we own "firsttime" (sadly, we also own first-time, and it brings up different links.)
But yes, talk more on this -- you are not alone!
Re: Wordy wordy mcword!
Date: 28 Oct 2009 11:51 am (UTC)I never browse by "first-time" in other people's bookmarks, but I do tag for "established relationship" and "preslash", which I suppose (mostly) creates a first-time category by process of elimination... it has been the standard story type for such a long time that I suppose when I started bookmarking it seemed like a waste of keystrokes.
(no subject)
Date: 29 Oct 2009 02:58 am (UTC)Hmmm. It's kind of daunting to think of changing all my tags - I've got a zillion of them. But I suppose I should?
Just, what was actually really useful about framing each tag with [fandom:] and (pairing:) and {author:} etc was that:
a. I have so damn many tags
b. so when I start typing in a tag, it pulls up a suggestion very fast and efficiently if I can cut out a whole bunch of options -- so, for example, if I segregate pairings off in (pairing:), then when I start typing ( it already shows me a list of pairings to choose from...
What I really NEED it for are themes and word count, because honestly I don't remember what themes/wc segments I've set up or not, and I need to be able to pull up a list to check against. It's still really handy to pull up a list of fandoms, or a list of pairings, to make sure I don't create different names for the same thing (I used to do this, before switching to formatting), but less of a burden than the themes.
Maybe I can wipe some categories and leave [theme:] [words:] and {author:}, which people would search less?
What is really the best solution? It feels to me like neither is a good option for both the creator and the users -- zero formatting OR all with []/: formatting.
(no subject)
Date: 29 Oct 2009 01:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 29 Oct 2009 08:28 pm (UTC)If I think I have a theme for stories where they break up and get back together (I do! it's a big kink with me! but honestly I don't remember what it is), then I start typing [theme: and it instantly drops me down a list of like 15 top tags that start with that - easy then to remember which one it was. To make it the lists smaller, I do things like section merlin themes into [theme-merlin:] so I quickly get to just the merlin-specific themes (I get really in the mood for certain kinds of stories in certain fandoms, so for example I like to tag merlin with "magic-discovery" and "exile" themes and supernatural with themes like "demonic!winchester")
Otherwise, maybe I guess... I did breakup? maybe if I'm right, it will come up. But what if it was brkupmakeup? Or something else? I will have to guess every possible combo, and who knows what made sense at the time? And then I'm constantly having to go maintain my tags and clean them up, and honestly that's an additional level of effort I'm not looking for and might not be ultimately sustainable (I know my weaknesses).
Or, like, fast and the furious - that's a real one that I accidentally made at least 3 fandom names for once-upon-a-time when before I went to categories. I have really really poor memory of stuff like that. I think at one time I had fntf and fast_furious and fastandthefurious and thefastandfurious, or something like that.
Easy fandom names like Merlin? I really don't need [fandom:merlin] as a cheat sheet. (unless I was foolhardy enough to title it merlinuk) But remembering if I use janeausten or austen or jausten or mansfieldpark for Mansfield Park fanfic? DIFFICULT FOR SILVIA. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 29 Oct 2009 11:19 pm (UTC)I didn't mean to imply that I don't have autocomplete. It does that for me, too. I don't have any trouble remembering any of my tags, is all - it only saves me the trouble of typing them. On the other hand, I use the ♥ button from the tag list often, since you can't type that - otherwise it has to be copypasted.
It's the tag bundles under the blue "Tags" tab there that I was talking about.
Also, if the problem is that you can't remember how you abbreviated a fandom name, you can probably discover this via autocomplete anyway. In the case of F&F, all you'd have to do is start typing "fast-" or "thefast-" and the like; one of them's bound to come up. In your theme examples, it's obviously different. But then, do theme, trope, and kink tags need to be universally searchable? I'm inclined to think not. When you're talking about searchability, I think the main concerns are fandom, author, and character/pairing names.
(no subject)
Date: 30 Oct 2009 12:38 am (UTC)Thanks! I will try to figure out if I can set this view up, and if I get it working I'll consider setting aside a large block of time to go back and change my bookmarking for fandom and pairing.
(no subject)
Date: 30 Oct 2009 01:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 30 Oct 2009 09:27 pm (UTC)And I've looked all over for Delicious settings to change and I can't figure out what the deal is. Maybe the Delicious tool bar offers different things for different browsers? Very frustrating! I've spent about a half hour googling the issue and can't figure it out. I'll look into it this weekend.
Unfortunately, until most users have this feature automatically on their bookmarklet upon install, I don't think we can all move to using zero helper punctuation. But I think you definitely have the right idea!
(no subject)
Date: 31 Oct 2009 12:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 31 Oct 2009 12:51 pm (UTC)