A plea to ask people to use tags, pretty, pretty please.

[Erica H.]

Originally Posted by yogapam

I had no idea that these tags even existed......

I didn't either!

Erica

[Fidget Queen]

I never knew how to do that. Nor how to search using tags. Reminders are good, because many of us are genuinely clueless about how these things work .

[JackieB]

I don't even get it. I'm clueless. How does this help, to use tags?

Jackie

[bzar]

Originally Posted by JackieB

I don't even get it. I'm clueless. How does this help, to use tags?

Jackie

if you tried to use the regular search engine to find a 3-character term, you would get an error message.

if your search term was a common word like "only," you'd get an error message.

if you use the "search" dropdown (look in the menu bar above), you'll see an option for "tag search". when typing in a 3-character term, existing tags will pop up. you can type in any length of characters, actually, but i wanted to emphasize that a short character string can be accomodated in the tag search.

all of this is dependent on having set up tags in the first place.

test it out and post back.

[Juliepie]

Originally Posted by JackieB

I don't even get it. I'm clueless. How does this help, to use tags?

A tag is a way of marking/flagging threads.

If you click on a tag in a thread (or search via tag), it will bring a list up of all the threads that have the tag.

So if you click or search on "cathe," for example, it will bring up all the threads about Cathe (that have the "cathe" tag).

[toaster]

Originally Posted by JackieB

I don't even get it. I'm clueless. How does this help, to use tags?

Jackie, you already got some good answers. The truth is, it won't help you WHEN you use them--i.e., when you tag a thread, it's not going to do anything to help you at that time. But it will help you (and many others!!!) in the future when you go to do a tag search as others have described above.

[bubbles76]

Originally Posted by JackieB

I don't even get it. I'm clueless. How does this help, to use tags?

Jackie

Searching by tags is easier than searching regular.

[Laura S.]

Originally Posted by paideiamom

Laura, How do you use Google for a search of the short words in VF?

I use Google to search for something on Goodreads because GR's search function is execrable. But with that, I just put in a book name or author and GR is generally what pops up first.

And I really dislike having to go outside a forum to search from something in the forum.

Renda - Yeah, I used to hate that too, going outside a site to search, until I worked for NIH (the National Institutes of Health). The search capability on that site was worse than useless; it made VF's search capability look stellar. People would ask me (as a software trainer) how to find information about a topic and I'd direct them to Google. They always found what they were looking for then. Since then, I haven't minded as much.

You can search on a specific site by putting the site and then a colon (, so, for example, to search on hip hop abs, I'd type:

videofitness.com: hip hop abs

[paideiamom]

Thanks, Laura. That is very helpful.

[paideiamom]

Another tip for tags that is only useful for VF supporters is you can tag with a phrase that is peculiar to you only so it is even more pinpointed.

Say I am planning (yeah, I never plan so this is definitely a hypothetical) to turn all my attention to upper body workouts in the spring of 2014. I see a thread that is exactly what I want. I might put UB14 for my upper body '14 workout.

Granted, it is a bit of a selfish use of tagging, but I don't see anything against it in the rules. So somebody correct me if I am steering people on an evil path.


Here is the WWWendy thread introducing tagging. I found it by, you guessed it, a tag search.


There have been additions and clarifications on tagging since the original rollout. Please do a tag search if you are interested in learning more.