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

[paideiamom]

My exercise all day has been climbing on my soapbox. VF's turn now.

Aren't you glad you don't know me IRL.

Anyway, VF has a lovely and useful tag system. Tags really help pinpoint searches. You can do a tag search on three-letter words. Tags are what make this country great (too much?).

Tags are descriptors of the thread's content.

Tags can be added a number of ways.

If you are the thread originator (or OP), then right below the box where you write your opening post, there is a box marked "tags."

Just put up to five tags in that box.

Now, if you are a VF supporter, you can place tags on any post by anybody. Just
go to the last post in the thread and at the bottom of the page on the right side it says "Edit Tags." You can't really edit them, but you can add a tag that will help in your future searches

No matter who you are, you can only apply five tags. You can delete and retag if a thread goes off topic (which never happens here ).

Now, the same rules you learned in kindergarten apply to tags. Don't say anything mean or demeaning. Don't go to somebody else's "I lurve this instructor so much" thread and tag it with "useless waste of good shoe rubber."
Even if you would say it to their face, think real hard about if you want to make it a tag.

Make them meaningful and on point.

I am sure I didn't get all the subtleties right, but then subtle is not a tag that could be applied to me.


Moving soapbox to other locations now. Thanks for your time.

[Becky]

Paideiamom,

You forgot to add a tag to your post.

But seriously, thank you for this helpful reminder. I'm guilty myself of not tagging my posts.

ETA: You beat me to it!

[paideiamom]

Actually, Becky, it says "tags" under the tags line.

It is there, believe me. First thing I did.

[beth22]

I don't understand how tags work on this forum. I don't ever see them. I also wouldn't know how to tag any posts that I'm not the OP on. Can you tag posts you're not the OP on but have responded to? I've never used them because I don't "get" them.

[paideiamom]

Originally Posted by beth22

I don't understand how tags work on this forum. I don't ever see them. I also wouldn't know how to tag any posts that I'm not the OP on. Can you tag posts you're not the OP on but have responded to? I've never used them because I don't "get" them.

If you are a VF supporter, you can tag any post.

If you aren't a supporter, then you can only tag what you start.

Tags show up on the thread after the last post in the thread.

They are on the bottom left. The ability to edit the tags is on the bottom right.

To use tags to search (which is what they are for), click on "Search." You will see a space to type something in to search for. That just searches for the word you type in.
To use tag search, go below that box to where it says "Tag Search." Click on that. It brings up another page for tag search. Type in the tag you want to search for and it will search for that tag.

In the regular search, short words (or acronyms) can't be found. In the tag search, that is not an issue. You can search for "abs," or "BB" or whatever, as long as a tag has been made for it.


Much less frustrating than the regular search function. You also get fewer hits than the normal search. If it is a tag, it means it is an important part of the post, not just a throwaway word that happens to be in a huge thread somewhere.

[toaster]

I will second your request! Believe me, I am constantly tagging other people's posts. I become annoyed when 1) I have trouble searching for something because my search terms are too "common" or too "short", so I'll try the tag search, and then 2) I can't find anything under the tag search because people haven't tagged their threads!

P.S.--I added several more tags to this thread.
P.P.S--While we are making requests, how about writing some reviews, too?

[Lucky Star]

Good reminder! I add tags all the time and always search for posts by them.
I am guilty of not contributing reviews, though. I'll try harder.

[yahoo205]

Yes. I love the tag system. It is so much easier.

[yogapam]

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

[bzar]

yes, ITA about tags. especially when the search term you want to use is less than 4 characters long, and this includes abbreviations and initials like JNL, BBL, TA, SS, P90, S90, or HHA.

to round up tags for Hip Hop Abs, or HHA, i did surreptitious searching by using the instructor's name or unique words in the titles of the individual workouts. otherwise, it was virtually impossible to find the threads you want.

the search engine doesn't honor strings of words in quotation marks as 1 piece - it'll still break it up into its components. therefore "hip hop abs" will be rejected since it treats the individual words as search terms, but each would be under 4 characters long.

and adding an asterisk, as in hip*, would only result in words "greater than" hip, and NOT less than.

again, Thank You For Using Tags. We Love People Who Use Tags.