Tag Pages and Lists?

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  hyperthought · Member · Jul 4, 2007 at 9:02 pm

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  Vix the announcement “New Tag Pages” (http://wordpress.com/blog/2006/07/07/new-tag-pages/) I love the idea, but color me clueless (and new)… how does one FIND these pages?

  I have often looked for a page that listed all tags, or more popular tags, across the site.

  Are these “tag pages” examples of what comes up when you run a “search” on any tag term? Or is there a permanent set of such pages? If the latter, is there an index somewhere?

  If that’s a “yes” on the index, it would be helpful to newbies who’d like to see a list of popular tags and use those when possible.

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  timethief · Member · Jul 4, 2007 at 9:11 pm

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  Please click on this link http://wordpress.com/tags/climatechange
  By changing the last word in the link above you can access tags on whatever Category you type in. Bloggers supply their own Category/Tags. There is no “list” and will probably never be one. You can also use your Tag Surfer to locate other wordpress.com bloggers using on Categories/Tags of interest to you.

  You can also use Google to search. Example:
  climate change site:wordpress.com

  When using Google it’s important to note there is no space between site:and the word wordpress.com

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  hyperthought · Member · Jul 4, 2007 at 9:46 pm

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  Thanks for the prompt feedback, TThief. This is helpful. But it leaves me still scratching my head about why it’s up to the user to decide which terms to seek or use. It seems to me (who is still learning) that it’s to the benefit of all users to see which tags are getting most traffic over time, as it increases the liklihood the users will find each other – and others will too.

  It seems to me this has the effect of keeping the community more closed than open (i.e. you need to spend a lot of time reading others before you figure it out on your own), and that more open would be a natural preference if the writers want to be seen.

  Am I missing something not obvious to a newbie?

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  hyperthought · Member · Jul 4, 2007 at 9:50 pm

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  PS to my last.. I am not trying to say that I wish all tags were host-defined. I think it’s great that I am free to use whatever I wish or invent some new ones. I just wish there was a place to view what has been used before and “stuck” best in the past. But after that, I agree, it should be completely up to me to pick/add/change my own tags freely.

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  timethief · Member · Jul 4, 2007 at 10:51 pm

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  Well , well .. if I were Queen of wordpress.com … lol … I would be tough stuff, for sure, for sure.

  Aye, the first thing I would do is introduce compulsory Library of Congress subject headings for all Categories. Then to soften the blow for all the freewheelers, I would also introduce a tagging widget for blogger invented unique “blog specific” tags.

  Learning how to use LC category headings would be a learning curve for many bloggers. But, IMO it would be great to have a consistent universal set of Categories. Moreover, it would pull the rug right out from under those who are currently “gaming the system” by using inappropriate tags and excessive numbers of tags (tag spamming) to get undeserved hits.

  I used to use a technorati tag generator (built in to BlogDesk and WindowsLiveWriter) or a tag generator like Keotags. I also used Lorelle’s method for a time but, in the final analysis, IMO tagging was a time waster because indexing services like Technorati already picked up my Categories as tags.

  This very detailed tip for advanced tagging:
  (a-tagging-bookmarklet-for-wordpress-and-wordpresscom-users)

  A Tagging Bookmarklet for WordPress and WordPress.com Users