New Tagging System

[Voltaire]

So, I got the notice over on the main site about how the new tagging system will work. While I think the whole thing is a good idea, I do have a suggestion related to that second change, the one about users putting tags on others' work: why not just run the new tags by the poster of the submission? This way, the moderators and admins wouldn't have to worry about users having problems with new tags, and each user could decide for themselves whether or not they want to keep the newly suggested tags.
All the same, it is a good update; glad the site is being kept fresh!

[Kayla-La]

I'm pretty sure this has been suggested before. I think part of why they don't want to implement stuff like this is a different mindset in approaching tags in the first place.

On one side, you have users who want full, total control. They won't be satisfied with anything but a toggle that allows them to turn off community tagging and they avoid the site because they hate the concept of anyone else having the ability to alter anything on their page. They see it as a violation of their personal rights over their artwork/page, and there isn't really any compromising in that regard. You either have full control or you don't.

On the other side you have the staff/users who want to tag. From their perspective, community tagging is an easy way to make tags more accurate and efficient for everyone to use to find the content they want to find. Since you can report abusive tagging and (I believe) you can delete tags other people have added, they don't really see a downside since the problems are easily solved (from their perspective). Of course, to the first group, the actual problem is the lack of full control, so this doesn't tend to alleviate their concerns.

I myself am pretty neutral on community tagging. I don't have much of an opinion and would be fine with about anything they did with it. However, your suggestion likely wouldn't work because A. People would be annoyed by the notifications if they're unable to turn it off and B. To either side, community tagging is seen as an all or nothing endeavor, and that's why it's been so difficult to make both sides happy. Most people from group A will either be upset they've received a tagging update that isn't just turning it off completely, and they will likely deny most if not all suggested tags, treating the feature as if it were a makeshift toggle instead. Or, if they're inactive, it'll just be unable to be approved regardless.

People from group B will be frustrated, because the whole point of community tagging is to make tags more efficient overall. If artists are rejecting tags on principle, not active, etc etc. then that defeats the purpose altogether to them. People who get denied a lot will stop tagging, which I'm sure Weasyl doesn't want to happen.

There is, of course, a group C of people who are more neutral like I am who may see your suggestion as a fair middle ground or, more accurately, not harmful. But given that they're more in the middle in the first place, I'm not sure they have much of a problem with how it works now, so it likely wouldn't be too useful for them. There probably are some people who would see it as a good feature they actively want, but I would personally expect them to be in the minority. I figure most people belong to either group A or group B, and if they don't, they don't likely see it as an issue in the first place.

TL;DR: I assume this hasn't been implemented already because staff is concerned that a large amount of artists will simply use it to deny tags, or tags will sit in limbo for inactive users, and they feel community tagging is too important to their vision for the site to risk it. They probably see it as being no different from adding a toggle to turn off community tagging altogether.

All that said, I'm not staff. I could be entirely wrong and am only guessing based on how I've seen the community tagging discussions go. For all I know, maybe the 'extra feature' they were excited about in the news post is exactly your suggestion here.

[Voltaire]

I suppose I see what you mean, and it does make sense that certain people would be displeased. It's only an idea after all.
...
I honestly feel like I should say something else, but this is all that comes to mind. Anyways, thanks for your input!

[lorenith]

you can delete tags other people have added, they don't really see a downside since the problems are easily solved (from their perspective). Of course, to the first group, the actual problem is the lack of full control, so this doesn't tend to alleviate their concerns.

How are people supposed to delete tags which are offensive/abusive/incorrect if they have no way of knowing those tags have been added short of checking all of their artwork periodically?

Because that's the only solution right now for people who may have problems with bad taggers, people that don't want things tagged are already going to stay away because whether there are notifications for it or not it'd just be a tedious exercise in constantly checking for and removing tags.

If this place wants to have a tagging system that works they need to commit to that tagging system and make it usable. Expecting artists to just occasionally look through their whole gallery is an unacceptable solution. I mean seriously? There are people that have hundreds of pieces in their gallery, it's beyond me how having those artists have to constantly check them all could ever be considered a viable solution.

[Tiger]

How are people supposed to delete tags which are offensive/abusive/incorrect if they have no way of knowing those tags have been added short of checking all of their artwork periodically?

Because that's the only solution right now for people who may have problems with bad taggers, people that don't want things tagged are already going to stay away because whether there are notifications for it or not it'd just be a tedious exercise in constantly checking for and removing tags.

If this place wants to have a tagging system that works they need to commit to that tagging system and make it usable. Expecting artists to just occasionally look through their whole gallery is an unacceptable solution. I mean seriously? There are people that have hundreds of pieces in their gallery, it's beyond me how having those artists have to constantly check them all could ever be considered a viable solution.

Pulling a staff response from another thread-

Tagging change notification has been a feature for quite some time. I can't recall when exactly it was implemented, I could have a dig through the old site updates if you'd like to know specifically when tag notifications was added in.

Users will be notified if a tag is added to an artwork.

[Uluri]

Ah, I see how that thinking goes. *To the entirety of Kayla-La's Post*

I actually quite like that the tagging system is how it is. Especially since the search system is completely dependent on the tagging system. When a user places in the least amount of tags, it ends up the art being much harder to find after it is swept down the New Feed. Sometimes there could be tags that I don't think of myself that would be helpful to have. How many times I remembered a character, but not their name or owner, so I had to search Color + Species + Pattern (if applicable) but not everyone tags colors of the character/image they draw (Rarely anyone, actually). It always concerns me when artists don't use tags on any art site because it cuts their exposure to other viewers besides their current watchers and the New Feed.