Kerby
Well-known member
How tags can be automatically added to threads?
Are tags valuable? Under used? Should we use them in the main search?
- Thread starter Stuart Wright
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- discussion tags
Wildcat Media
Well-known member
I think an add-on is used for that.
Forsaken
Well-known member
There was a non-forum software that I currently can't remember that was context/content aware, and would use pre-configured tags and relation between tags to generate a tags automatically. It was pretty accurate, and worked very well but I can't remember it at all anymore.
Pretty sure it was a CMS however.
I love using tags over other things but every community software I've seen either does it horribly as a after-thought, or the software itself doesn't fit well for what I need (lack of functionality). Like I like Discourse/Flarum to some extent, but they're too barebones and not really functional for my needs at all.
Tag Essentials - with AI auto tagging and XFRM support
This addon brings some additional essential features to tags: Automatically suggests tags from thread titles (words in the title which match existing tags) Automatically add tags using ChatGPT analysis of the forum title + thread title + first...
xenforo.com
Mouth
Well-known member
I'm very surprised we don't have a function/add-on that, via cron, automatically applies tags to content where the content, via 'weight', matches existing tags. Would save admin/curator time and effort, and greatly increase user experience (and SEO?).
Stuart Wright
Well-known member
Revisiting this thread because I continue to think tags are underused and could be a very powerful way to organise content.
schema.org
and I thought that Xenforo did that as standard, but looking at the source for this thread where I have added a couple of tags, it appears not.
@Chris D could you confirm, please?
Looking at the tags we have, I have identified that there is a load of redundancy where singular and plural versions of tags are added.
E.g. https://www.avforums.com/tags/loudspeaker/ and https://www.avforums.com/tags/loudspeakers/
I think we should just have the singular version and the plural version as a synonym.
As a solution, I can only think of using ChatGPT when a new tag is added:
and using the result to add the singular version as the canonical tag and the plural version as a synonym.
And then we'd need to process all the existing tags in the same way.
Similarly I definitely want to allow capital letters in tags. The first saved version of a tag defines the capitalisation (which admin can change, of course) and all future uses of the tag irrespective of capitalisation, use the original.
I'm always considering how to improve tags to make them more useful.
I implemented this using ChatGPT in Tag Essentials. Forum title + thread title + first post text = the fullest context.
You can set a maximum number of tags per thread
I think they most likely do if they are used in the structured data as 'keywords'
keywords - Schema.org Property
Schema.org Property: keywords - Keywords or tags used to describe some item. Multiple textual entries in a keywords list are typically delimited by commas, or by repeating the property.
@Chris D could you confirm, please?
Looking at the tags we have, I have identified that there is a load of redundancy where singular and plural versions of tags are added.
E.g. https://www.avforums.com/tags/loudspeaker/ and https://www.avforums.com/tags/loudspeakers/
I think we should just have the singular version and the plural version as a synonym.
As a solution, I can only think of using ChatGPT when a new tag is added:
and using the result to add the singular version as the canonical tag and the plural version as a synonym.
And then we'd need to process all the existing tags in the same way.
Similarly I definitely want to allow capital letters in tags. The first saved version of a tag defines the capitalisation (which admin can change, of course) and all future uses of the tag irrespective of capitalisation, use the original.
I'm always considering how to improve tags to make them more useful.
Mouth
Well-known member
ElasticSearch could be an option too? Used with it's synonym and semantics functionality.
Wildcat Media
Well-known member
I don't know if ES would be compatible if search isn't being invoked, but yes, your idea is the same as what I was thinking. I am betting there is some sort of PHP script out there that similarly does stemming like Elasticsearch does. (And even in ES, stemming is probably via some Java library.) And I think there is already a tag addon that allows us to combine tags as synonyms under a master tag.
Essentially we're all just looking to add some "smarts" to the tag functionality. It's great that we can easily add/edit/delete them, but busy sites with a potential for hundreds if not thousands of tags need some automation to help manage them.
Stuart Wright
Well-known member
For single word tags (I'm not thinking about multiple word tags, here), do you think we should limit the use of tags to nouns? If you think we should have tags which are any of the other word types (adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, determiners, numerals, prepositions, pronouns or verbs), please give me examples. I'm thinking about using ChatGPT in Tag Essentials to determine the type of word that each tag is so that admin can allow or reject tags which are specific word types. I'm thinking that we should reject everything except nouns.
What do you think?
What do you think?
Mouth
Well-known member
Agreed. Adjectives, adverbs, verbs, conjunctives etc. would provide no value or delimiter.
Digital Doctor
Well-known member
Alpha1
Well-known member
I think that the question posed by this thread hits the nail on the head as I think the reason why tags are under used is due to a lack of usefulness of the tag page. It just shows a list of content without providing a useful overview or useful things the user can do on the page.
If a tag has sufficient content then the page will list many content types which have different purposes and meaning. The user can do different things with it. But it's all mixed and not organized. The user doesn't get any features to do something with it.
For example there may be question threads in the list but no way to post a question. No cluster of all question threads.
If tag pages would offer more useful overview and functionality then users would use it more and as a result the seo / ranking would increase.
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philmckrackon
Active member
I'll repost my reply to this question in the addon discussion thread. https://xenforo.com/community/threa...xfrm-support-paid.155304/page-24#post-1676067
I think that is a very reasonable idea. I just looked at my banned / stop words and it is populated mostly by verbs and pronouns.
I do think a whitelist would need to be added for those verbs or pronouns that would be needed. What if it's a sports forum? Running, jogging, racing,... Or, tick boxes to select, no verbs, nouns only etc.
Wildcat Media
Well-known member
Verbs should be allowed, as stated here. And I can think of specific examples on the different forums I manage. I don't know if a whitelist could be manageable for really busy forums, but it would help cut down on unnecessary tags that aren't specifically related to the forum.
That and users would need to be educated on how to use them in search. They could solve a lot of problems, but nobody is aware of how they can help narrow their search results.
So yes...we have tags now. We just need more ways to use them.
Stuart Wright
Well-known member
We have the management page which gives an idea of what's been used and when
Over 13,000 tags.
And yes, we have them used as keywords in the structured data, so they should be good for SEO.
For example, in this thread:
The source code includes
Stuart Wright
Well-known member
This would be easy using permanent tags.
So you create some permanent tags for the verbs (and other words) you specifically want used.
The word type blocker (blocking adverbs etc.) would block new tags of unwanted types.
We'll probably create a batch process to go through and delete existing tags of unwanted types but it could ignore permanent tags.
I was thinking about having an admin option to allow words of the selected types with nouns being the only one ticked by default.
Wildcat Media
Well-known member
Is this something you custom coded? I may implement that myself, although with one forum I want to use it in, there's 22 years of posts to shlep thorugh.
Digital Doctor
Well-known member
I meant do users click on them ?
Do spiders ?
Stuart Wright
Well-known member
It's in core XF, I'm sure.
Spiders should follow them, but the implementation isn't conducive to users using them particularly.
I was thinking about adding some common tags as quick filters at the top of forums like we have done for prefixes.
https://www.avforums.com/forums/tv-classifieds.198/ (see the filter by prefix element)
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Wildcat Media
Well-known member
I found it...
Digital Doctor
Well-known member
I'd like to be able to add tags / data to images ... right from the get go.
right under [Insert] there should be an [info] option.
I think images need to be optimized in the forum section.
A standalone Media section has one use. But images need more prominence IN THE FORUM.
Someone should make a new thread type called images and allow image only threads.
right under [Insert] there should be an [info] option.
I think images need to be optimized in the forum section.
A standalone Media section has one use. But images need more prominence IN THE FORUM.
Someone should make a new thread type called images and allow image only threads.