Hashtags - The Way XenForo Would Handle Content Tagging

Divvens

Divvens

Well-known member
As per a discussion here, I decided to make this suggestion thread for hashtags.

What are hashtags?
Users who use twitter may know a lot about #hashtags, it has recently been added as a feature in Facebook as well. "Hashtags" are content tags, that can be clicked upon to view more content of similar nature. For example, if I were to add a hashtag #XenforoNews, it would turn into a hyperlink and can be clicked upon to see all content containing the same hashtag.

How is it useful?
Many communities are more than just a "community", they provide resources, articles of various kinds, news and information, products or even talk about everything under the sun. These forums always look for "organization" of content, most prefer using "tags" that can be added and auto-linked so that users can find similar content or it can be searched for easily.

Hashtags make it easier, by making it inline, you do not need to do anything or add any tags after the thread/content is created, and hashtags can be used in threads, replies (posts), member profile updates etc making it easier to organize content of the same type. This feature can be useful to communities/forums that provide news/information or even general communities for better organization and a bit more #fun.

Hashtagging is #useless
Many people may have this opinion, since some twitter users did make the hashtag look that way, but we cannot hate an idea just due to a certain few can we? Imagine, XenForo having its own hashtag system, similar to the user @ tag, it's going to make it more engaging and social, better to organize content, better to search for relevant content etc. And I'm pretty sure this will please everyone looking for a content tagging system. Maybe an official sidebar block to show the hashtag cloud? Wouldn't it be sweet?

Others may have even better ideas than me to make use of the hashtag, please feel free to share your opinions and if you feel this feature should make it into #xenForo core.

Edit: More Ideas (and future ideas) to improve upon base suggestion:

Users can "watch" hashtags and be alerted for new content containing that hashtag
Once you click on a hashtag, it takes you to a search like page where all content with that hashtag is displayed. You have an option to "watch" the hashtag, and be notified via Alerts/E-Mail when new content is created with that "hashtag", alert options can be set to alert for "threads", alert for "posts" containing hashtag, or alert for both.
 
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Upvote 71
In my experience, when looking for information I use Google. Why, because Google will show me the most relevant information available. Typically I will find what I'm looking for on the first page results in Google. When I click on a Google result, if the information I'm looking for isn't immediately shown, I will click the back button and go to the next Google result. This is why I think hashtags and general tagging systems have no use for me.
 
AndyB said:
In my experience, when looking for information I use Google. Why, because Google will show me the most relevant information available. Typically I will find what I'm looking for on the first page results in Google. When I click on a Google result, if the information I'm looking for isn't immediately shown, I will click the back button and go to the next Google result. This is why I think hashtags and general tagging systems have no use for me.
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They may have no use for you, but I'm talking here about the general crowd :) To help admins turn interested guests into members or make them stay as long as they can on the site.

And Google is a third party source between the forum and the possible member, why not rule that out? Why not make it easier for the user to find content without having to use google, if they use google its a threat to you as the forum owner since the user may find another site that is competing with you, but on your own site, if the user can easily find what they want (I.E, similar content/interlinked content) isn't it a much better option as a administrator?

I'd hate to lose possible members who'd go use google to find more content on my site or content relevant to thread/post of their liking. At the same time, I'd love if they spent more time viewing content they like and eventually, deciding to join the community. I'm sure most webmasters will share the same opinion, we all want to make it easier for guests to convert to members and/or for them to like the content we offer (and that in turn, turns them into members).
 
What I like about tags: It does make it easier to find targeted related content. (y)

What I hate about tags: They are useless unless users actually use them and personally I hate systems that force me to add additional meta data above & beyond my actual content. :cautious:
 
Problem:
hashtags in a posts may look unreadable when there are many words like:
#problemdescription
cluttering the post

Solution
1.
as hashtags only allows people to write continoius text (without spaces) lets make them write it with _ symbol making it look like : #problem_description.
Writing #problem description would create #problem hashtag with text : description as a normal text
2.
When writing hashtag, some visual effect should be created for that hashtag - allowing user to see what his hashtag looks like eg. like web page link higlighted, but pernamently.
In addition after the hashtag is created # symbol and all _ symbols would be replaced (but only visually) to spaces making text: problem description.
Created hashtag could be clicked and do some action (search for other threads with this hashtag).
Hovering over on hashtag would show original text of hashtag : #problem_description
if user wants to edit his hashtag he can edit it like normal text - bcs - when cursor touches the hashtag it is turned to #problem_description and it can be edited.
3.
When you write @username the usernames are suggested. Let it make also for hashtags which are most common.

this solves all problems described here in this thread.
 
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Thread prefixes = hastags. I don't see how individual posts need to get hastags since a thread is already a discussion on a certain topic/idea.

Overall, that would be the first "feature" that I would disable right away if it would ever be a core feature. It's messy, unorganized (unlike whatever people think about it), and it's just more work for moderators since users tend to abuse it right away.

I want to see an Admin of a board with more than 20K uniques/day that would implement this feature. You need to be nuts to do so.
 
@Moshe1010
I think tag/hashtag cloud makes unorganized content organized bcs it promotes the most commonly used.

there is an addon
[url]http://xenforo.com/community/resources/tinhte-xentag.770/[/URL]
which is one of the most popular of all
this means that possibility to tag sth by users is very popular
hashtags can make it even better providing it will be implemented skillfully.

I agree that such a feature should be controlled globally and by group/user permissions.
 
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  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Linkin

Just about every social media site supports hash tags. I'm very surprised I've not seen a forum yet offer it by default.

And if anything, this will encourage people to tag things. Something more seem to not do. But I have had people on my site mistakenly use hash tags even when we don't have it. So its kind of "embedded" into people's minds... Why not go with it?

I'm all for this :)
 
King Kovifor said:
Basically, I hate inline hash tags for the reason of it breaking up the flow of how I read a post, and as @Brogan, @Martok, and @The Dark Wizard have shown, it leads to no spaces or bad grammar, capitalization, etc. to get a hash tag to be there. (Which is also the reason I'll be removing the @ symbol from displaying with tags)
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EDIT: I didn't read the last line 'til after I posted. #silly

Just out of curiosity, why do you #pause when you see a hashtag, but not when you come across an @?

As above. For KK to be satisfied, and this to be implemented, you merely implement the same option that the user tagging feature has: the ability to remove the preceding character. In this case, the hash.

#hashtag turns into hashtag

When do hashtags have their use? When someone posts on twitter or photo sharing sites that it's a specific "national" day, such as the most recent I believe being "national bikini day".

#easyforpervs
 
James said:
EDIT: I didn't read the last line 'til after I posted. #silly

Just out of curiosity, why do you #pause when you see a hashtag, but not when you come across an @?

As above. For KK to be satisfied, and this to be implemented, you merely implement the same option that the user tagging feature has: the ability to remove the preceding character. In this case, the hash.

#hashtag turns into hashtag

When do hashtags have their use? When someone posts on twitter or photo sharing sites that it's a specific "national" day, such as the most recent I believe being "national bikini day".

#easyforpervs
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You answered your own question. ;) And yes, an option would work. Although, I wish I could take the @ symbol out of everyone's posts now... Ideally for me, the picture I posted last thread would be closest to its implementation. Although, I would want a way to #avoidnospaces.
 
Possible to avoid the egregious 97-letter abuses of this system from page 2 by limiting the tag to, say, 10 characters max. Also, by limiting the amount of tags by user group, so e.g. a regular user can only use 3-4 hashtags per day, leading them to use them more judiciously.
 
Hashtags are only useful if you see results of any public profile/website/forum. For example, in Twitter you get results of any profile that has used the hashtag...the same as in Facebook

I don't see how this might be positive if the hashtag search is limited to the forum only...
 
Martok said:
#ireallyhatehowsomehashtagsusemultiplewordswithnospacingandusuallynocapitallettersitmakesitdifficulttoreadandisntgreatwhenyourediscouragingtextspeakonyourforumbutmaybeimjustagrumpygit
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I was actually able to read that ._.

I think that #hashtags are a great idea! I was actually going to suggest them myself, when I decided to search it (I know how on some forums Staff get picky about multiple threads about the same idea)
 
And now, improve the new tagging System with the Hashtag like all others do.

So, please listen to the # for tags, like the @ for users. Don't use this old behavior like it is actually in the beta. That's a really oldschool system.

So, please use Hashtags!
 
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