•PLEASE STOP VANITY TAGGING

I just find duplicate node titles to be a pain.

And that's why [id://nnnn] was invented. Use it. Stop tagging your articles. Tell others to stop tagging theirs, now that we have both authors in search results and unique-ID'ed references. And I'll stop tagging mine.

But you have to make it "a request from the gods", or it won't be followed, knowing how things get done around here.

But don't break my style of tagging just because it's different. That's what I object to: I seem to be being singled out, while others continue to be permitted to tag without hesitation. Unfair.

Would you rather I tag each of my responses with (PLEASE STOP VANITY TAGGING)? I might just start doing that to get the point across. Tagging was useful a year ago. It's persisted only because nobody realizes why it started. Let's stop it now!

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

Comment on •PLEASE STOP VANITY TAGGING Download Code

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Re: PLEASE STOP TILTING AT WINDMILLS by Macphisto (Hermit) on Jul 03, 2002 at 16:38 UTC
Perhaps there are better places for your relatively civil disobedience? Perhaps on your homenode? Perhaps a button to msg tye that people can click( ONCE ) to send tye a /msg that they agree with you. Perhaps you could start a node and discuss it intelligently with those who agree or disagree with you. That way we have an ongoing record of the thoughts and feelings expressed. Perhaps it's time to see that by simply annoying the gods they'll just swat at you instead of listening to you. I can't really think of too many situations where an adult got what they wanted by simply annoying those in charge. --Mac. p.s. Yes I --'d you for making petty threats. Everyone has their demons...you just happen to be mine.	[reply]
Re: •PLEASE STOP VANITY TAGGING by shotgunefx (Parson) on Jul 03, 2002 at 17:28 UTC
I rarely tag my nodes but I don't see how they're useless or annoying. They help avoid title collisions and can clear up RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE: replies. While I try and read most nodes, if I'm short on time, I use it as a criteria for which nodes to read. There are many monks here who's postings are almost always worth a read, even on banal topics. (you are one of them.) No one would complain if you would used (merlyn) in your titles. Using a bullet doesn't strike me as a protest but just a gimmick to standing out. When everyone tries to stand out, all you get is line noise. If you have hard feelings about it, write a meditation. I think you'll see that most monks don't really mind (user_name) at all. This is really a silly thing that seems to be taking up too much time here. My two cents. -Lee "To be civilized is to deny one's nature."	[reply]
•Re: Re: •PLEASE STOP VANITY TAGGING by merlyn (Sage) on Jul 03, 2002 at 17:35 UTC
They help avoid title collisions This is precisely the meme I'm trying to kill. When vanity tags were invented, the Monestary was missing a way to uniquely identify a node, and to help sort out the author in the results of a search. And the consensus that I recall at the time was "OK, until these problems are fixed, vanity tags are OK." Both of these problems have now been fixed. We have `[id://nnnn]`, or in brief, `[nnnn]` to handle the title collisions. And the search results now show authorship. And thus now, it's time to end the vanity tags. Let's stop it. Please. -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker	[reply] [d/l] [select]
oh the hu-vanity! by ichimunki (Priest) on Jul 08, 2002 at 21:59 UTC
`•` is about right. The ampersand followed by some text then a semi-colon is valid Perl. It is also a valid HTML entity in some cases. So which will it be? Without forcing users to input special code tags in titles, there is no mechanical way to differentiate. This same problem does not afflict parentheses. So for this reason the change seems appropriate if it will alleviate concerns over mis-entered angle-brackets and such. Personally I'd prefer to turn on HTML encoding in posts and force users to use special markup for all HTML tags. That way I don't have to use code tags or HTML entities to type in a snippet. FWIW, until now I'd never realized you even had a problem with this so-called "vanity tagging", nor was I consciously aware that we could now stop tagging our replies. I always thought those bullets were intended to be a cutesy/clever version of "vanity tags", not a protest against them. I mean, if I really wanted to be vain, I suppose I would have a sig with a link to my website on every post. I mean, how necessary is that? My login name already appears next to my post and I have a home node from which to do my advertising. No?	[reply] [d/l]
Re: •Re: Re: •PLEASE STOP VANITY TAGGING by shotgunefx (Parson) on Jul 03, 2002 at 17:55 UTC
id://nnn doesn't help with looking through a page of search results. Yes the author is there but I find RE (tilly): (tye)Re: Closures and scope gives me more info than Re:Re: Closures and scope Maybe I missed it but I don't see anyone else complaining. If so many are offended, then the gods should put it in a deciding poll and be done with it. Or not, they are gods after all. It's there world, we just live in it. :) -Lee "To be civilized is to deny one's nature."	[reply]
℘ Re: Re: •Re: Re: •PLEASE STOP VANITY TAGGING by ariels (Curate) on Jul 04, 2002 at 12:07 UTC
Re: ℘ Re: Re: •Re: Re: •PLEASE STOP VANITY TAGGING by shotgunefx (Parson) on Jul 04, 2002 at 20:46 UTC
Re(3): PLEASE STOP VANITY TAGGING by FoxtrotUniform (Prior) on Jul 03, 2002 at 18:55 UTC
And thus now, it's time to end* the vanity tags. Let's stop it. Please.* I've looked through the nodes you list on your homenode, and searched the site for likely phrases, but I haven't yet found the reason behind your disgust with VANITY TAGGING. Why don't you like, or even tolerate, vanity tags? Superfluous cruft? Offensive narcissism? `-- The hell with paco, vote for Erudil! :wq`	[reply]