Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
Issues with Quotes
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Policy on Changing Quote Tags
Mod
That's just weird. I could see ADDING the additional keywords, but not removing the one and replacing them like that.
I'm probably the culprit in the case cited. I felt that the quote was about romance and kissing. The book was clearly already listed and I felt that the tag paranormal-romance didn't apply to the quote as much as to the book itself. I realize that that may be overzealous and I'll be glad to follow any guidelines that we can come up with.
However, currently there are many, many misspellings and tags that combine two words that were clearly meant to be two one word tags but someone forgot the comma.
While I've been focusing on those I have eliminated a few others that I felt were not really necessary/useful/intended (such as copyright information and dates that suggest they came from an overzealous cut/paste))
One example of a tag that I've left but feel we should eliminate when it's not actually meaningful is novel. In many of its appearances the quote is not about novels in any way... it just came from one. Take a look at the quotes that come up when one searches on the tag novel and decide how useful it is as applied. Some quotes do concern novels but most do not.
What will make these tags the most useful?
Mod
That's why I think it is important to LEAVE any existing tags like "paranormal romance" and "novel".
It's important to keep in mind that not everyone will use the tag system in the same way.
I'm all for respecting existing tags when they can be construed as meaningful but please take a look at the following quote. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/...
How does the tag necromancy help someone find that quote? In my opinion, what is does do is dilute the page that's constructed when someone wants quotes about necromancy.
While on the subject of editing tags, I'd like to lobby for removing author names as tags when they are clearly listed as the author of the quote. If they are the subject of the quote having a tag is useful but otherwise I'm guessing not.
Stephen wrote: "I'm all for respecting existing tags when they can be construed as meaningful but please take a look at the following quote. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/...
How does the tag necr..."
I haven't read any books in this series. But, the book descriptions say that the main character is a necromancer.
Yes, and there is the listopia feature which would be useful to anyone looking for books like that. What comes up when one is reviewing quotes should be about the distilled knowledge and dialogue surrounding a subject, no?
Perhaps I'm not explaining my position clearly but try this...
do a tag search on new york city. you get a page full of quotes about new york city
now do a tag search on fiction you get a mish-mash of hundreds of unrelated quotes. Some actually are about fiction but most aren't. Should we tag every quote that comes from a work of fiction with the fiction tag? I'm guessing not.
I'm not sure about deleting assigned tags, what I do find strange is that I have a lot of tags appearing twice for my faved quotes just because one tag is using a capital letter and the other isn't. :DBut in the end a tag is only an opinion; if you search "humour" you find a lot of quotes about jokes, a lot of funny quotes, and a plethora of quotes that probably nobody can find funny except for the person that entered it.
I can imagine a scenario where I'm looking for quotes from necromancy books, not necessarily quotes about necromancy. In a situation such as this, the tags are helpful.
Jennifer E. wrote: "I can imagine a scenario where I'm looking for quotes from necromancy books, not necessarily quotes about necromancy. In a situation such as this, the tags are helpful."Can you explain how the quote I cited would be useful to you in that regard? I'm still unclear. What kind of scenario are you thinking of?
Should every agatha christie quote be tagged as mystery? Most aren't. How is that kind of tagging going to be useful when most quotes don't carry those kinds of tags.
I think it's kind of presumptuous to assume that just because you don't find a particular tag helpful, no one else will either. Adding tags is great, as is correcting typos, etc. in existing tags. I may have even removed a garbled/gibberish tag or two in the past as well, and I think that's okay. But there is no harm in leaving tags be that may be useful to others just because you don't see their value. It also sounds like you're removing tags (or are considering it) from books you haven't even read, so while you may not see the connection between the quote and tag that doesn't mean it isn't there.
I'm asking here because I want to do the right thing and I'm not wildly removing tags or advocating that. I am trying to get a discussion going about what purposes tags serve and how or if we can make them more meaningful.
I suggested that we consider the tag fiction. There are a number of quotes that deal with fiction and the writing of fiction that are useful and meaningful but the vast majority of the books bearing that tag, bear it simply because they come from works of fiction.
Should we add it to the 10 of thousands of quotes that come from works fiction when the quote itself isn't about fiction. I don't think asking questions is presumptuous. And I don't think stating my opinion is either.
I should have clarified. I was responding to the example in the first post, deleting "paranormal-romance". Deciding that the genre of the work is not an important tag and thus deleting it is presumptuous. I do see your point re: tags such as "novel" and "fiction". Are they the most helpful? Maybe not. Are they really hurting anyone or affecting the usefulness of the site? No. Maybe some people do search "fiction" or "novel" hoping to find some interesting quotes that only fit the criteria of being from fictional novels. Should we prevent them from this?
I also agree that tagging the author is fairly redundant since the quotes are attributed and it's easy to click on the author's name to get to their page of quotes, but again, it doesn't really affect me or anyone else to leave it.
Riona wrote: "Are they really hurting anyone or affecting the usefulness of the site? No. Maybe some people do search "fiction" or "novel" hoping to find some interesting quotes that only fit the criteria of being from fictional novels...."I would suggest that having a FICTION tag on tens of thousands of quotes would hinder the person searching for quotes about fiction. It would be hard to read through all the results when every quote that came from a fictional source was on the list.
If we had a boolean search system, you would be completely correct. The tags would not hinder anything. As it is they can create a lot of "noise" by giving back quotes that aren't of interest when one want to search for quotes on the topic of fiction.
On a related topic...
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/...
can someone tell me why this quote should be tagged with "desire" It seems kind of a long stretch.
Stephen wrote: "Jennifer E. wrote: "I can imagine a scenario where I'm looking for quotes from necromancy books, not necessarily quotes about necromancy. In a situation such as this, the tags are helpful."Can..."
Stephen, to answer your question, I can imagine, for example, being a student and having to write a paper on, let's say, the mystery genre. Perhaps I want to include in my paper the characteristics of the writing to be found in mysteries. Or to drill down even further, the characteristics of the writing to be found in 'cozy' mysteries, or 'hard-boiled' mysteries. I'm looking for examples to back up my stance, and I turn to GoodReads and do a search of quotes tagged 'mystery' 'cozy' and/or 'hard boiled'.
As you point out above, it certainly won't be an exhaustive representation, since many quotes aren't tagged with these generic terms, but if I found enough quality quotes to complete my paper, I'd hardly care. :)
I think, as long as the tags are accurate and grammatically correct, they should be left on the quote. I agree that 'fiction' and 'novel' are broad, but searching by multiple terms should help anyone trying to get a more specific result.
Just my .02 worth. :)
Stephen wrote: "On a related topic... http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/815...
can someone tell me why this quote should be tagged with "desire" It seems kind of a long stretch."
I think you're reading desire as attraction, but the tag is meant as want which does fit that quote
Jenn Just how do you DO a search with more than one term on good reads? I just tried entering 'mystery' 'cozy' in the search box and came back empty
Just how does one search for 'mystery' 'cozy' ?My whole reason for wanting to delete any tags, disappears if we can do complex seraches. But as far as I know we are stuck to one tag searches
Stephen wrote: "Jenn Just how do you DO a search with more than one term on good reads? I just tried entering 'mystery' 'cozy' in the search box and came back empty"Are you searching in the tag search or the keyword? The tag search usually only works for one word, but the keyword/author search works
Here would be the result for your example
here
OK! I've been using the tag search. I'm guessing that my argument for deleting "novel" as a tag is now pretty much refuted. See open and frank discussion does lead to solutions!
Thanks all
Stephen wrote: "OK! I've been using the tag search. I'm guessing that my argument for deleting "novel" as a tag is now pretty much refuted. See open and frank discussion does lead to solutions!
Thanks all"
Grrr Nope. I'll agree that genre are pretty much covered but I still have no good way to get quotes that are "about fiction" as opposed to those that are "from fiction"
what are you using as the search parameters?
I would be really annoyed if someone changed the tags on my quotes. Don't go doing that.
I see that you have a quote The Last Words of My English Grandmother
Shouldn't it have a tag "last words"? That way people that click on the last-words tag on another quote would see the one you favor too.
Stephen wrote: "Shouldn't it have a tag "last words"? "??
Why?
Tags are not mandatory.
No they're not but why not have the tag and let others in on the quote if they happen to be reviewing quotes dealing with last-words? Any objection to my adding the tag?
Stephen wrote: "I am trying to get a discussion going about what purposes tags serve and how or if we can make them more meaningful."I can see what you're aiming for, but I think the better solution would then be to enable users to mark tags as useful or not, and let those votes then decide the place a quote takes when searched for by tag.
True. but that's a programming issue. I was looking to get come up with a policy that librarians can use to make tags more useful without any programming changes. As it is, I'm afraid I've done nothing but stir up trouble.
Mod
Which I agree is a useful goal.
Stephen wrote: "As it is, I'm afraid I've done nothing but stir up trouble."
Not to worry. Disagreement comes first; consensus comes later. Sometimes much later. ;)
Stephen wrote: "True. but that's a programming issue."I'm afraid we won't find a useful solution that doesn't ultimately call for a change in the programming. Manually altering tags, adding or taking away, can't be our aim in the long run, it's enough work to try and keep spelling, grammar and attributions correct, I think.
(Although, I don't see anything speaking against adding tags one may miss when in the process of correcting a quote anyway)
Mod
Since that sort of programming change is not likely to happen any time soon, I suggest some sort of policy be hammered out.
My sense is that the discussion results from different perspectives on what a tag should represent: the book, the specific content of the quote, or both. My suspicion is that individuals tag quotes based on their own methods of searching. Thus, while some would prefer that the tags be related directly to a quote, others feel that authors, book genre and other things relevant to the contents of the book are also useful.
I think it's a matter of approach, and should a particular line be taken (i.e. only tags related to the content of the quote), it would have to be a site-wide policy and also, likely to require buy-in from the members who tag in a different manner. If there's no guide on how to tag for everyone to follow when they add a quote, then I think it might be a bit tricky to create a guide for librarians on when to delete and add tags.
Mod
I'm going to assume that librarians are free (and encouraged) to add tags to quotes that they deem may be helpful, particularly those that can group quotes on a certain theme together for display. I'm also thinking that author names and book titles that are clearly cited should not be used as quote tags e.g. no need to tag each Mark Twain quote as mark-twain but any quotes about the author made by someone else should be tagged.
Finally, some people feel that genre tags can be useful but no special effort need be made to add paranormal-romance as a tag to every twilight,percy jackson and harry potter quote. The one genre tag that I overzealously deleted has been restored and I'll certainly delete no more of them.
I have taken the liberty of deleting a few tags that were patently useless e.g. "quote" and by reviewing the two word tags, I've deleted a few wierd ones by adding a comma that I think was inadvertantly omitted by the original poster.
I'm still not convinced that the tag "Fiction" should be applied to every quote that comes from a work of fiction. I do feel that any quotes that deal with writing fiction or its effects should carry that tag. I'll add it as a tag where I feel that it's appropriate but I'll not delete any "fiction" tags even though I think that they clog the display of quotes about fiction with a lot of unrelated quotes.
If anyone feels that any of this is wrong, please advise.
Mod
All this sounds quite reasonable. But it's important to remember I think that opinions on a description of anything, quotes included, are "in the eye of the beholder" and may differ wildly from person to person. To delete another persons opinion is just not a good thing. Adding great/deleting not great. (Misspellings, etc. of course aside.)This is similar to discussions which come up occasionally on what constitutes a "proper" quote. It's in the mind of the user and really not for someone else to say without appearing arrogant or condescending I think. Just my 2cents worth too.
I appreciate your view MissJessie. However, fully aware that I risk sounding arrogant, I'm convinced that some posters have put very little thought into what tags to use for quotes. I'm not entirely convinced that I'm deleting someone else's opinion when I delete a tag. One example... Should the tag p-59 be deleted? It is used for one quote and I haven't touched it but I can't see how useful a tag is that refers to a particular page number when various editions of a book have the quote on various pages.
Im NOT advocating deleting the quote here. Just an unuseful piece of meta-data
Mod
I vote for yes.
This morning I deleted a tag from several quotes ... if that was wrong, so be it ... I can find them in my actions log and re-add them.The tag was "dirk." It was on three quotes for one, it identified the speaker. In retrospect, perhaps I should have left that one. In the other two, the quote was from Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, and the quote was tagged "dirk, gently, holistic, detective, agency" - clearly an attempt to add the entire book title as a tag that failed. (The quote was already marked as being from said book.)
Something like that is clearly an error and I don't see correcting it as a problem. Having the title as a tag has always seemed redundant to me, but I suppose I could (have) add(ed) that in correct format. Thoughts?
Also, what if there is reason to think that someone meant to add "tag x, tag y" but instead added "tag x-and-y"? I am sure I've seen this but can't think of an example right now.
I concur that deleting the tags "dirk, gently, holistic, detective, agency" seems correct to me. It's already cited as the title of the book. I'm not familiar with the book but one might argue that there should be a tag "Dirk Gently" if that's a character name.
Take a look at http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/...
I think that your tag x tag y example in this case is philosophy-of-life-philosophy
I would agree that there should be a comma placed so philosophy-of-life,philosophy
making them into two separate tags.
I must admit I never looked much at tags before, so noticed this one only today:"women mothers"
As opposed to the many non women that are mothers? :D
I guess this is one of those examples where the person entering that quote probably meant to place a comma. It sure doesn't look helpful.
Stephen wrote: "One example... Should the tag p-59 be deleted? It is used for one quote and I haven't touched it but I can't see how useful a tag is that refers to a particular page number when various editions of a book have the quote on various pages."Just having had a look at how search by tag works I'd say leave it. It may not be helpful to anybody but the person that entered it, but it doesn't hurt anybody either.
I guess it would be different if we could sort tags in any useful way, then getting rid of useless tags could reduce search times
As opposed to women fathers I imagine?I agree about the delete of dirk, gently, etc. Although, it doesn't hurt anything really and what does it hurt? (I understand about adding to search time, but since I have no idea how much time would be saved, it's not an issue to which I can relate.)
And Stephen, not trying to insult you but how can you know what a tagger meant? And how much thought went into said tag? Omniscient? There are people on GR from all walks of life, many many cultures, many countries, first languages, etc. I can't begin to think I understand what they were thinking or not thinking, or what prompted their decision. But presumably if they go to the trouble to enter a quote and then tag it, it means something To Them. Not to me not to you--to them.
Cheers.
MissJessie wrote: "As opposed to women fathers I imagine?..." Perhaps men mothers... remember the Greek Myth of Tiresias. He started as a man, was changed by the gods into a woman, had a child and was later changed back to a man. As to presuming to interpret what people are thinking... we do it all the time. Everything we see we interpret in the light of our own experiences (and admittedly our prejudices) We interpret what we see. We interpret what we read. etc. I would presume that whoever entered the tag "women mothers" forgot to put the comma between the two tags.
I freely admit I've no idea why the person who entered this quote http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/...
gave it one and only one tag "this"
I do however question if the tag is of any use to anyone.
On a technical note... Does anyone see why this JFK quote comes up when someone clicks on the "this" link in the previously cited quote?
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/...
I'm thinking that there's a bug somewhere.
MissJessie: let's face it, most of us became librarians because we have the urge to fix detail-oriented things. But there is widespread disagreement on which details are actually important.
LOL Too true! I think librarians are, excuse the expression, anal types. A less polite way to say "detail oriented":)And, of course, there are errors made in tagging, such as "this" which I suspect was a mistake. BUT it may have meant something to the poster; I don't know. The trick is to figure out which is an error and which is not, no?
I just think that individual interpretations are fine but should not be a factor in editing tags, etc. (errors notwithstanding of course). Because, why is one person's interpretation more valid than another?
An eternal question.
MissJessie wrote: "And, of course, there are errors made in tagging, such as "this" which I suspect was a mistake. BUT it may have meant something to the poster; I don't know."I would presume that "this" is used as an emphasis, meaning to say "Exactly what I think!"
Given, as a search tag that doesn't do much service, but it tells us about how the person that entered it felt about it.
Another related question... Should we encourage the use of the singular over the plural (perhaps by adding the favored form to those quotes bearing the unfavored form?) I know that that's the policy with keywords over at IMDb where I also do a lot of contributing.Just an example... search quotes on wedding and then on weddings. Use the find quotes search at the top of the quotes page and then use the Browse by Tag search. Note different results.
Also can ANYONE explain the first few quotes that come up when searches on wedding using the "find quotes" search at the top of the page?
Mod
I see no reason to do so. (That is, I understand your reasoning, but believe it to be outweighed by user choice.)
1) What about web addresses as quote tags? Should that be allowed? e.g.
Www Yopalhal Com is a website that shows up as a tag.
I've not touched the tag. (I did add the guy's book name to the quote though)
2) What's the length limit on tags? There was a tag, wulfric that had 1 quote. I looked at the quote and it had Dumbledore's full name with each name separated by commas. I removed the commas to make it albus percival wulfric brian dubledore and added the dumbledore tag by itself (after correcting the spelling) Now when I look at the quote, the short tag dumbledore appears but NOT the long one. The long one is still there if one tries to edit the quote.
While cleaning up spelling mistakes and maybe completely inappropriate tags is fine I do feel that removing or changing a tag
"paranormal romance" to "romance, kissing" is wrong especially when the book is a paranormal book and should have the tag paranormal assigned.
Should we pull together some guidelines ?