test-tag Brainstorming Session: Which filtering features do we need?

[aFrInati0n]

Hello,

in the topic of the Community Poll a vivid discussion about possible options for future filtering started. This topic is for the people being interested in having deeper discussions & dialog about any thinkable options which would allow the different scenarios of the Poll to work out in the best ways for the most people of our community.

I would like to "sponsor" the topic as I am interested in finding out what would be considered the best options and getting more insights from the community may allow me for later checking if those can get reality for us.

[Slegengr]

Thanks for heading this discussion, @aFrInati0n, especially since you may be taking part in the background IT on this forum for implementing these functions; I know I could not do it (give me something mechanical instead!).

I have not tested yet the current options to see if this is possible.  What I am mostly wondering is if we can filter a sub-forum by tag (not just using the EB search function; I am aware of its function and uses) and if a tag such as '(Brand)' could be given importance over other tags.

This would certainly be relevant in a merged-brand structure across the forum, as it could allow filtering for relevancy if there is some way to encourage each MOC topic to include a chosen brand tag and there is a simple way to filter a sub-forum by these tags.

I'll try to do some testing as an end-user and see what I find.

[aFrInati0n]

I have to admit I have not ever worked with the tag system of the forum.

If I remember correctly it supports two different modes from the backends:

• open mode, for everybody allowing to use own words for tags (I believe we are using that option right now)
• locked mode, only allowing prephrased tags

When it comes to any "functions" related to the tags and others (search function), I am basically clueless at the current point in time...

11 minutes ago, Slegengr said:

(not just using the EB search function; I am aware of its function and uses)

You mean its "non-function" - in the past I read plenty of recommendations like "better use google istead - the search is not really considered helpful" 

I was just testing... seems tags can be used as prefixes for topic titles. But seems only one tag can get selected:

[Sven J]

5 minutes ago, aFrInati0n said:

f I remember correctly it supports two different modes from the backends:

• open mode, for everybody allowing to use own words for tags (I believe we are using that option right now)
• locked mode, only allowing prephrased tags

I hope we can agree that, if mandatory tags were to be implemented, it would definitely have to be the locked mode. Otherwise total chaos would result.
Ideally, like it is in some Reddit communities, you would have to choose from a list of prephrased tags before you can even open a thread, but I don't know if the forum software supports this.
(That doesn't contradict my earlier statements that I'm very much in favor of a brand-merged, theme-related MOC section with mandatory tagging - it just needs to be the right tagging system )

Edited 8 hours ago by Sven J

[aFrInati0n]

1 minute ago, Sven J said:

I hope we can agree that, if mandatory tags were to be implemented, it would definitely have to be the locked mode. Otherwise total chaos would result.

I would hope so as well 

BUT it would have the implication directly for the people having used it in the open form, may be less happy of them not having that option any longer to freely pick tag names.

 

Also search is supporting the tag system (clicking on a tag will open the search with the tag preselected)

[Wolfpack]

I am not sure why are we discussing this, because as I understand it only option 4 would require tags filtering, which is clearly last with only 14% supporting it.

I am stronly against tags, becuase it basically never works in practice. I also do not trust people to use the correct tags, especially new users, so the moderators would have a lot of work to do. It will be also hard to set a definite collection of possible tags. Because of all this i much prefer subforums to tags.

[Sven J]

2 minutes ago, aFrInati0n said:

BUT it would have the implication directly for the people having used it in the open form, may be less happy of them not having that option any longer to freely pick tag names.

I see what you mean. However, when I look at the subforums I visit most - Train, Town, Technic and Special - there don't seem to be that many tags that couldn't instead have been integrated in the thread title...

[aFrInati0n]

@Wolfpack As written in the initial posting, I would be happy to get the best ideas from the community.

I understood the discussion in the Poll topic in ways of "filtering" concerning the people still for option 2 and 3, as we have no good solution in mind for all the "Theme Forums" or how we would ideally want to have MOCs placed. One option may be "creating cloned Theme / MOC Forums", another option could be "could get a shared Theme / MOC space if filtering would work well enough".

I am not expecting "filtering" being the way to go, still I would like to gather as much ideas and opinions on the topic, as it may help me in later technical evalutation stages to hunt the pray we like to see.

Edit: Added "MOC" to the terms.

[Slegengr]

7 minutes ago, Sven J said:

I hope we can agree that, if mandatory tags were to be implemented, it would definitely have to be the locked mode. Otherwise total chaos would result.
Ideally, like it is in some Reddit communities, you would have to choose from a list of prephrased tags before you can even open a thread, but I don't know if the forum software supports this.
(That doesn't contradict my earlier statements that I'm very much in favor of a brand-merged, theme-related MOC section with mandatory tagging - it just needs to be the right tagging system )

I can agree there that brand tags would need to be from a list.  It would also require there to be 2 separate tag categories, as brand would be requested or mandatory with presets while most typical tagging would be nice to continue with the open-ended format currently.

7 minutes ago, aFrInati0n said:

I would hope so as well 

BUT it would have the implication directly for the people having used it in the open form, may be less happy of them not having that option any longer to freely pick tag names.

Also search is supporting the tag system (clicking on a tag will open the search with the tag preselected)

I think we need to maintain a freely picked tagging option regardless of other decisions; this is one part of letting the community move and grow together.

2 minutes ago, Wolfpack said:

I am not sure why are we discussing this, because as I understand it only option 4 would require tags filtering, which is clearly last with only 14% supporting it.

I am stronly against tags, becuase it basically never works in practice. I also do not trust people to use the correct tags, especially new users, so the moderators would have a lot of work to do. It will be also hard to set a definite collection of possible tags. Because of all this i much prefer subforums to tags.

I agree on the poll indications and the concerns with tags as well as share your preference for subforums, but I am withholding my specific thoughts on that issue until I know if it is relevant.

I think the discussion here is mostly about effective use of tags and methods currently available or wished for when using tags.  This benefits the community regardless of forum structure even though proper use is not inherent to most new users.  Having resources to better utilize tags for search and sort seems to be only a net positive to me.

2 minutes ago, Sven J said:

I see what you mean. However, when I look at the subforums I visit most - Train, Town, Technic and Special - there don't seem to be that many tags that couldn't instead have been integrated in the thread title...

Some can be in the thread title, but I also prefer short tags only in the title, as it could drag on too long if too many tags are moved into the title instead of attached tags.  I'm not even sure that I personally prioritize the title tag (LEGO) ahead of the title tag (MOC); I think I consider the latter personally more useful within the title, though I would want to be able to sort by LEGO in any forums with brand-merging.

[JesseNight]

A filtering system is always very good to have, even though I have to admit I haven't missed it so far 
I can think of 2 types of tags that could be useful.

One for the type of topic. For example "Review", "Question", "Discussion", "MOC"...

The other depends a lot on the poll about how we integrate other brick brands. If integrated in at least the themed forums for MOCs, I can imagine people will appreciate a "LEGO" tag for those using LEGO bricks exclusively. I'd think it doesn't have to be more than an on/off flag, we need no tags per brand imho.

[Grover]

I have been a member on forums where you could search a term or terms and then have a "with tags" function that allowed you to search only for those specific tags. Of course, by tagging something "Lego" now, you'll lose all previous non tagged stuff. However, if you exclude "alt ", "gobricks" or whatever, then you wouldn't need to specify "Lego" as a tag and thus retain legacy posts with the base assumption that anything before a certain date is strictly Lego.

 

As for long tags @Sven J... 

https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/tags/bob the unemployed avalonian plumber/

[danth]

1 hour ago, aFrInati0n said:

I understood the discussion in the Poll topic in ways of "filtering" concerning the people still for option 2 and 3, as we have no good solution in mind for all the "Theme Forums" or how we would ideally want to have MOCs placed.

Why would we have mixed theme forums?

I doubt anyone who cares about Lego themes is going to want to have mixed forums. I am open to other Lego brands, but when discussing Lego Themes (e.g. Classic Space, Exo Force, or Rock Raiders), I want to discuss those themes. I don't really want to discuss general Sci Fi. For the love of god, don't combine Lego and alt-brand theme subforums!

You guys really need to keep this simple and make small changes, or you are going to royally mess it up. 

Small iterative changes are good. Big changes are bad. 

You can create ONE general forum for alt brands, and if you need to some day (because you get tons of, for example, Sci-Fi threads), split off a subforum for alt brand Sci-Fi. 

But if you create alt-brand or mixed subforums for each theme up front, I guarantee you they will be start dead and remain dead. And then you'll have a big mess. 

Edited 6 hours ago by danth

[General Magma]

15 minutes ago, Grover said:

I have been a member on forums where you could search a term or terms and then have a "with tags" function that allowed you to search only for those specific tags. Of course, by tagging something "Lego" now, you'll lose all previous non tagged stuff. However, if you exclude "alt ", "gobricks" or whatever, then you wouldn't need to specify "Lego" as a tag and thus retain legacy posts with the base assumption that anything before a certain date is strictly Lego.

 

As for long tags @Sven J... 

https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/tags/bob the unemployed avalonian plumber/

Works for me, to preserve the post history. Untagged = Lego (or legacy post), or maybe it can be made so that having no user tags added automatically adds Lego as a tag so it's still an option one will have to select now.

1 minute ago, danth said:

Why would we have mixed theme forums?

I doubt anyone who cares about Lego themes is going to want to have mixed forums. I am open to other Lego brands, but when discussing Lego Themes (e.g. Classic Space, Exo Force, or Rock Raiders), I want to discuss those themes. I don't really want to discuss general Sci Fi. For the love of god, don't combine Lego and alt-brand theme subforums!

You guys really need to keep this simple and make small changes, or you are going to royally mess it up. 

Small iterative changes are good. Big changes are bad. 

You can create ONE general forum for alt brands, and if you need to some day (because you get tons of, for example, Sci-Fi threads), split off a subforum for alt brand Sci-Fi. 

But if you create alt-brand or mixed subforums for each theme up front, I guarantee you they will be start dead and remain dead. And then you'll have a big mess. 

If there would be one subforum per theme, where all brands are allowed, wouldn't that already solve the issue? Pure alt brand subforums are likely to turn into ghost towns, too. If you have one per theme where all brands can co-exist when it comes to MOCs, you don't end up with these empty islands.

[icm]

13 minutes ago, danth said:

For the love of god, don't combine Lego and alt-brand theme subforums!

You guys really need to keep this simple and make small changes, or you are going to royally mess it up. 

Small iterative changes are good. Big changes are bad. 

You can create ONE general forum for alt brands, and if you need to some day (because you get tons of, for example, Sci-Fi threads), split off a subforum for alt brand Sci-Fi. 

But if you create alt-brand or mixed subforums for each theme up front, I guarantee you they will be start dead and remain dead. And then you'll have a big mess. 

I agree with @danth. Let's not get too ambitious just now. As the saying goes, Keep It Simple, Stupid: Small, iterative changes are best. If the forum develops in the direction of needing more separate subforums or more separate tagging requirements, that can be dealt with later. For now, let's have just one forum for alt brands, and tagging requirements for alt bricks.

[General Magma]

8 minutes ago, icm said:

I agree with @danth. Let's not get too ambitious just now. As the saying goes, Keep It Simple, Stupid: Small, iterative changes are best. If the forum develops in the direction of needing more separate subforums or more separate tagging requirements, that can be dealt with later. For now, let's have just one forum for alt brands, and tagging requirements for alt bricks.

There is a distinction to be made between sets and MOCs here: do all MOCs co-exist with distinctions marked by tags? 
If it's down to one forum for alt brands, then that would sort of negate the need for tags, but it introduces the ghost town risk as well as a division among MOCers,
especially as alt brands become more accepted and popular. It makes sense to have a separate forum (or subforum) for sets, though.

[icm]

I think MOCs that are mostly Lego parts should be in the existing forums with tags, and MOCs that are mostly alt bricks should be in the alt-brick forum, especially if they are built in alt-brick themes. For example, a modular building MOC in the Lumibricks cyberpunk theme ought to go in the alt-brick forum.

[General Magma]

2 minutes ago, icm said:

I think MOCs that are mostly Lego parts should be in the existing forums with tags, and MOCs that are mostly alt bricks should be in the alt-brick forum, especially if they are built in alt-brick themes. For example, a modular building MOC in the Lumibricks cyberpunk theme ought to go in the alt-brick forum.

There has been an extensive discussion in the other topic in an attempt to figure out where exactly the line in the sand here is, which has so far remained rather inconclusive.
Who decides when there are too many alt brand bricks in it for it to be posted in the LEGO forum? Etcetera. I'm still not a proponent of dividing between types of MOCs, at most a separate subforum within a particular theme's forum.

[Grover]

Rather than a top down approach to separate everything by guessing what the divisions might be, what if, along the lines of what @icm said, we let the subforums grow organically from need. You could just leave themes as they are and not cull non-Lego mocs (perhaps tagging them for ease of splitting down the road should it.need it), then see what shakes out. 

If had to guess, most people build with Lego as much as they can until parts become rare and exorbitant or are jot produced by TLG, then turn to 3rd party. I think train has been doing this with custom curves and 9V for years without issue. Regardless, I think letting these topics grow and split organically will likely produce the best results with minimal fuss.

[Wolfpack]

4 hours ago, icm said:

For example, a modular building MOC in the Lumibricks cyberpunk theme ought to go in the alt-brick forum.

I agree, I want Bluebrixx sets and Bluebrixx MOCs together, but certainly not mixed with lego.

[aFrInati0n]

The thing is: I have some fears of people later complaining about us not yet having the right solution & instead us all having tensions from such situations.

And I can tell you it may get not easy (for me / from my limited dev knowledge within the forum platform) to create any solution fastly..

Sorry if my phrasing has been not clear enough on this - would be nice to get the hints for allowing me to phrase such better..