- Introduction
- What Are Tags
- How are tags different from categories?
- Game Specific?
- How they benefit the reader?
- Some Tagging Concepts
- Text and Visual Tags
- Finding and Using Tags
- Conclusion
This page will help you understand exactly what tags are and more importantly how they benefit you as a PlanetPhillip Reader. My explanations relate directly to this site, other sites may explain tags in a more general way.
Well, tags are really just words or short phrases that get associated with (tagged to) maps and mods. Some people call them Keywords. There is no limit to the number of tags that can be added to each map and mod.
A tag should be self explanatory; by seeing a tag it should be very clear what it describes.
When I play and add a map or mod to the site, I also add the tags. However, I can add new tags to maps and mods at any time and will update the older maps and mods as soon as possible.
In the case of PlanetPhillip.Com, only maps and mods can be tagged, not other types of entries, poll questions for example. The category Single Player Maps and Mods is divided into individual games. So, if you click the Half-Life 2 category a list of maps and mods for Half-Life 2 will be displayed.
Tags are not connected to games at all. For example clicking Crossbow will display a list of maps and mods that have been tagged with that word – irrespective of which game they were created for.
Remember tags have to be manually associated with each post, so even though plenty of maps and mods contain the crossbow weapon only the ones I have manually added Crossbow to are displayed.
In the previous paragraph I mentioned that tags were not game specific and whilst this is conceptually true, the reality is slightly different. Some words are by definition directly associated to some games. For example Hunters are only used with Half-Life 2: Ep 2 maps and mods because they only appeared in that game and there are plenty of other examples.
Tags allow readers to quickly locate maps and mods that contain elements they enjoy. For example, imagine you really enjoy playing against Manhacks. Until now there was no way to find those maps and mods that had more than a few Manhacks included. The same is true for other enemies or even weapons.
I have tried to organize the tags to be as intuitive as possible but there are some guiding principles you should be aware of.
Firstly, I only add a tag if whatever I am tagging appears in sufficient numbers or for a significant proportion of the map or mod. For example you could probably add Headcrab to 99.9% of all Half-Life maps and mods. That defeats the purpose of having them. I would only add that tag if the map or mod features an inordinate amount of headcrabs.
I consider why readers are searching for maps and mods than contain the tag. The previously used example of Crossbow is a good one because so few maps and mods contain them. It is also a weapon that many people enjoy using.
Secondly, for most tags I use the plural, except for weapons and some enemies. Some tags should be obvious. For example there is normally only one Magnum in a map or mod, so that is singular. Combine Elite Guards normally appear in groups, so they are plural.
In every site I have seen tags used they only displayed the text tags. This means the exact words used in the tag. Since gaming is such a visual medium I have created what I believe to be a unique feature called Visual Tags.
Visual Tags are thumbnail images of the tag itself. So, the Crossbow tag is a picture of a crossbow. The images are seprated into logical sections, making it easier to find things. Not all tags have a visual version because some are more abstract than others.
The Text and Visual tags can be found via the Browse menu in the header.
At the bottom of every map or mod post is the list of tags associated with it. They are links, which means clicking them will display all the maps and mods that have that tag assocaited with it.
This page should have given you a better understanding of the How and Why of tags, but as also please feel free to comment with questions, suggestions, including individual tags you think are missing, and ideas.
Thank you for reading.
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20th March 2008
“Will this tag help other readers find this mod more easily?”
My answer is YES! I’ve already found couple of mods!
21st March 2008
Thanks for the plug, Phillip!
I like the idea of tags and it will help set your site apart from the rest.
One suggestion: how about ‘pre-fab’ tags? Common enemies, weapons, etc. could be listed beneath the tag box to ensure that all users use the correct naming system. For example, I noticed you originally had ‘Mini-striders’ tagged on Union. Well, personally I would be looking for ‘Hunters’ and so might miss this particular mod.
21st March 2008
The Mini-Striders was just me being stupid and completely forgetting the correct name.
The Tag This plugin is in version .0.9.2, so there may be more features to come. One could be a dropdown list of possible tags.
I could perhaps ask Luke to install a show and Hide feature that could automatically list all current tags.
I’ll have a chat with him about it.
21st March 2008
Tags I would be searching for are ‘New Skins’ , ‘New NPC’ , ‘New Environments’, ‘New Enemy’, ‘New Weapons’,
‘With Alyx’, ‘Without Antions’. Are these possible?
21st March 2008
Well, there is a TAG called New Content which would be used for ALL new content. I have no plans to separate the different types of new content.
Currently I don’t have a TAG for Alyx because I’m not really sure why somebody would want to play a mod just because Alyx appears.
I also think that having negative TAGS may prove too difficult and time consuming. I do understand why you would want to avoid Antlions but I suppose you could eventually work backwards and assume that if a map or mod is not tagged with Antlions then it shouldn’t include them insignificant numbers.
Of course that means that everybody must work together and add as many useful tags as possible.
22nd March 2008
Thanks for the reply, I think there may be lots of Alyx fans out there.
20th April 2008
I like the Alyx tag idea, what about Father Grigori? Dog? Mossman, Eli Vance, Kleiner and so on…?
Also in the vehicles tags, should there be a new one for the Jalopy to differentiate from just “Buggy”? It might not feature in many mods as yet, but I suspect it will in time.
21st April 2008
lol you put the begging cat pic for this post. if that doesn’t help, start making serious threats
22nd April 2008
Start tagging or the cat and a headcrab get put in the same room!
2nd November 2008
This has now been added.