Tag search improvements for FO3N

[ThisLamer]

Improvements:

 

Update the tags system so the list repeats twice. Tags you wish to include, and tags you wish to exclude. Or perhaps someone else has a better idea on how to handle that elegantly.

 

Right now, the tag system is a bit hit or miss. If you want to search for, lets say nude mods, you just have to check "Adult-Only" and "Body/Head" or "Clothing/Armor". If you don't want to however, you still have to wade through that content, because there is only one tag related to that type of content, and so modders must use both.

 

The fuzzy nature of tags searching at present is good. You don't always know what you're looking for, so how do you know that you're supposed to check Lore friendly/unfriendly along with Clothing? But chances are people do know what they aren't looking for, and so this suggestion.

 

New Tags:

 

Most of these are from TESN, though some are new. All of them are currently needed, or will be in the near future. Might as well have the tags ready, instead of having dozens of mods that never got tagged because the author stopped updating.

 

Attributes:

• Mod dependency
  
• Official
  
• Performance Improver
  
• Related to Anime
  
• Related to Movies/TV
  
• Related to Other Games
  

Components:

• Environment
  
• Eyes
  
• Face
  
• Factions
  
• Hair
  
• Quests - Modified
  
• Quests - New
  
• Races - Modified
  
• Races - New
  

Races - New because lets face it someone is going to mod in elf ears or to a lesser extent new races like super mutants or raiders (technically a different race from humans)

 

Objects:

• Buildings
  
• Buildings - Player Owned
  
• (Rename) Items - Ingredients -> Items - Aid
  
• Land
  
• NPCs
  
• Transportation
  

 

 

If the improvements can't be made I have a fist full of additional tags laced with MY IMMERSION and MY VIRGIN EYES that I can post.

[LHammonds]

As mentioned in other places, the tags will evolve over time.

 

One thing Dark0ne made clear to me is that he did not want the same amount of tags for Fallout that Oblivion had (too many).

 

The initial set was done in a pre-GECK timeframe and many facets were not possible without the GECK or other plugin-creation tool.

 

There have been some additional tags since the release of the GECK but defining additional tags has not be a high priority lately but it will be addressed.

 

One major difference to reduce the amount of tags compared to Oblivion is the "Related to Males" and "Related to Females" tags which remove the need to have "Armor - Males", "Armor - Females", "Clothing - Males", etc. We have also combined "Armor and Clothing" into a single tags since they are closely related.

 

There was one point mentioned about authors not updating which I should clarify...ANYONE can suggest Search Tags for mods no matter if the mod was uploaded 1 hour ago or 1 year ago. The only exception is if the author disabled Tags when the mod was uploaded (I have no idea why one would do this though).

 

ANIME having its own tag rather than fitting under the "Related to TV/Movies/Games" would only seem pertinent if the amount of ANIME in that category was over a certain percentage (such as being over 50%).

 

I also think each tag needs to have a more detailed description and possible examples. This info may not be presented on the tag page but might be a link to HELP page for clarification about the tags. Again, this will require some TLC. But in order to gain the TLC it needs, we first need to see that members are going to use the tag system. I have set thousands upon thousands of tags but I cannot continue to keep doing this mostly by myself and simply cannot do so for Fallout like I have done for Oblivion. The authors and community need to get involved and start using this feature.

 

I looked at the new mods uploaded for December 15, 2008 which has been closed / static for about 3 hours now and 9 out of 67 mods uploaded that day have confirmed search tags which is 13% usage rate. I highly suspect that those tags were set by the author of the mod rather than my those that have downloaded it. I wrote an article about how to help improve the Nexus which includes setting search tags but very few people have even seen the article. As with many features of this site, you get out of it what you put into it.

 

LHammonds

[ThisLamer]

As mentioned in other places, the tags will evolve over time.

 

One thing Dark0ne made clear to me is that he did not want the same amount of tags for Fallout that Oblivion had (too many).

 

The initial set was done in a pre-GECK timeframe and many facets were not possible without the GECK or other plugin-creation tool.

 

There have been some additional tags since the release of the GECK but defining additional tags has not be a high priority lately but it will be addressed.

 

One major difference to reduce the amount of tags compared to Oblivion is the "Related to Males" and "Related to Females" tags which remove the need to have "Armor - Males", "Armor - Females", "Clothing - Males", etc. We have also combined "Armor and Clothing" into a single tags since they are closely related.

 

Out of curiosity why was the choice to reduce the ability to narrow searches made? I understand the last bit in this block, that's why I didn't suggest Clothing/Armor - Male etc. I probably should have also suggested a "New" and "Modified" tag instead of repeats of the quest and race tags.

 

And regarding adding them as is necessary, I just think adding them now wouldn't really hurt things. Unless you're adding things as obtuse as "Unicorn Tennis Shoes", it is only a matter of time before they fill up. Besides my own motives of GOT DERN ANIMES I also believe smaller amounts of content returned is better than 18 pages of content, much of which you have very little interest in.

 

There was one point mentioned about authors not updating which I should clarify...ANYONE can suggest Search Tags for mods no matter if the mod was uploaded 1 hour ago or 1 year ago. The only exception is if the author disabled Tags when the mod was uploaded (I have no idea why one would do this though).

 

I looked at the new mods uploaded for December 15, 2008 which has been closed / static for about 3 hours now and 9 out of 67 mods uploaded that day have confirmed search tags which is 13% usage rate. I highly suspect that those tags were set by the author of the mod rather than my those that have downloaded it. I wrote an article about how to help improve the Nexus which includes setting search tags but very few people have even seen the article. As with many features of this site, you get out of it what you put into it.

 

I also think each tag needs to have a more detailed description and possible examples. This info may not be presented on the tag page but might be a link to HELP page for clarification about the tags. Again, this will require some TLC. But in order to gain the TLC it needs, we first need to see that members are going to use the tag system. I have set thousands upon thousands of tags but I cannot continue to keep doing this mostly by myself and simply cannot do so for Fallout like I have done for Oblivion. The authors and community need to get involved and start using this feature.

 

I've suggested tags when the opportunity has arisen, but as you've said, not many others do. I tried reading your article but thanks to my impeccable timing the site is down for maintenance, so I can't even see how old it is, or if I've read it. (Edit: Well I could see how it wouldn't be read much, I didn't even know there was a separate article section, yet alone articles in it. Maybe a news entry would be more effective?)

 

If you don't really have the capacity to do it yourself and the community at large isn't really stepping up, why not recruit tag specific moderators? People are suckers for fake power bundled with responsibility, and having their responsibility be the tagging of content would probably help things along, at least slightly.

 

ANIME having its own tag rather than fitting under the "Related to TV/Movies/Games" would only seem pertinent if the amount of ANIME in that category was over a certain percentage (such as being over 50%).

 

H-have you seen tesnexus? It is not a matter of "if" it happens. Hell, it already has. Someone created an anime eyes mod that appears to have been deleted because he had problems uploading or something.

 

My reasons for separating the TV/Movies/Games tag was 2 fold.

 

1, and don't fault me for being honest here, I just really hate kawaii pink cat tailed dresses, heart shaped magic wands, eyes as big as my fist, and giant weapons that you wouldn't be able to pick up, let alone swing. They are cliches of cliches. Since I can't vote my feelings on them, it would be better if I never even had to see them. The separation of Games was also made as a catch all for final fantasy, and other games that borrow those cliches. Those who are in to those sorts of things also benefit from the tags being separate. If I ever felt like there might be something to my tastes (looking at you, Jin-Roh armor) I'd either search for it, or steel myself and enter the abyss.

 

2, There is a lot of popular TV and cinema out there that has a better chance of actually being modded in, compared to oblivion. How many scifi or 50sish movies/tv shows with stand out features can you name off the top of your head? How many fantasy/medieval movies/TV shows? Same for video games. I can personally list dozens of scifi/near 50s era, but not that many fantasy.

 

 

 

Ultimately though, a lot of my comments and some (though not all) of the tags I suggested hinge on the ability to exclude tags as well as include them. Like I said in my first post, if I want to find things like 1 string bikinis, that is easy. If I want to find a nice smoking jacket, I still have to get past the 1 string bikini. As things are now, "Adult-Only" has a higher usefulness as a tag than "Clothing/Armor", because "Clothing/Armor" is tagged in both mods, and there is no way to separate the two.

 

And ultimately, I guess that hinges on the community's willingness to get involved. :ermm: How troublesome...

 

Edit 2:

 

I just had another idea regarding tags not being utilized much by authors. Why not overhaul the upload page a bit? Force authors to include tags if they want to submit a mod.