3 FAQ tagged with contacts


How do tags work on MetaFilter?

Tags are a way of adding keywords to your posts as a way of making it easier to find, organize, and filter posts.

Tags can be added/removed, either at the time of posting or later, by the original poster, or the site admins, or mutual contacts of the original poster. There's no automatic tagging, so if you see a post that you think is missing an important tag, let the moderators know.

Tags can only include certain ASCII characters: English letters, numbers, and the following five punctuation marks _ ' \ - ! (underscore, apostrophe, backslash, hyphen, exclamation point). Tags cannot include accented letters or other special characters. Tags are not case sensitive. When tagging a post with a phrase, you can put the words together with no spaces and use CamelCase, for example: HeavyMetal.

Plural tags do not combine with their singular counterparts. There is a "similar tags" function to the regular tag search, to make it easier to catch typos, variant spellings, plurals, etc. See the explanation in Metatalk for details.

To view pages tagged with specific words, either click on a tag or go to a tag URL, for example:
http://ask.metafilter.com/tags/HeavyMetal
http://www.metafilter.com/tags/HeavyMetal

Tags can be combined. To view pages tagged with a specific pair of words, use the plus sign like this:
http://ask.metafilter.com/tags/airport+Tokyo

Tags can be combined with usernames as well. To see "all posts tagged with 'obit' by user 292" use this URL:
http://www.metafilter.com/tags/obit/292

The 150 most popular tags are linked on these pages (MeFi, Ask MeFi). The larger a word appears on that page, the more times it has been used to tag a thread. Notable tags on MeFi include obit and art.

Tags allow rough filtering of posts, using the MyMefi or MyAsk pages -- see here for details. Also, tags also have individual RSS feeds, linked from the tag page.

Note: when a post is removed, the tags for that post are not removed from the index. This can sometimes cause discrepancies between the number of posts that are claimed to exist having a certain tag, and those that actually show up in a list of posts with that tag (example).
(tags: ) March 6, 2006 - permalink - back to questions

What are contacts? Someone made me a contact, now what?

Adding someone as a contact is a simple way to keep track of their contributions on the site or to just note that you've met them or enjoy their participation. To add a contact, go to that person's profile page and click on the "Add user as a contact" link there. You can choose what your relationship is with this user, or leave that part blank.*

Making someone a contact allows you to easily see some of their site actions in your Contact Activity sidebar on the front page: you can see if they make a new post, make a comment that gets more than 12 favorites, get a "best answer" in AskMe, or add contacts. You can also see their activity on the My Contacts page. If you have made someone a mutual contact—you have linked them and they have linked you—you will be able to help add tags to each other's posts as well.

The most common reason to add someone as a contact is that you enjoyed a comment or post they made, and you want to see future things they post. There is no obligation to be reciprocal if someone has added you as a contact.

When you add a user as a contact, this information will be visible on your own user page as well as your usercontacts page. Contacts you have added are listed in your profile with the phrase "Links to", and people who have added you as a contact are listed under "Linked by". If you want to edit or remove a contact, click on their name and on their profile page you'll see the option to Edit/Remove them as a contact.

*Note that a few users like to select jokey answers for the "what is your relationship" question, for example "crush" or "spouse" for people they don't know. Do not be alarmed if someone does this; it is a common friendly joke. It is also fine to ask them not to do that.
(tags: ) April 20, 2006 - permalink - back to questions

What do "Links to" and "Linked by" mean on my profile page? What does it mean if someone has called me a crush, or muse, or spouse?

This profile area contains lists of your contacts. See here for more details.

About the relationship terms, do not be alarmed. The system allows a person to select a "relationship" label when they add you as a contact, and sometimes people add jokey labels. Crush or muse generally means someone liked a comment or post of yours. There is no obligation to be reciprocal with people who make you a contact.
(tags: ) December 13, 2012 - permalink - back to questions