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© by etva
When I was a little girl, I used to love to play the game of Tag. I’d cover my eyes, count to ten, and then try to locate the other players, who were hiding from me. In our version, played in the woods or a big field, the other players would have to make noises, so I’d have a general idea of where they were hiding. I’d hunt them down, chase them, and try to make physical contact.
“Tag! You’re it!”
Though many are unaware of it, a similar game of tag is played online (and here on the Vine) when we try to find articles of a specific theme or topic. To help others locate (and hopefully read) our articles, we have the option of adding tags.
Tags are specific search words, which categorize our articles in the ever expanding library of the Internet (and Newsvine.)
Some tag words are broad, such as photography or images. To help narrow search parameters, we add other more specific tags, such as nature, flowers, or birds. We can be very precise and search for a specific type of flower or bird, such as daffodil or cardinal.
The choice of tag words is often subjective, and this can lead to a very unorganized library, making it difficult to find something that might have been published some time ago.
To help organize the Newsvine Photographer Group library, we encourage members to use specific tags, which will help others to find our articles, when they use specific search words. In order to be useful, it is necessary to be consistent in the terms, as well as the spelling.
For example, Newsvine Photographers has been around for some time, and early on, adopted the tag “Foto-Friday” as our own, to organize member articles in our library, and to differentiate our articles from others posted to photography groups. If you use the tag “Photo-Friday,” it will not appear in our listings for “Foto-Friday” articles, and readers who search for the for “Foto-Friday” tag won’t find yours.
Specific tags established by our group include:
“newsvine-photographers”
“foto-Friday”
“weekend-exposure”
“photo-challenge”
"nvp-info"
Group members should be aware that other tag words are assigned for specific photo challenges, in order to create sub-listings within the broader “photo-challenge” category. These tags will be noted in the original photo-challenge article.
I’d like to clarify, that Foto-Friday, Weekend-Exposure and the monthly Photo-Challenge are recurring activities, sponsored by the Newsvine Photographers Group. We respectfully ask that non-group members refrain from using these tags, because they were established by and for our group, to help us organize and find member articles.
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This is part one of a two-part series of articles on tags and their usage. Part two will deal with how to determine other tag words and expressions to use in your articles, and how we all can benefit from effective “tagging.”
