Dear bloggers,
UPDATE: The tool to rename your deleted tags and thereby restore them will be available beginning of next week (most likely Monday, November 9th 2009).
Firstly, we would like to apologise for the inconvenience caused to you by the recent changes to the tag system. We realise that simply deleting the affected tags was a heavy-handed way of approaching the issue. We would also like to apologise for the fact that many of you received a section of the mail in German -- we appreciate that such a clumsy oversight only adds to the frustration that you were probably already feeling.
Following the reaction of many users towards the changes, we have come up with a solution to the issue that we feel is a sound compromise between the necessity for the changes and your desire to have your own personal tagging method.
We are working on a new tool which will allow you to replace these invalid tags with new valid ones all in one go (ie, you won't have to replace them all individually). This means that you will be able to easily re-index your blog posts. When this function is online, you'll be notified on your 'My blog.co.uk' page.
The reasons for the changes are complex, but simply put, the changes will improve performance and allow blogs to load faster.
For example, every tag 'creates' two new webpages -- one on your blog, one on BCUK.
So if you tag a post with 'life' and 'love', this creates six new pages (because each is also a page for all the entries all over BCUK tagged with 'life' and 'love'). As you can imagine, when one factors in the variety of combination sites possible when a large number of tags are used, it very quickly puts our platform under strain -- even as few as fifteen tags creates around 500 new webpages. We need to make this change now, in order to ensure that your blogs can be accessed at high speed.
As for tags with more than five words being deleted, this was simply because statistics have shown that five words are not necessary, and only a minute percentage of the total tags on BCUK consist of more than five words. So if you had a tag 'eternal sunshine of a spotless mind' deleted, then you can simply replace it with 'eternal sunshine spotless mind' without decreasing its visibility to search engines in any way.
We hope that this explanation has made it a little clearer why these changes were necessary.
We apologise once more for the annoyance caused, and wish to assure you that in the future, we will make a much bigger effort to make forthcoming changes to the BCUK platform more visible to all users.
Thanks,
your BCUK team.
Comments (66)
Thanks for trying to sort this so quickly. I think we all feel how distressing this change was to our blog community. x
everyone does seem very upset. I only hope enough see this post, maybe we need something on the front page - for a few days to alert us about this message. Maybe all your posts need to be a bit more prominent cos i noticed you did sort of warn us this was coming, but most did not read the post, or only after the deed was done. How about any announcement from blog.co.uk appearing on the home page for a week from posting with the rest still accessible where they always are?
I never look at the home page, my bookmark takes me straight to the "My" section.
A better solution might be for this blog to automatically appear in our friends' posts list.
"A better solution might be for this blog to automatically appear in our friends' posts list"
That's a bloody brilliant idea!
I agree with Tom - make all BCUK announcements appear in the friends list posts of everyone. It's not as if they do them that often, eh?
I agree completely... I was going to suggest we all added TeamUK as a friend but it would be good I think for the whole community to automatically get these in their friends list...
Maybe with an opt out scenario because you just KNOW there'll be at least one person who will complain about them appearing for complaining's sake...
I strongly agree with you sidejump a warning would of been nice then i could of changed my tags before it happened but no i get a message saying these are the tags that were deleted i review films and i use the name of the film as my tags so for me i lost quite a bit as films names can be long, but to rub salt into my wounds i got this message from blog.co.uk. . .
"The tags were deleted because of the following errors:
- Das Tag enthält zu viele Wörter. Ein Tag darf nur aus maximal 5 Wörtern bestehen. Bitte trenne Deine Tags mit Kommas und nicht mit Leerzeichen."
I can only read english the whole email was english apart from the above, tut tut you make the name blog.co.uk cheap and un-profesional.
james
The explanation behind the necessity goes a long way, but some more notice of the change would have been even better.
You have the facility to send PMs or emails, perhaps that would have been better in this case. A PM with "these tags will be deleted on this date" sort of thing. Easy to say with hindsight, but hopefully next time...
This sounds like it might be an acceptable compromise. One key question:
When exactly will you be restoring the deleted tags so that the new tool can be used on them?
we are working hard on it right now, i cannot say anything else than "soon", of course we've put all other projects on hold until this tool is available for you.
That's very good to know, thankyou.
Tom.
Thats well explained,thanks.I have only recently started to tag my blog posts,and 90% of my blog is without any tags,so the deletions don't really effect me.
But looking at the overwhelming reaction on BCUK about the deleted tags,i had to educate myself about the importance of tagging one's blog posts. Hopefully i will tags more in future
Keep up the good work.The only thing i miss is the 18 or 20 blogs that used to be displayed on BCUK homepage on daily basis.If you can bring back the feature,that will be much appreciated.
That seems fair. On a seperate matter will the buzz be coming back? it was such a popular feature that it seems a shame to lose it.
yes, its currently not linked, so you can still use it feel free to bookmark http://www.blog.co.uk/posts/buzz.php
Howdy cY ...
So The Buzz will return?
If so that's truly excellent news!
What about Featured Blogs for Safriz?
Oh! And all those useful Tabs that are missing?
Adam ... x
we did not remove any tabs on BCUK as far as i know.
Featured blogs might return if users really want them, feel free to post that in http://ideas.blog.co.uk and make other users sign it, still the page is not removed its still there just not linked.
Really? No tabs!?
Mayhap I’m imagining!
But wasn’t there one for Users On Line ..
Once people clicked through to Community?
Adam ... x
i see what you mean, we removed the whole subnavigation (That was below the tabs), a lot of these function and more will come back in either the community tab or the "my BCUK" section, but it will take us a while.
Whoopee!
That’s awesome!
I now love you deeply!
Adam ... x
P.S. I also thank you most sincerely! The End.
That's good to know. I am sorry BCUK (in Germany) didn't realise how much appreciation was given to the top 20 featured blogs or Buzz (very popular). I hope that you do and bring them back. I appreciate you giving links, etc, but they would be better just being put back where they were?
A quick question, the Terms Of Service define "content" like this:
“Content” in the sense of the present General Terms of Service refers to all content posted on the site and made available by User. This refers above all to text material (including comments on texts of other users), uploaded photos, videos, music files, graphics and other files (.doc, flash, etc.) as well as other picture elements and personal data, in so far as User makes such material visible for other users and for the general public"
By this definition tags are certainly "content", so weren't you rather exceeding your remit by deleting them?
§5.3 clearly states that we can delete any content anytime, of course it is not our intention to do that just cause.
"§5.3 clearly states that we can delete any content anytime, of course it is not our intention to do that just cause"
There we are then, that makes the situation crystal clear.
A website has to have a clause like that in it. There are times when it can be imperative to remove something or when something goes wrong technically and content is deleted by accident.
It isn't intended to happen but very very rarely it can - if a company doesn't have a clause like that in the T&C's they could find themselves being sued wholesale for loss of content - even if it wasn't their fault - so it is a bum covering exercise.
Without blanket covers like that in T&C's services like blog.co.uk could never take the risk of doing business.
I understand that, but invoking the clause for this scenario?
Exactly - it seems that Cyzzie - sorry the 'team' - is pulling in this clause just to make changes and delete things that are inconvenient to them, but very convenient to the paying customer.
Seriously, without this paragraph even a spammer could sew us, it would "open" a lot of ends ... and we are no google, heck we are a small 10 man team which is happy for every campaign we sell, its a struggle to make a living out of blogs.
I'd just like to add I think the new system makes sense and returns tagging to its original purpose, as a search system to find similar content. Yes, people used them as an index and so on, and it's unfortunate they were lost with little notice, but that wasn't really the purpose of them.
You obviously didn't make these changes on a whim because you were bored; there was always going to be a purpose behind it. I think some reactions have been a little extreme. "Nobody died!", as my mother always says.
Cheers.
Thanks......I am learning so much...and it has come at such a propitious time for me in Blogland......
Good evening,
The technique may not always be controlled, even when it is a great platform.
I deleted a few weeks now since my tags on the right hand column, chance or coincidence?
Anyway, I wish you good luck for the future and thank you for sending me an email info.
Friendships.
with so many tags deleted, I'm really hoping what you've done to rectify this isn't going to be full of geek speak when it comes to re-tagging them according to your specifications...making me feel very nervous...sorry...
GBHs...XXX
You wrote:
As for tags with more than five words being deleted, this was simply because statistics have shown that five words are not necessary, and only a minute percentage of the total tags on BCUK consist of more than five words. So if you had a tag 'eternal sunshine of a spotless mind' deleted, then you can simply replace it with 'eternal sunshine spotless mind' without decreasing its visibility to search engines in any way.
Why five words? Why can't you just make it ten and the everyone is happy?
You also don't explain why you have taken away buzz and the Top 20 blogs.
I am pleased that you have considered the feedback from your paying customers and issued an apology but all I see is a lesser service and no reason why. Sorry to be so negative.
Gilraen x
Ten words would please me
Actually seven words would be fine
I know! The only tags I lost were on BCUK recipes and they were all 6 or 7 worders. I want everyone to see the recipes for what they are, not stupid abbreviations. 10 words wouldn't hurt, or would it? We don't know! They didn't even explain why they decided on 5 words for a tag*. Just make it 15 or 20. If they only said it clogged up their servers, or encouraged spam, but we are the last to know why.
* Normal speak please, not techno speak!
cIzzy says
Is "we thought 5 words would be a good thing" a technical reason? I think it's more a "let's think of a number - ah yes 5"
With a 50-character limit, I don't see why they need to limit the words at all.
Yes - Spice - that sounds like gibberish to me. I understand that there are a lot of daft blogs out there that tag like twats, but to be honest, can the BCUK team look at the tags that the majority of full-time users use? There is still no reason why '5' is the magic number. Or why there should be a bloody magic number at all. If it makes more work for them to have long tags on blog posts then fine - but their explanations seem woolly and naff (for want of a better word) to me.
we have removed the links cause only "logged in" members were using them, those service have not been deleted though, we will find a better way to link them somewhere in the "my BCUK" section.
Thanks for reacting so quickly and generously.
One word TAG must be enough per topic, I never understood when people write more than that .... however if you get a new TAG system ...
may I suggest words such FASHION, nature or environment ---
Thank you very much for the cool words here...
Dedorru
When a post touches on many subjects, it is entirely reasonable to have many tags.
Hi D -
I agree with you - keep tags for each post clear and concise and your readers get the benefit of it.
However - say you like to do film reviews and the you want a list of the films that you have reviewed to the right hand column so people can access clearly. Not all films are 5 word or less. Or you have a recipes blog and you want to make the 'contents' as-it-were as user friendly to your group members (and, indeed, anyone who may stumble across the blog!) you may be a bit stumped by the 5 word rule. Even band names and song names sometimes exceed 5 words.
Its a bit of a handicap with the site if this is the way it's going to be from now on.
What films/bands/songs are you watching/listening?
More than 5 searchable words?? Really? Can't think of any
Because the,a,of,and,etc...are not searchable words.
There are loads - cyzzie names one herself 'The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' - 'Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring', etc, there are loads of films and sings and titles of songs that are more than 5 words. Why should we be suddenly forced to abbreviate them?
They don't apply the 5 searchable words ..... the tags they have deleted have the words "the" "and" etc
eg "Teddy Polar Bear goes on Holiday" was deleted - "on" can't be a searchable word
there are technical reasons to limit word count, as well as usability reasons, the technical reasons conist of "URL consistency"
There are browsers which limit URLs to a certain length (older browsers 256 chars, modern browser up to 2048 chars)
as you know all our tags get URLs on your blog, up to 3 different tags can be in an url ... we had to make sure that the url always stays smaller than 256 chars ... so lets say you can have a tag name up to 100 chars ... 3 chars connected that way would tend to exceed 256 chars, we used statistics to determine a good value below 70 chars (3 tags + the url of your blog must stay below 255 chars) which we found out was to be 50.
Next we determined (statistically) the 99% Percentile average length of a tag (that is: 99% of our users don't use tags longer than X) which was in fact 8 chars ... 8 chars a 5 words gets to be 40 chars, + some spaces and chars sums up to 50 ... so thats how we figured the connection between 50 chars and 5 words.
Mobile Browser (which is a rapidly growing market due to iphone et al) are the main clients that cannot load URLs with longer than 256 chars.
Hope i could shed some light on it.
Hi, if you have a 50 character limit, no benefit is added by also having a 5 word limit. Take the example given below:
"Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind"
It's 38 characters including spaces but 6 words. There is no technical reason I can think of why you should impose this 5 word limit. The 50 character limit is fine if that's what your software needs, but this 5 word limit appears to be entirely arbitrary.
Will you please consider removing the 5 word limit but leaving the 50 character rule in place?
we need a word limit due to performance issue in the process that checks tags for validity which gets more complex with every space inside, furthermore we had the option to either introduce a word limit or to change our tagging process to the way flicker does (flicker automatically sees "spaces" as a tag delimiter, so on flicker your "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" would be 6 different tags. See, some users have a hard time learn how to tag properly and enter very long sentences there cause they think its different tags.
Without a word limit, your validity check would be simpler as spaces would be irrelevant. All it has to do then is check for valid characters and how many there are. Since you use commas as tag delimiters, the spaces don't matter: they are just another character. ""Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" would indeed be 6 tags on flickr, but here it's only 1 as you use the comma as the delimiter.
So again, will you please consider removing the 5 word limit but leaving the 50 character rule in place? It would be nice to have a dialogue about this rather than you simply laying down the law about how it has to be. Can I please quote Vasco's words to me from yesterday:
"What´s much more important aside from the technical aspect is that we learn to communicate better and consult the user base in the right way"
Can you please consider this request to remove the 5 word limit as the first in a long series of helpful communications between the user base and The Team, as per your Managing Director's statement.
Thanks, Tom.
We have put in a logging that counts how many users try to use tags with more than 5 words, we are still considering "Switching" the way tags are delimitted from Comma to Spaces, which would it make easier for new users, but it might be bugging regular users for a while as they would have to enclose multi-word tags in quotation marks ... i.e. if you enter
life love politics it would be three seperate tags, if you'd enter "life love politics" it would be one, with this change we could remove the word limit, still we will need some weeks to generate statistics of how many users will have problems with the 5 word limitation.
I see, thanks for explaining.
Have procedures been put into place to ensure that future changes will be communicated widely and well in advance? The improved communication that Vasco talks about is something I think we are all keen to see.
Cheers, Tom.
we are currently considering a system that will inform users of importent anouncement via internal message, those special internal messages will get to you to the normal PM/IM Mail (our own message system) but will have another eye-catching place on the My BCUK page so that nobody can miss it, we feel that too many users are still not reading "the.blog.co.uk" so this will be our way to guide them there more often.
Well put Tom
Once again we see this response "some users have a hard time learn how to tag properly". If proper guidelines were in place then users would know (and learn) how and why to use tags!!!! Users generally aren't idiots!
Please consider lifting the five word limit and give users the relevant information about the use of tags and give them credit for some intelligence. Ask users to use the tags responsibly rather than tell them what they cannot do.
Thank you
its impossible to keep a list of all films you review in the sidebar it would grow to large, you do have an "archive" for that, and a search function, if a user is interested in a particual movie, he would use the search function rather than browse a 500 link list.
A tag that is used only once or very rarely is generally not a good tag, if you want your site to be Browesable/Searchable in a good way, you have to understand tags as seperators for Content.
If you have lets say 100 movie reviews, then it would make sense to make tags that seperate those in chunks of 10 each, maybe something like "Movies A-B", "Movies C-D" etc ... i think you get the idea.
A tag that links to a single post is not necessary, you might as well link the post itself with a bloglist or the recent posts or archive functions.
Yes, I suppose that would be the best way to use the tag system, especially for things like movie reviews - or could even just categorise it into 'comedy' or 'drama' or 'sci-fi'. I think everyone has used their tag system more of a contents things, where it perhaps would take some strain from your system if everyone used it like you suggest?
I apologise for being so rude to you the other night, it was inexcusable. I know you are only trying to work hard to make the system work right.
I may re-look at the BCUK recipe tags and use the tag system better there, which would make it much simpler for people to look for the things they want without trawling through everything.
Surely - but I did see people use all the tags ALL of them for spam even if they aren't related - just to lure people in... and ''long phrase'' tags too...
example - "cheap designer bags" with fake brand-names"
I have been fighting Spam quite a lot and seen them for the past few years before I even came to these blogs here...
Dedorru
I think most if us here object to Spam.
missed all this but nice to know now... It would have been nice to have been pre-warned incase it really messed us up. We are paying for this after all. I will now keep my tags within the 5 word limit. thanks and it's really really good to see someone say sorry... that's so rare these days and makes me like BCUK more
Well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs.....
And I appreciate the apology - it defuses a situation quickly and allows us all to get on with our blogging.
Now if you can just notify us when we can replace the deleted tags that will be great!
Again, diolch yn fawr - thank you very much!
We're currently aiming for monday, we're already testing the tool internally.
Many thanks for the update to this post - I will be able to 'sort' my 'system' out.
btw - will the missing "poem" tag be resolved or will that remain a mystery?
Thanks
Thanks for your efforts to resolve this problem and for the apology...I really hope though the solution is easy to follow...LOL...GBHs...XXX
"five words are not necessary" Fuck you very much: freedom of speech isn't necessary?! One of my most recent tags "one flu over the sparrow's nest" is over 5 words long, and is an expression of my comedic personality, the fact I have flu, and the fact that I was so riddled with flu I couldn't remember how to spell cuckoo at the time of the first post!
Compromise?! No. It's you desperately trying to claw back some trust, well it's not happening in Kenderland. Who the hell are you to to tell us what's "necessary"?
Tags are something very technical, we are foremost a technical provider of a blog platform, as upsetting this may be for you, that step was necessary to make sure your blogs could be read at all, as the performance of the blogs were decreasing at an alarming speed, first and foremost due to private posts and tag clustering, we had to decide to either turn of private posts or to get the tags bag to the "technical" usage they are meant for. We're really sorry that we did not anticipate this 2 years ago. Feel free to express your needs and ideas for tag usage in the http://ideas.blog.co.uk as at the current time there are only few users that use "many words tags", sadly a lot of users don't tag at all, we might enhance the tagging system again (we always thought about adding "categories" in some way) but we really think we chose the right options (though we definitly went the wrong way in communicating and implementing them)
Still, you alway can Link a tag like 'sparrow's nest' in a blog list naming the blog list entry 'one flu over the sparrow's nest' - for your readers there wouldn'T be much of a difference.
you're crushing my creativity.
Ahahaha. Nice. One of the tags deleted from my blogs is "A reason to be part of blogland" it's on or should be on Perfection
You really are bastards.
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