[META] Proposed title keywords for Discussions
I propose the following title keywords for Discussion posts, to be included as I did with [META] in this one.
META: Posts about LW, in general.
DRAFT: Drafts of posts that may be promoted to the main LW, posted for comments and criticism.
POLL: Polls and (essay question–type) surveys on whatever topics seem to merit that format.
LINK: Discussions centered primarily around a linked webpage.
HELP: Posts requesting help with some question or problem.
QUICK: The same sort of content (with respect to topic and structure and style) that you’d post to main LW, but smaller and quicker, perhaps.
Feel free to propose others, debate the merit of the ones I’ve suggested, tell me that the whole thing is a stupid idea, etc.
This is not meant to replace the actual Tags system, which is good for arbitrarily tagging posts by topic. I see this as a way to allow us to quickly scan through the list of Discussions and know what general type of content to expect from each item. I don’t expect that absolutely everything will need one of these keywords, but many/most of the things that have been posted in Discussion so far seem to be categorizable along these lines. And I don’t intend by this to encourage specific types of content (e.g. if we get more polls as Discussion posts now as a result of having a [POLL] keyword, then it is not working correctly), I only suggest that it may be useful for organizing the things people are already using this section for.
I dislike the caps. I’d go with a simple colon instead of the square brackets.
That would make it less visually jarring while still allowing quick filtering.
Agree; ata, could you retitle your post to match what appears to be a weak consensus for no caps and yes colons?
At the very least, using the DRAFT keyword seems like it would be useful.
Why not [Meta] or [meta]? No need to use shouting all caps.
Will post URLs update when tags get edited out of them later, e.g. when a [DRAFT] moves to the main site?
I think the URL does update when the title changes.
Maybe one for thought experiments? They’re related to polls in that they frequently end with “what do you think would happen,” but I think they deserve their own category.
Good idea.
I was thinking of having a category for posts that are invitations to brainstorm/speculate on some topic. Do you think that’s similar enough to yours to include them under one keyword?
(And now I am thinking that “essay question–type surveys” may make more sense as part of this category than grouped with simple vote-oriented polls.)
Yes, and [SPEC] is I think the best short version of any of the ways we’ve described it.
Sometimes, yes, but not necessarily. I think the difference is whether you’re seeking more ideas and data about the subject in general, or if you specifically want to know the experiences of LW users.