User tagging?
User tagging?
One gripe I have with OGA is that it's very hard, especially for new users, to find the right artwork for their needs.
One solution is to use the tags, but unfortunately the tags are solely chosen by the uploader, who may or may not know the best tags to use. It seems that tags should be driven by the community at large. One possibility is to allow users to choose tags as well.
To give an example (not picking on anyone, just illustrating), here's a piece of music with a (IMHO) poor choice of tags: http://opengameart.org/content/carmack
It's a techno/industrial music track but the tags don't include this. This means that folks looking for techno/industrial music will have virtually 0 chance of finding this.
Obviously with user-generated tags, it can be open to abuse, but it seems OGA is fairly laid-back in general :) so I think the pros outweigh the cons.
This is related to the discussion about content curation going on in this thread:
http://opengameart.org/content/improvements-to-content-curation
I made the suggestion that admins/trusted users be able to modify tags on anyone's concent to help with that problem but don't know how hard it would be to implement.
Admins already can modify tags.
I like the idea of user tagging but reckon they should be:
Red warrior needs caffeine badly.
@surt
Definitely agree with you on all those points, especially with respect to tracking tags from potentially malicious users. Keeping track of things with a changelog similar to how it's handled now would probably sufice for that purpose. I think pennomi had a much better description of what I was fumbling though explaining when he suggested adding a curator role that's more than a standard user but less than an admin for those community members who want to help with tagging and metadata.
I agree that the site would be much more useful with user tagging. In part, I disagree with some of surt's suggestions. I am referring to those that assume user tags are less accurate (e.g., separate them from owner tags, give less weight in search relevance) . I have seen research that crowdsourced tagging ends up being more accurate, so segmenting them as 2nd class tags or lowering search weight seems counterproductive to me. I agree with some of surt's concerns, however, on ability to sniff out abuse.
I would suggest user tagging with one simple rule: Only users with a certain number of points (since we already have a user points system) can add tags. This would force new users to become familiar with the content before tagging and make it difficult for malicious users to use fake accounts.
edster: Even accepting that third-party tags are of equal value to first-party ones, I still think it very important to have a strict delineation of ownership.
Given a user's submission in that user's own gallery, it is reasonable for any party to assume that tags unless otherwise specified are specified by the submitting user.
If a third-party adds a "CC0" tag to my GPL work then wouldn't other parties have reasonable cause to think the work is also released as CC0?
If a third-party adds a "Jesus-frendly art" tag to my work then wouldn't other parties have reasonable cause to think that I care if art is "Jesus-frendly" and are perhaps "Jesus-frendly" myself?
It weakens the ownership of the submitter.
Red warrior needs caffeine badly.
If tags are not solely dictated by the creator, I don't think they will imply anything about the creator's wishes (which is kinda the point, isn't it). It's like saying the author of a book gets to decide where it goes on a book shelf or in a library or that its placement says something about the author.
Tags are for topical arrangment and while it is important to let creators make suggestions when work is added, I don't see that their suggestions are more correct or relevant than other people. Obviously, licensing is a completely different issue that must remain solely in the creator's control, which is why licenses are separate from topic tags.
I think the old art school truism applies here - an audience's understanding of a work always trumps the artist's intentions.
Hmm...
Assuming your work is nither CC0 nor Jesus-friendly, wouldn't those two types of tags be considered- if not malicious- simply inaccurate by the rest of the community? Such inaccuracies would be easy to correct by other members of this community- who would also be able to edit tags- and perhaps negatively impact the original tagger's reputation, which would eventually prevent them from tagging other's work at all, yes?
I guess I just don't think those scenarios seem like much of a problem, but then again I have zero experience dealing with crowdsourced metadata.
--Medicine Storm