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Cover image for We'll be adding more design and moderation clarity to tags like #help, #discuss, etc. We're also introducing a new badge!

We'll be adding more design and moderation clarity to tags like #help, #discuss, etc. We're also introducing a new badge!

Ben Halpern on May 27, 2019

We are always making small tweaks to DEV in order to best serve the community, and I wanted to share some thoughts about what we have planned on th...
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Corey Alexander

DEV core team members will be ineligible from winning, so you won't be competing with me.

Is it bad that this is the first thing I thought of too? ๐Ÿคฃ

Excited for the changes and having a bit more structure to some of this tags!

You've been on a streak this weekend with some good #discuss posts!

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Ben Halpern

You've been on a streak this weekend with some good #discuss posts!

It's been a lot of fun too!! Sometimes I get so caught up in developing dev.to, I go too long without taking part. I'm going to start doing at least one #discuss post per day.

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Corey Alexander

I need to get more involved with the discuss posts!

You post at least one a day, and I'll try to leave at least one comment a day in a discuss post! ๐Ÿ˜‰

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Raffi Nakashian

I don't know what it is about badges, but...

I just friggin love badges. Please make more badges

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Ben Halpern

We have some more fun ones on the way!

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fischgeek

๐Ÿคฃ

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Waylon Walker

The artwork they have is spectacular, and motivating. It's so good that you really want to see it in your profile.

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Victoria Drake

Hey Ben! Thank you as always for your hard work. I think you and the team are on a great track lately and I'm glad to see the trajectory.

+1 for the #askDEV idea.

Maybe DEV can implement a little helper box, similar to what I think GitHub used to do with markdown. I can't find the box I'm thinking of so here's a sketch.

Helper tag box

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Waylon Walker

Love that idea

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Saurabh Sharma

I had 2 posts which both have more than 300 comments but they were posted 4 months so will I get that batch?

dev.to/itsjzt/can-i-see-your-deskt...

dev.to/itsjzt/can-i-see-your-termi...

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Ben Halpern

You're going to have to make some new posts, sorry!

But it looks like you have an eye for this sort of thing, I know you have it in you ๐Ÿ˜„

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Saurabh Sharma

๐Ÿ‘

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Waylon Walker

Is there a way to backdate other badges such as the hacktoberfest ones?

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ItsASine (Kayla)

Hopefully nobody takes too seriously.

Pfft, gotta catch all the badges. Time to game the system *cracks knuckles*

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Ben Halpern

๐Ÿ˜„

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Cubicle Buddha • Edited

I must admit that I have used both the #discuss tag and the #help tag on articles that I legitimately wanted peopleโ€™s input on. However, it was also a traditional article in that it had a lot of content and I spent a lot of time researching the topic. So does that still fall within fair use of the #discuss tag?

In other words, do #discuss articles have to be title only (or extremely short)?

I only ask because:

  • if we want to make #discuss articles title only, then thatโ€™s an easy thing that can be enforced via the code. Or it could be enforced via a character limit?
  • also, Iโ€™m asking this question because if I misused the tags, Iโ€™m super duper sorry! ๐Ÿ˜ข

(As always thank you @bhalpern and the team for this incredible community.)

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Waylon Walker

I am guilty as well. I had one removed today. I completely intended to spark discussion, but didn't really have a good call to action. Good on the moderators to catch it for me.

I kinda like the title only discuss threads as it removes the authors bias. Though I find it hard to post a title only

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Ryan Smith • Edited

My main gripe is when a post shows up in #explainlikeimfive and it is phrased as a question (that I might have insight on) but then it isn't a question. I think these improvements will help with that.

I'm also wondering if the four tags per post are one too many. I'm sure there are posts that legitimately could be under four tags, but most times the fourth tag is just filler. A lot of times that filler tag ends up being a catch-all tag of #discuss, #explainlikeimfive, or #beginners to get more eyeballs on it, but does not always follow the spirit of that tag. Again, the improvements mentioned will help, but my thought is limiting posts to three tags. Three seems like enough to get it to those followers that are interested but limit the filler and clutter in the more general tags.

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Waylon Walker

I just queued up a bunch of #discuss threads :), every Wednesday. I am newly in a "tech lead" role. I am using it to hopefully learn about others that I don't get to talk to every day and how to be a better lead.

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Waylon Walker

I did get called out by having #disuss on a thread. I think I had intended to spark discussion with the thread, but did not explicitly have a good call to action so it was a completely legitimate move by the moderator.

For a #discuss thread should the title read as a question, or should it end it with a call to action? Is there any specific detail like that?

I find that many of them do not actually have much content in the post, I kinda like that format as it doesn't introduce the authors bias to the discussion. Is that a recommendation?

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Amara Graham

Why is that "Big Thread" badge absolutely cracking me up? ๐Ÿคฃ

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Bhupesh Varshney ๐Ÿ‘พ

Will Smith : ah ! That's hot

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SyntaxSeed (Sherri W)

I haven't figured out how to view my badges either on my profile or dashboard. (Mobile site)

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Andy Piper

One thing to think about may be a trust system (possibly like Stack, but perhaps with a DEV spin) to enable other folks to assist yโ€™all with moderation on these tags in the future?