Friday, February 9, 2007

The Achcharu Game

I've been doing a bit of eyeballing Achcharu recently. You may think I'm just jumping on the bandwagon, the one that was wheeled into motion by Darwin here. A kind of Achcharu wagon I guess. But no, I ain't jumping on no Achcharu wagon, just ask Lady Luck or my brother. They'll tell you that I was going on about the tags on Achcharu a while ago.

I like it. I like it because that chap who runs it, that drac bloke, has and clearly does, put a lot of effort and time into it. I don't claim to understand all the technospeak, the utterances of RSS feeds, Firefox and all that geeky stuff but I like the end result.

A few days ago I was moaning about the tags to Lady Luck, saying that they're negative and destructively critical and bemoaning the fact that they're funny but also a bit evil, like a clown.

Lady Luck, in her eloquent, intellectual and medical way basically told me I was being an arse. My brother told me a similar thing a few days before, without the medical and eloquent stuff. He takes more of a cultural geographical approach and uses more swear words. The swear words aren't part of his culturally geographical approach, they're more to do with his personality.

So I decided to mellow a bit about these tags. Then Darwin posted about them too, that confirmed my decision, that some lightening up needed to be done. So I've now started to read them and chuckle. Some are witty, some are bitchy, some are cutting and some are just below the belt nasty.

I confess though, I have a fundamental issue with people leaving negative comments, whether they're proper comments on a blog or tags like these, if they are left under the cover of anonymity. My thinking is that it's only people lacking in bollocks who do this. If you're going to hurl insults, chuck bitchiness around and call names then at least have the tiny bit of courage to let the recipient know who you are.

Only this morning I noticed that someone had tagged a post I had put up, this one, with "you have a BMW we get it" and "small penis". The latter has since been removed, the tag that is, not the actual small penis. Presumably it broke the rules. There's a hint of sour grapes about it but it's largely true, well entirely true.

There was another tag on another post of mine saying "NSFW". I had to google this to see what it meant; "Not safe for work" was the result of my research. This is quite an honour, I'm not aware that I've ever written anything or posted any pictures before that are not safe for work, with the exception of all the hardcore stuff of course.

On the other hand some of these tags are side splittingly hilarious, the kind of remarks that we're all thinking to ourselves anyway. The kind of things that we'd all like to say but wouldn't unless it could be done with anonymity. I'd guarantee that I'm not the only one who's condescendingly amused by that bloke with the Nissan. The one that's been "extended" by several feet and made to look like a Bugatti Veyron or something. The fellow without a "T" or an "H" on his keyboard.

I've noticed something that is giving me much amusement and joy. You may want to bear in mind that I'm also entertained by farts, making sexual organs out of Gorillapods and hitting things with sticks before you rush out and try it.

On Achcharu there is often a section at the top right of the screen showing tags that are pending. I think these are the tags that people have put by posts that have yet to be approved and assigned to the relevant posts. It doesn't show up that often but if you see it try to do what I've now started to do.

Trying to guess which post each tag will be assigned to. I've had literally minutes of fun trying to figure out which particular post will get the tag that says:

"grammarians everywhere silently weep".

And who was going to get the onomatopoeic:

"greed is good greed works"?

Have a look and you'll see for yourself.

In the meantime I'll continue to contemplate whether I should embark on a campaign to say nice things, to leave positive and constructive tags.

Have a good weekend all.

8 comments:

Darwin said...

Yes indeed, some of them are brilliantly witty:D I suspect Drac will moderate the rather OTT ones so I doubt theres much chance of Ach turning into a troll-fest.

I've had some dodgy comments too, and you know what, I don't care. Sure some are snarky and bitchy and tabloid-ish but it doesn't affect what I chose to write about, and I'll be damned if I'm going to start second-guessing what I chose to write about just because of Ach-trolls!

Anonymous said...

My last post got a comment along the lines of me being a lost poet with little grasp of metaphor and word play.

It was funny. :D

As for the site, who ever tags it has a wonderful sense of humour. I haven't read anything over the top on it yet.

Indyana said...

The tags are funny , mean, could make you laugh or cry!!Very different from the kottu format.I was wondering if that was the point of it.

Anonymous said...

Drac has to be a “wannabe” Bram Stoker fly-by-night character with wit for canines (as in teeth) and a penchant for repetition. But it must be difficult to be original so frequently, so we give him (her?) a break and hope he (she?) keeps on keeping on!

Anonymous said...

"The latter has since been removed, the tag that is, not the actual small penis." - hehe liked that!

Anonymous said...

I tried hard to restrain myself from commenting - lest I be tagged *cough* as some sad Ach entry stalker... but too late.

I don't ever intend to reveal tag authors publicly. There is a miniscule difference between a (relatively opaque) pseudonym such as drac or Rhythmic Diaspora and an anonymous comment or tag. Nor should the author of a tag be as important as the content of the tag. Both in my humble opinion :)

Also, that Beemer thing - I felt that the first and second tags both made the same point - albeit in different ways. I wasn't feeling too keen about investigating the truth (or otherwise) concerning the "small penis" so I disappeared it. Er. The tag. Not the penis. Sorry about that.

All the same, I'd prefer to have more tags by a larger, more diverse audience than too few. The larger the pool of taggers - the more likely that real gems will be found. If that means having to disappear a few tags from time to time, so be it. Some people find farting in elevators funny. Others raise a bit of a stink about it. It's all subjective, innit?

Also, the stuff that appears on the top right hand corner of the site are exclusively "anonymous" tags - drive-by taggers, if you like. Anyone can tag anonymously if they choose - there are no restrictions. But anon-tags won't appear against a post till they are approved. I'm the only person doing the approval at the moment but more folk will be involved in it soon. The anon-tags vanish when I let them through (or decide not to). The last time I checked, anonymous tags were a small percentage of total tags.

I quote the FAQ: "Unmoderated tagging is pretty much open to anyone who contacts me for an access key". If you want to put only nice tags, you can :) unmoderated even. But funny/witty tags are better. I'd prefer the snark happened on tags and the praise happened on the blog entry itself, personally. But that's just me.

More questions? :) Ask away.

Rhythmic Diaspora said...

Drac - It looks like Achcharu has many fans!

SpectralCentroid said...

Yep it does. Its been my blog meta site of choice since got into the whole blog thingamagix. Hardly ever use Kottu.