Achcharu is a site to behold – not as a visual feast or anything that mundane, but as an aggregator that has more to offer than the few others that I, admittedly a neophyte at this sort of thing, have come across. Unlike those just referred to, Ach has a few more things going for it. For one, the tag-thing is a feature that adds a whole lot to the experience of sussing out a site. These ‘indicators’ can prove to be pertinent, funny, appropriately insulting, inappropriately off the wall – reflecting the banality of the tagger, personal, cliché-ridden, totally irrelevant and much more. And I find myself being far more attracted to it than I am to kottu, for instance – simply because of the diversity it offers.
The tag-thing has more to it than just being an ‘indicator’, though. Folk that are anonymous taggers are able to compose their tags but have to be subject to moderation, which means, I suppose, that their efforts will not see the light of day unless it is determined to be of some value and not some garbage to be dumped. Apparently ‘Access Key Holders’ are allowed to zip their tags through so that they will be immediately visible and this obviously means that the reason for their selection is probably because they are deemed to be reasonably ‘sane’ as far as their tags are concerned. I may be completely wrong about this, but then I’m sure to be corrected if I am!
Then there is the voting on tags, which is a newer feature (I think) that enables the Access Key Holders to vote either positively or negatively on tags, which in turn, piles on the ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ scores that may enable Key Holders to graduate to Moderators. Of course it would be up to the ‘graduates’ to decide if they wanted to be Moderators in the first place, but then it would appear to be most likely that taggers spending time tagging would not find it too much trouble to moderate.
Among the other features on Ach is the Achcharu Grapevine, another that I find to be useful and informative and an additional convenience that the other aggregator sites I have visited do not have – and another reason for the preference for the site to the others. And there’s more – like Black List, Selector, CloudConfig, History and others, but I haven’t really got into them much, so ignorance is bliss.
The one thing that I have observed about the tags is that some bloggers attract a whole slew of derogatory tags, most of which are insulting and irrelevant. To be insulting would be cool if the blogger deserved it and if the tag were to be relevant, but being insulting just for the sake of being obnoxious or due to some personal hangup is, to me, not really the intention of the exercise. I see that RD has been attracting some stupid remarks and can’t help but wonder why. Some of the ladies out there have also been preyed on by mealy-mouthed creeps, who, if they had something smart or relevant to say, would not need to descend to the cesspits to spew their shit around. But then that’s my view – most likely a result of my conditioning and I guess the folk I am referring to must be of a totally different mindset. Different strokes!
So let’s see how this goes. Maybe the voting business on Ach will account for the creeps, or maybe the creeps will survive and guys with views like mine will be selected out. Whatever happens, Ach is providing a forum for diversity in the blogosphere and that is a good thing – however it is looked at – by whoever it is that is doing the looking.
11 comments
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March 19, 2007 at 9:15 am
sach
Some of the tags on Achcharu are pure genius with lovely puns that are both funny and harmless at the same time and I think that was the original intention behind introducing tags.
Lately though there have been some completely irrelevant and purely malicious and personally insulting tags and there was one aimed at me that took away the point behind my blog post so much that people started to even email me, questioning me based on the tag which was disturbing to say the least.
It was when I contacted drac that I found out about the voting system and that the particular tag was one vote away from being deleted. It was anyway deleted and I have decided to get myself an Access key, something I didn’t know about.
Like you, I have started to prefer Achcharu but it has its downside as well.
March 19, 2007 at 9:16 am
Darwin
It’s a novel way to waste time that’s for sure! Regarding the negative comments, some of them can be quite mean and tasteless, others scathingly astute and witty in a very snarky ‘i’ve always thought that but never said it’ sort of way.
I’d like to think that no blogger deserves that sort of treatment, but the reality is that there are some rather pretentious bloggers who have a very condescending style and pretty much beg to be snarked at. I personally wouldn’t do the snarking because as I said it’s not very nice, but sometimes it’s more like ‘poor guy but he’s kinda asking for it!’. Either way, it’s hardly a big deal I think. Sticks and stones etc….
March 19, 2007 at 11:37 am
javajones
Sach – Actually some of the more malicious tags aimed at you were among those that I was thinking about – there were others of course. As Darwin says, there are those bloggers that kinda beg to be put down, but profanity and deliberate personal insults (in my view) are not the way to go. And I don’t think that was part of the intention when Drac set this up. But keep on keeping on – the only way to shed the crap is not to pay too much notice to the ‘unintelligent’ and ‘irrelevent’ garbage.
March 19, 2007 at 11:43 am
javajones
Darwin – I couldn’t agree with you more
March 19, 2007 at 11:57 am
drac
Gah. Pingbacks don’t appear to be working so I’m linking the reply.
Yes, it’s very very lengthy. Sorry. Concise and to the point? I don’t know what that means.
On a slightly broader point, I have a link to an interesting (and possibly insightful) essay called “The Group is its own enemy” in that post which explains the phenomenon a bit better 🙂
I personally haven’t seen a group of individuals online that didn’t have disagreements over irrelevant and “ok” content. Goes with the territory, I feel.
March 20, 2007 at 6:38 am
Theena
I’ve noticed that the three bloggers get the worst attention on Ach: Sach, RD and Voice of Colombo.
Some of it is funny, but a lot of it is malicious and stale. For instance, RD has been getting this ‘We get it’ tags; it started with “You have a BMW, we get it”, but recently I saw something as insipid as ‘You have a troll, we get it’.
The Chatroom cast’s blogs were regularly tagged as ‘Chatroom spam’. And now, I notice VOC gets ‘Copy and Paste Blogging’ a lot.
My point is that while Ach is at times genius, it is also spiteful.
Overall, I use Kottu and Ach in tandem. Great tools both.
March 20, 2007 at 8:55 am
RD
Guys, I’d be lying if I said that the negative tags don’t bother me, they do. But I don’t blame Achcharu or Drac, I think Ach is great and have nothing but praise for it.
I suppose the nature of a blog is that it’s out in the public domain and some might hate it and some might like it. All have a right to their opinion and, if negative tags and criticism bothered me that much, then I probably shouldn’t have a blog.
What really does make me smile is the fact that people hide behind the anonymity that Ach provides. If someone doesn’t like my, or anyone’s blog, or if you think I am a total wanker that’s their opinion and their right. But, if they don’t have the bollocks to say it to my face without hiding then it’s just gutless.
March 20, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Archangel
Most of the tags are in fact witty and provide for certain degree of amusement. My only concern is that the individuals involved in the tagging process don’t seem to actually read the posts on each and every occasion. If it is not possible to read it, just don’t bother tagging it.
This predicament should be considered by the administrators since there is a tendency amongst bloggers to submit low quality posts with “provocative” or “eye catching” titles.
Thanks for reading.
March 20, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Archangel
*a certain degree
March 20, 2007 at 1:50 pm
drac
Well, I can’t say I disagree with the fundamental point behind any of the comments so far.. but as a counterpoint –
not all blog posts are uniformly interesting or witty or even interesting. I don’t think tags operate by different rules – there is the good, bad and indifferent. In fact, there are more constraints placed on tags. Would anyone advocate removing entries from your own personal blog on any grounds? 🙂 Why on earth should tags be held to a higher standard of universal appeal? My own blog should be nuked from low orbit for being boring in that case.
Also, some taggers conscientously visit the post, read and then tag. Others don’t. Not very dissimilar from bloggers who research a topic and write well reasoned, balanced and informed entries as opposed to cookie cutter formula posts and mindless propagation of a meme. Asking administrators to read a tagger’s mind is uhm.. ambitious but ultimately unrealistic.
There are no hard and fast rules about how or what can be tagged and why – beyond a few basic criteria on the grounds of decency. People tag things in a way that makes sense to them. That is the whole point of the exercise, really. The voting stuff just serves to make the community appreciate the better tags (and as a side effect, block out the worse ones)
the only difference that I can see is that anonymous comments sent to a moderated blog are left at the mercy of the blog administrator to delete, while on Ach a tag is left upto a moderator and/or the community vote to delete or retain.
That loss of control can be difficult to stomach for many, I know…
It still isn’t fundamentally different from someone opening an account on del.icio.us or even a blog on wordpress.com and and bookmarking someone else’s personal blog with the word wanker in the link text 🙂
March 20, 2007 at 4:15 pm
javajones
I do agree completely with Drac’s very democratic view. To each his/her own and let the chips fall where they may. It really isn’t up to the administrator to make a value judgement on the ‘quality’ of the tag. I think the voting option will, to some extent, reflect the view of the ‘community’ and hopefully will have a significant effect on what is considered good, bad or just plain ugly.
In the end the whole point of the exercise (in my view) is to combine, humour, sarcasm and relevance with regard to the particular post which would serve as an indicator to those looking to read what they think they would be turned on by. Hopefully the crap will find its way to the septic pit in time.