grumpybell:

Hi friends, 

so I’ve been seeing a lot of confusion/anger/offense/etc. dealing with how the tags work and I think there’s a lot of misinformation out there on exactly how to use/what’s happening with the tags. This has been going on this (and other) fandoms for ages and I went looking for a good explanation of this to reblog, but if it exists, then I wasn’t able to find it.

I’ve been wanting to talk about this for a while, but then I keep thinking it’s not as big of a deal as I’ve been feeling. Then I see even more misunderstanding and anger and I think, “I want this fandom to be as peaceful as possible and maybe with this help.” So, onward. 

HOW TAGS WORK (ON A COMPUTER)

I’m going to assume that most of know how to add tags, since it’s pretty self explanatory. The issue I’m seeing is that people don’t know how to use tags to find what they want or avoid things that they don’t want. So, the first most important thing to recognize is this: 

the ‘tag’ function and the ‘search’ function are not the same thing and you will have different results using them.

Okay, so we all have a search bar at the top of our page. If you pop up there and type in “Bellarke,” you aren’t just going to get posts tagged “Bellarke.” You’re going to get all the posts tagged “Bellarke,” but you’re also going to get any posts that have the term “Bellarke” written anywhere in the body of the text, including if somewhere in the body of the text it says “Anti-Bellarke.” The search bar is essentially using a “find” function, to pull up the keyword that you typed in, so if there’s a lot of anti-whatever you’re looking for, you’re gonna get a lot of that too. This is why in the body of posts, people often use things like “Bell@rke” or “Cl/exa” to break up the word and keep the search function from finding it. This is polite, however, not everyone does it, so you’re still likely going to see hate when you use this. 

So, how do you only see stuff that are tagged with what you’re looking for, not just mentioning it? There are two options for this. 

You can still use the search bar, you just have to edit how you’re using it. 

If you search “#Bellarke” or “#Clexa” then you should only get things that are tagged with those terms. 

Your other option is to go directly to the tagged url (e.g. www.tumblr.com/tagged/bellarke) which will also only show you the things with this tag, rather than things where it is mentioned. 

Finally, if you click on tag, like “Bob Morley” or “Bellarke” or “Clexa” it will take you to the tagged url, not to the search function. 

HOW TAGS WORK (ON MOBILE)

Here’s where it seems that people are most confused, and I’m not surprised because I personally hate mobile. That being said, a lot of people use it, so it’s important to include. 

The search function on mobile works the same as it does on a computer. 

This means, that if you want to only get things tagged with a term, you have to use the # when searching. If you want to see things tagged Clexa, type in “#Clexa” not “Clexa” and that should filter out the posts that are tagged “anti-clexa” but still use the term “clexa” in the body of the posts. 

Here’s where things get different.

If you click on a tag that’s at the bottom of a post, you will be sent through the “search” function, not the “tags.”

This is annoying. I don’t know why this happens, but to be honest, I don’t understand “why” on a lot of mobile functions. 

IF YOU’RE SEEING HATE AND USING THESE PROPER METHODS, THAT’S NOT A FLUKE, THAT MEANS SOMEONE IS INTENTIONALLY TAGGING IT A CERTAIN WAY.

Alright, so unfortunately there are still assholes in this fandom, and so you’re still going to get negative stuff in the tags, no matter how properly you’re using them. That being said, if you use the proper methods, it should help to filter some of this stuff out. 

It’s important note that if you’re in a tag, the tagged term DOES NOT show up in the tags at the bottom of the posts. So if I’m in the /tagged/bellarke tag, none of the posts that show up will show #bellarke at the bottom. So, if you’re seeing hate and then you look at the bottom of the post and think “okay, but I don’t see it tagged bellarke, it must be something in the body of the post!” that’s not true. It’s that the #bellarke is not showing up because you’re in that tag and everything in that tag has #bellarke. You can check this by using the permalink to go directly to the source and check their tags there. 

There’s a reason there are anti-tags, use them. Tag properly. Every single one of us is allowed to have our opinion and voice it. If you hate a character/ship/whatever, that is totally within your right and you have a right to express it, but please remember to be respectful. If you’re talking about that character/ship you hate in the body of your text, it would be super nice of you to use things like Cl/exa or Bell@rke to keep it from showing up in search. And certainly don’t tag the thing you hate with its tag. A lot of us just want a peaceful, respectful environment.

So, there you go. Maybe you don’t need this, but I thought I’d put it out there, considering everything. All this information is based on:

1) What I’ve been told and then…
2) My own tests that I did with tagging and checking where it showed up (I’m hoping one day tumblr will have changed this system and this post will no longer be valid)

Best wishes to all of you fellow fandom members!