of Ach and other randomness
This is related to a question I was asked earlier – am I the sole author of the (snarky and sometimes hilarious) tags on Achcharu? If that’s all you wanted to know, then the answer is no. But since I’m not content with a simple answer, a bit of history is necessary. Actually, no. The history lesson isn’t necessary but I’ve been busy in the real world and a series of digressions will serve as content for today.
When I started on Achcharu, I just needed three things from it. Those goals are essentially unchanged today so it’s worth repeating.
- I wanted to have blog entries presented in a manner conducive to quick scanning
- I wanted to have some collaborative input on the stories and some commentary.
- I wanted meta-aggregation (more on this later)
The first point is pretty much self explanatory. I didn’t really care for the summaries presented on other sites – my read/no read decision is done extremely quickly – within the first few seconds of seeing the title of a story. The more titles, the easier to fit more stories onto a single page and thus, the faster it is to read. I read blog entries for amusement, so I don’t want to spend a lot of time scrolling up and down a page to find entries.
The last point is even simpler, really. I combine different aggregation engines and blogs and (eventually, when I get around to it) even other sorts of content together. Instead of seeing duplicates, there is a best-guess effort to resolve the same story so that it isn’t seen more than once. Not always easy to do automatically, but rather nifty when it works out.
Collaborative input; now that’s an interesting case. I liked the idea because different people view the same story in lots of new (and interesting) ways. One way of collaborating on Ach is by tagging a story – that is, attaching a phrase that describes it. Or it could be commentary on the story. It could be lots of different things, even making your own counterpoint to how a story is presented. Taking me as an example, sometimes I disagree with the content of a story. Sometimes I disagree with how its tagged. But that tag makes sense to someone, so that’s good enough for me. If it’s even remotely funny, then it’s all good.
Tagging isn’t the only way to collaborate however. You can also collaborate in a more subtle way by actually clicking on the link to take you to a story. If the gods and your web browser are in alignment (as they usually are), this increments the click counter on the story by one. This form of collaboration is simpler and ultimately more powerful. When someone scans the page, they can see that … 11 people have visited a story earlier. A compelling reason to visit as well.
Earlier, tagging was open to a small pool of people who had specifically asked for that degree of access. Now, it’s open to anyone – the age of the “anonymous” tagger has dawned upon us. There are good points and bad points to this opening out of tagging to the casual visitor. The good side is that there is a much wider range of people who can tag without investing in an access key. The bad side is that there is also the temptation to try pissing in the tag pool – which is why anonymous tags are never shown directly against a post till they are approved by a tag moderator.
But finally, numbers. Since Ach2 launched there have been 73 tag entries made. I’ve done uh… 8 of those. A whopping 11%. Anonymous tags have accounted for 8% of total tag submissions so far; but the number would have been much higher had I let through about 10-12 anonymous tags which were pending a few days ago. I didn’t, but for purely technical reasons.
On 02-Feb-07 at 1:51 pm,
elric wrote:
I’d be interested to know why people visit Ach. Is it that they find the interface superior to the other options or because of the tags? Is the snarkiness/ humour an attraction? It would be very interesting if this was the case, given that the most frequent recipients of tags tend to be – for want of a better word – the glitterati or those one degree removed.
It’s probably a combination of the two, plus an “underground” cool factor, given how it hasn’t being whored around like the other options. Which, aside from the fact I know you IRL, is why I don’t mind being publicaly listed there.
On 02-Feb-07 at 2:48 pm,
Darwin wrote:
Cool, thanks for explaining that out. I like Ach because it’s relatively crap-free (not EVERYONE gets listed on it) and there isn’t a lot of scrolling to do. Oh and some of the tags really make me laugh which is also a bonus!
On 02-Feb-07 at 11:55 pm,
Curious Yellow wrote:
Smile as you are number one on the googlor!
On 03-Feb-07 at 11:55 am,
drac wrote:
I think the interface is a wee bit confusing if you’re unused to it. Having to click on the title of a post is hardly intuitive and just having the domain (or blog subdomain) in the link text doesn’t really help much either.
Someone mentioned that the interface was unintuitive when I was in SL and that wasn’t the first time I had heard the complaint
That’s an interesting question to pose, anyway. I’m of the opinion that it’s a mixture too – the snarky tags add to the fun…
It might (I say, in a weak attempt at justification) also help that changes/tweaks/upgrades to the site are more frequent.
Darwin – funny tags are a bonus
[incidentally, you can get your own access key if you're at all interested. just drop me a mail]
CY – it’s not the most commonly used word around so that’s hardly surprising
I really should have a link to a “real” achcharu recipe because I occasionally get people stumbling there looking for it – I can’t imagine what they must think 
On 04-Feb-07 at 2:20 am,
Curious Yellow wrote:
True, a recipe should be carefully hidden somewhere on the site.
I mailed you asking for a key, but gmail doesn’t seem to like talking to your mailserver :s message delayed notifications coming my way.
For the love of the Gods give me a key please! I cannot bottle up the sarcasm for much longer.
On 04-Feb-07 at 3:09 pm,
Darwin wrote:
Just sent you an email asking for my very own key but it might not get to you seeing that you might have problems getting emails from gmail. If that does happen could you please email me a key at retarded.bratATgmailDOTcom? Thank you!
On 07-Feb-07 at 12:59 pm,
Hera wrote:
Hullo, I did wonder where some of me better tags went.
And yeah, I guess the natural snarkiness pervading Ach plus the fact that it lists some of the better blogs out there are some of the reasons why I visit. Overall, ’tis pretty cool, so thanks, drac.
On 07-Feb-07 at 8:14 pm,
drac wrote:
some of your better tags, eh?
Well, I think all of your tagging masterpieces got approved at some point this afternoon…
and you’re very welcome
On 10-Feb-07 at 12:13 am,
SpectralCentroid wrote:
Heh heh, so Ach’s sorta coming of age now eh? Bravo.
On 21-Feb-07 at 4:07 pm,
The Lair / venting wrote:
[...] stats first. Since the last time, there has been a bit of an explosion in [...]