Tags at Daily Kos (v6 update)

NOTE: This article has been updated after the migration to WordPress/Viafoura.

Tags have served several key purposes at Daily Kos, allowing us to categorize, track, and search for stories on related topics bearing the same tag.

Since the site migration, story tags are OPTIONAL. They are no longer required for story publication. Two notes:

• If a story author chooses to include one or more, however, they remain useful, as do the legacy tags ported from DK5. The presence of tags helps users locate topics and stories of particular interest.
• Another important change: Only story authors may edit tags now.

Tags are still searchable and still associated with a fixed URL pattern, e.g. https://www.dailykos.com/tag/apr/ Previously, tags had to be one continuous string (and comprised only of letters, numbers, and three special characters: hyphen, ampersand, and (non-trailing) period. Now, tags may be more than one word long, so keep in mind tag URLs could also resemble this one: https://www.dailykos.com/tag/kagro-in-the-morning/ For continuity with the old-style tags, however, following the old constraints may be useful.

It is still possible to "follow" a tag as well—see the Follow button right below the tag name on its page—which means that stories carrying that tag will appear under your Viafoura notification bell.

If you do want to add a tag or tags to your story, you may do so either before publication or afterwards. Look in the right sidebar of the story draft view, open to the Post tab. The Tags section is near the bottom, and it will resemble this: