How to use Delicious for bookmarking
Jan. 8th, 2010 05:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pslasherSo ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thalialunacy asked me to show her how to use Delicious.com for bookmarking, but my answer got to be too big for a comment so I decided to post it here. I'm not sure I know everything there is to know about it, but I'll give it a try - note that this is just how I use it, others may do things differently or know stuff I don't. My delicious is PhantomSlasher.
Tags are the beauty of delicious, and what makes them beautiful is the way you can combine tags to drill down your search to something specific. For example, take a look at my Star Trek 2009 bookmark, which is kind of large and includes fic, vids, interviews, and various articles that I may or may not use as references when writing, ect. Say I only want to look at ST 2009 fic. Up in the right hand corner is a box for 'Related Tags' - click on the fic tag. Now you have all the ST 2009 fics that I have bookmarked. Now say you only want the Kirk/McCoy fics - hit that tag and now your search is even more narrow. Want all the angsty K/M fics? Hit that tag and you have a list of specifically what you were looking for. Of course, that only works if I've been religious about tagging every single fic with all the appropriate tags, which I sometimes haven't been. Unfortunately, you can't exclude tags from your search, so any search in my delicious is going to include fic marked "To Read", which may or may not be good. Also, you can share those results with others by copy-pasting the URL - every time someone follows that link they will get an updated view of those bookmarks.
You can also do a Delicious-wide search by typing tags into the search bar at the top right of the page. You can search multiple tags by putting a space between the tags. For example, when I search 'startrek' and 'fic' I get 16K+ results- that's a lot! So if I add 'Kirk/Spock' to the search I've narrowed the search down to 4K+. You can tell the more popular fics by the number of times they have been bookmarked. That number is on the right hand side of the bookmark listing. If you click on that number you can see all the people who have bookmarked that URL, read their notes and see their tags. Most people use the story summary, but watch out for spoilers!
The downside to tagging is that not everyone tags in the same way. Take the new ST movie for example. There are tons of ways to tag for it: STXI, ST:XI, ST2009, StarTrek2009, STReboot, ST:AOS.... You get the idea. Delicious doesn't know that all those above tags are the same thing, so you have to search for each of them in order to get a complete listing of all the fics out there. That kind of sucks, but that's the way it is. So if you find a popular tag it might be best to use it, that way others can find what you've tagged.
Of course, tagging every relevant element in a fic means you're going to wind up with a huge list of tags. To corral them I've decided to group them into Tag Bundles by Fandom and Pairing, and eventually by Author/Vidder. You can do that by going here. You can see my bundles, all unbundled tags, and all tags on the Right side of the screen by clicking the little arrow up or down. I like minimizing the "All Tags" listing and opening up the "Unbundled Tags" listing. You can also view all the bookmarks in a tag bundle by clicking on that bundle's title when the view is minimized.
Another cool thing is that you can view all of your tags by Cloud or list, and by Alphabetical or Count (how many times used) by clicking on tag options in the top right corner. You can also view all your bookmarks by date added (default) or by alphabetical by clicking the Sort arrow at the top of the page. That's why I like to start all my bookmarks with the name of the fic or vid. Sometimes I haven't tagged something properly and can't find it, but if I remember the title I can sort through that way and find it.
Networks are a good way to keep up with other people's bookmarks. Sometimes I click on the individual names I want to check up on, and sometimes I type a tag into the bar along the top to search your whole network. Of course, that requires you to type the precise tag, and it's likely that your whole network won't be using the same tags, but it's still a great way to search. You add a person to your network by clicking the button at the top of their delicious home page. Also, when you're surfing someone else's delicious and you find a bookmark you want to save, you can click the Save button to the right of the title and save it without having to leave the page. If you already have that page saved it will say 'Saved' instead.
Miscellaneous tips:
*You might want to install the Bookmarking add-on, which makes it very easy to bookmark any webpage you want without having to go to delicious first.
*You can change the number of bookmarks you see by clicking the "Display Options" link at the top of the page. I like seeing 100 at a time, but that will take longer to load than 50, or 25.
*Bookmark your own works. That's not being self- centered, it's getting your name out there, just like posting to a LJ comm is. That also ensures that others who are surfing Delicious will find your work instead of leaving it up to chance.
*I tag works in progress with 'WIP' so I remember to keep returning to look for new chapters, and then I remove the tag when the work is complete
So I hope I didn't just tell you a bunch of stuff you already knew, but I think that's just about everything I know. I'd love to hear about things I didn't talk about, or read any guides other people have posted.
ETA: I've just found fandomdirectory on Delicious. It's a listing of fans who use Delicious to bookmark fannish stuff. More info here. Wistfuljane is also collecting Delicious guides and tools here. Some of those are very interesting. And I also found ultimateficarchiver, which is a massive listing of fics - as of right now they have 19K + bookmarks!! If you want to send your fics to ultimateficarchiver (or any other delicious user) type "for:ultimateficarchiver" (or whatever delicious name) into the Send field.
thalialunacy asked me to show her how to use Delicious.com for bookmarking, but my answer got to be too big for a comment so I decided to post it here. I'm not sure I know everything there is to know about it, but I'll give it a try - note that this is just how I use it, others may do things differently or know stuff I don't. My delicious is PhantomSlasher. Tags are the beauty of delicious, and what makes them beautiful is the way you can combine tags to drill down your search to something specific. For example, take a look at my Star Trek 2009 bookmark, which is kind of large and includes fic, vids, interviews, and various articles that I may or may not use as references when writing, ect. Say I only want to look at ST 2009 fic. Up in the right hand corner is a box for 'Related Tags' - click on the fic tag. Now you have all the ST 2009 fics that I have bookmarked. Now say you only want the Kirk/McCoy fics - hit that tag and now your search is even more narrow. Want all the angsty K/M fics? Hit that tag and you have a list of specifically what you were looking for. Of course, that only works if I've been religious about tagging every single fic with all the appropriate tags, which I sometimes haven't been. Unfortunately, you can't exclude tags from your search, so any search in my delicious is going to include fic marked "To Read", which may or may not be good. Also, you can share those results with others by copy-pasting the URL - every time someone follows that link they will get an updated view of those bookmarks.
You can also do a Delicious-wide search by typing tags into the search bar at the top right of the page. You can search multiple tags by putting a space between the tags. For example, when I search 'startrek' and 'fic' I get 16K+ results- that's a lot! So if I add 'Kirk/Spock' to the search I've narrowed the search down to 4K+. You can tell the more popular fics by the number of times they have been bookmarked. That number is on the right hand side of the bookmark listing. If you click on that number you can see all the people who have bookmarked that URL, read their notes and see their tags. Most people use the story summary, but watch out for spoilers!
The downside to tagging is that not everyone tags in the same way. Take the new ST movie for example. There are tons of ways to tag for it: STXI, ST:XI, ST2009, StarTrek2009, STReboot, ST:AOS.... You get the idea. Delicious doesn't know that all those above tags are the same thing, so you have to search for each of them in order to get a complete listing of all the fics out there. That kind of sucks, but that's the way it is. So if you find a popular tag it might be best to use it, that way others can find what you've tagged.
Of course, tagging every relevant element in a fic means you're going to wind up with a huge list of tags. To corral them I've decided to group them into Tag Bundles by Fandom and Pairing, and eventually by Author/Vidder. You can do that by going here. You can see my bundles, all unbundled tags, and all tags on the Right side of the screen by clicking the little arrow up or down. I like minimizing the "All Tags" listing and opening up the "Unbundled Tags" listing. You can also view all the bookmarks in a tag bundle by clicking on that bundle's title when the view is minimized.
Another cool thing is that you can view all of your tags by Cloud or list, and by Alphabetical or Count (how many times used) by clicking on tag options in the top right corner. You can also view all your bookmarks by date added (default) or by alphabetical by clicking the Sort arrow at the top of the page. That's why I like to start all my bookmarks with the name of the fic or vid. Sometimes I haven't tagged something properly and can't find it, but if I remember the title I can sort through that way and find it.
Networks are a good way to keep up with other people's bookmarks. Sometimes I click on the individual names I want to check up on, and sometimes I type a tag into the bar along the top to search your whole network. Of course, that requires you to type the precise tag, and it's likely that your whole network won't be using the same tags, but it's still a great way to search. You add a person to your network by clicking the button at the top of their delicious home page. Also, when you're surfing someone else's delicious and you find a bookmark you want to save, you can click the Save button to the right of the title and save it without having to leave the page. If you already have that page saved it will say 'Saved' instead.
Miscellaneous tips:
*You might want to install the Bookmarking add-on, which makes it very easy to bookmark any webpage you want without having to go to delicious first.
*You can change the number of bookmarks you see by clicking the "Display Options" link at the top of the page. I like seeing 100 at a time, but that will take longer to load than 50, or 25.
*Bookmark your own works. That's not being self- centered, it's getting your name out there, just like posting to a LJ comm is. That also ensures that others who are surfing Delicious will find your work instead of leaving it up to chance.
*I tag works in progress with 'WIP' so I remember to keep returning to look for new chapters, and then I remove the tag when the work is complete
So I hope I didn't just tell you a bunch of stuff you already knew, but I think that's just about everything I know. I'd love to hear about things I didn't talk about, or read any guides other people have posted.
ETA: I've just found fandomdirectory on Delicious. It's a listing of fans who use Delicious to bookmark fannish stuff. More info here. Wistfuljane is also collecting Delicious guides and tools here. Some of those are very interesting. And I also found ultimateficarchiver, which is a massive listing of fics - as of right now they have 19K + bookmarks!! If you want to send your fics to ultimateficarchiver (or any other delicious user) type "for:ultimateficarchiver" (or whatever delicious name) into the Send field.