# Tagging users (with interests/passions/skills etc)
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/tagging-users-with-interests-passions-skills-etc/42039
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [4월 5, 2016, 3:51오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tagging-users-with-interests-passions-skills-etc/42039 "2016-04-05T03:51:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@HAWK](https://meta.discourse.org/u/HAWK)
#### Post date: [4월 5, 2016, 3:51오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tagging-users-with-interests-passions-skills-etc/42039/1 "2016-04-05T03:51:56Z")
Continuing the discussion from [Introducing the Staff Notes Plugin](https://meta.discourse.org/t/introducing-the-staff-notes-plugin/41026/74):
> [@Discourse User Notes](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-user-notes/41026/74):
>
> Not to get off-topic, @erlend_sh maybe a “How can I tag users” topic is in order?
I’m really keen to find a way to tag users with interests/skills/passions so that I can pull people into relevant discussions.
I had hoped to use the staff notes plugin, but it’s not working out, so I’m wondering about the logistics of custom profile fields. How easy is it to pull that data?
Or perhaps a more appropriate question would be how would others approach this?
---
### Author:  [@mcwumbly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mcwumbly)
#### Post date: [4월 5, 2016, 3:54오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tagging-users-with-interests-passions-skills-etc/42039/2 "2016-04-05T03:54:08Z")
A couple other hacks I can think of (which may or may not meet your needs):
- groups
- custom badges
---
### Author:  [@HAWK](https://meta.discourse.org/u/HAWK)
#### Post date: [4월 5, 2016, 4:01오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tagging-users-with-interests-passions-skills-etc/42039/3 "2016-04-05T04:01:48Z")
Thanks David – I’ve considered both. Groups is pretty limiting (I have to generalise to put people into one of x number of groups, rather than being to tag them with anything) although it is probably the most feasible option right now.
I’m generally against badges because they imply a level of expertise that not everyone is comfortable with. There are other connotations (not just categories of interest).
Ideally, I don’t want people to see the notes at all, but I’m aware that I might have to compromise on that. I currently use a spreadsheet that I manually search through, but I’d rather it was integrated somehow.
---
### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [4월 5, 2016, 5:50오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tagging-users-with-interests-passions-skills-etc/42039/4 "2016-04-05T05:50:36Z")
Well, that was fun.
What would have taken Rudy a heartbeat and a breath to put together …
On my localhost I had 4 Staff create a Staff Note starting with a made up “short code” on 4 different members.
> ~SHINING STAR~
> This member has potential, lets keep an eye on them
Because the Profile Notes plugin created private messages I looked there - Nope
Staff Notes uses a different table
That table has no connection to the user the Staff Note was attached to except as the id as part of a string.
(some tricky stuff was needed, I’ll get better at Postgres yet)
This query
```sql
WITH psr AS (
SELECT regexp_matches(plugin_store_rows.key, '[0-9]+') AS psr_key_value
, plugin_store_rows.plugin_name AS psr_plugin_name
, plugin_store_rows.value AS psr_value
FROM plugin_store_rows
)
SELECT users.id
, users.username
, psr.psr_value
FROM users
JOIN psr
ON
users.id = CAST (array_to_string(psr.psr_key_value, '') AS int)
WHERE
psr.psr_plugin_name LIKE 'staff_notes'
AND
psr.psr_value LIKE '%~SHINING STAR~%'
```
gave me
```
id username psr_value
11 TestUser1 [{"id":"40ce59592f6b5c81a692845cdbb0f9d4","user_id":11,"raw":"~SHINING STAR~\nThis member has potential, lets keep an eye on them","created_by":2,"created_at":"2016-04-04T21:00:20.055-04:00"}]
31 RegularGal1 [{"id":"327c342266b2efa7d1530aba02811056","user_id":31,"raw":"~SHINING STAR~\nThis member has potential, lets keep an eye on them","created_by":9,"created_at":"2016-04-04T21:09:15.413-04:00"}]
7 RegularGuy1 [{"id":"eeb581c3ff772ffdc476ea09c0dce156","user_id":7,"raw":"~SHINING STAR~\nThis member has potential, lets keep an eye on them","created_by":3,"created_at":"2016-04-04T21:03:09.804-04:00"}]
30 MemberGal1 [{"id":"73da2850045782a9fdb9d9ec7341d3a0","user_id":30,"raw":"~SHINING STAR~\nThis member has potential, lets keep an eye on them","created_by":34,"created_at":"2016-04-04T21:05:59.993-04:00"}]
```
---
### Author:  [@HAWK](https://meta.discourse.org/u/HAWK)
#### Post date: [4월 5, 2016, 6:31오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tagging-users-with-interests-passions-skills-etc/42039/5 "2016-04-05T06:31:35Z")
Allan! You’re such a star. Thanks so much. I’ll give it a run tomorrow and see how I go.
Really appreciate it.
Edit: works like a charm.
---
### Author:  [@alefattorini](https://meta.discourse.org/u/alefattorini)
#### Post date: [4월 7, 2016, 7:21오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tagging-users-with-interests-passions-skills-etc/42039/6 "2016-04-07T07:21:28Z")
I’m really interested in this feature, my goals as community guy are pretty similar to @HAWK
Mentioning people into relevant discussions to them and where they can add a unique contribution is super important as external trigger, it keeps people still around the community and encourages to participate
---
### Author:  [@robmc](https://meta.discourse.org/u/robmc)
#### Post date: [5월 20, 2016, 12:37오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tagging-users-with-interests-passions-skills-etc/42039/7 "2016-05-20T12:37:04Z")
great - I would love to see this too. I am involved in a number of community sites and it is something I think would be very useful - so users can self-identify with certain interests and then members and community managers can keep these specific groups updated with relevant content
I’m not yet sure whether I would prefer them to pick from a list, or to enter their own tags, but in either case it would be a useful feature that is separate from the ‘Groups’ function, and the Badges
Happy to help scope this out better if needed
---
### Author:  [@alefattorini](https://meta.discourse.org/u/alefattorini)
#### Post date: [10월 6, 2016, 8:08오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tagging-users-with-interests-passions-skills-etc/42039/8 "2016-10-06T08:08:11Z")
With tags into the core, can you take this into account? It would be awesome see that on Discourse.
---
### Author:  [@tomtjes](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tomtjes)
#### Post date: [3월 19, 2019, 5:40오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tagging-users-with-interests-passions-skills-etc/42039/9 "2019-03-19T17:40:41Z")
Did this ever go anywhere? I also found this topic
[https://meta.discourse.org/t/add-user-fields-support-for-field-type-tag/42721/5](https://meta.discourse.org/t/add-user-fields-support-for-field-type-tag/42721/5)
which also seems to have gone only half-way to a permanent solution.
What I would find useful is a multiple choice dropdown field like in the composer
It would then make sense to be able to search for users with a specific tag.
Currently `Customize` \> `User Fields` only allows single choice dropdowns (as does the [Custom Wizard Plugin](https://meta.discourse.org/t/custom-wizard-plugin/73345)) and I’m not sure if searching for those fields returns anything.
---
### Author:  [@HAWK](https://meta.discourse.org/u/HAWK)
#### Post date: [3월 26, 2019, 3:45오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tagging-users-with-interests-passions-skills-etc/42039/10 "2019-03-26T03:45:28Z")
Yeah, I can still see huge value in this. Being able to quickly tag a user rather than adding them to multiple groups would be great. I don’t think this is trivial though. @neil may be able to add more to the conversation. He did a lot of work on our current tagging.
---
### Author:  [@bts](https://meta.discourse.org/u/bts)
#### Post date: [3월 26, 2019, 4:09오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tagging-users-with-interests-passions-skills-etc/42039/11 "2019-03-26T04:09:48Z")
This is a cool idea! If at present users \< \> groups are tightly linked, and topics \< \> tags are tightly linked — such that establishing a connection between users \< \> tags would be a lot of work — perhaps a simple(ish) solution could be:
- New site setting `enable group quick add` (and perhaps `group default visibility`)
- When enabled, rather than just allowing selection of existing groups on a user edit page, you could also enter a group name that doesn’t already exist and it’d create it as a closed group with some simplified default settings
Basically a way to enable just-in-time group creation that’s functionally as easy as adding tags. Not sure if there are other ways tags might still be a better way to go, just one idea!
---
### Author:  [@neil](https://meta.discourse.org/u/neil)
#### Post date: [3월 26, 2019, 1:28오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tagging-users-with-interests-passions-skills-etc/42039/12 "2019-03-26T13:28:59Z")
I think we need a hard separation between topic tags and user tags. We don’t want to tag a user with #Customization > Theme component or #pr-welcome, for example… because it’s meaningless. The /tags page also needs to make sense, so mixing topic and user tags together there would be wrong. Most of the work to add user tags would be new work (UI, data models).
I think most people will want to use user tags in the same way we use groups (mentions, restricted categories, etc.), so maybe @bts is right that this is really a request to enhance groups.
---
### Author:  [@HAWK](https://meta.discourse.org/u/HAWK)
#### Post date: [3월 26, 2019, 11:36오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tagging-users-with-interests-passions-skills-etc/42039/13 "2019-03-26T23:36:20Z")
Totally agree on the hard separation and the groups extension would work in some cases but I’m not totally convinced that the group route is the right one. In my use case from the OP there is sometimes just 1 person with a tag and often just 2 people. Hundreds of 1 and 2 people groups would be pretty cumbersome.
How much work would be involved with going down the tagging road?
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [3월 26, 2019, 11:45오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tagging-users-with-interests-passions-skills-etc/42039/14 "2019-03-26T23:45:49Z")
> [@HAWK](#):
>
> How much work would be involved with going down the [user] tagging road?
A ton. It’d be major feature work. I’m not inclined to do it at this time. Improving groups benefits everyone much more.
---
### Author:  [@HAWK](https://meta.discourse.org/u/HAWK)
#### Post date: [3월 26, 2019, 11:47오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tagging-users-with-interests-passions-skills-etc/42039/15 "2019-03-26T23:47:01Z")
Yeah, def not worth doing a tonne of work for this outlier of a use-case.
---
### Author:  [@tanius](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tanius)
#### Post date: [10월 22, 2019, 12:04오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tagging-users-with-interests-passions-skills-etc/42039/16 "2019-10-22T12:04:13Z")
> [@mcwumbly](#):
>
> 생각나는 다른 해킹 몇 가지 (요청하신 필요를 충족할 수도 있고, 충족하지 못할 수도 있습니다):
>
> - 그룹
> - 사용자 지정 배지
그 목록에 하나 더 추가하겠습니다 – 꽤 자명한 아이디어지만, 저는 이 생각을 떠올리지 못했습니다. 우리 포럼의 다른 누군가가 제안한 것입니다.
- “개인” 주제에 대한 태그
개인 주제는 단순히 관례일 뿐입니다: 특정 카테고리 내에서 사용자당 하나의 주제. 이렇게 하면 이러한 주제는 사용자를 대리하는 프록시가 됩니다. 해당 주제를 위한 카테고리는 공개될 수 있으며(사용자가 자신의 개인 주제를 스스로 게시하도록 함) 비공개일 수도 있습니다(예를 들어, 직원들이 지원자에 대한 정보를 내부적으로 저장하도록 함). 사용 가능한 태그는 해당 카테고리에 바인딩될 수 있으며(예: “기술” 태그 그룹 사용), 이를 통해 “일반” 주제에서 사용할 수 없도록 할 수 있습니다.
---
### Author:  [@alefattorini](https://meta.discourse.org/u/alefattorini)
#### Post date: [10월 6, 2023, 1:00오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tagging-users-with-interests-passions-skills-etc/42039/17 "2023-10-06T13:00:08Z")
저는 항상 이 주제에 관심이 많습니다.
제가 어떤 의미인지 [설명해 보려 했지만](https://meta.discourse.org/t/member-tags/245515/3), 커뮤니티의 관점에서는 관심이 없는 걸까요?