Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Why Is the Star Using "Suicide Methods" As a Tag?

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Posted By on Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 1:00 PM

We use tags on the Range for a few reasons. Theoretically, they're part of a SEO strategy, but mostly, we use them to either organize posts over time (all the posts about food trucks are under "food trucks," naturally) and also to make an extra stupid joke (all our posts about ASU are tagged "girls gone wild university and casino," for example).

Here's what I put in the tags for that masterpiece strip club/brewery post from yesterday:

strip_club_brewery_tags.jpg

Nothing too complicated. A few things that someone might search for, plus a silly half-joke.

However, while I'm not thinking it was a decision made with sinister motives, but why on earth would someone at the Arizona Daily Star use "suicide methods" as a tag on their grisly double murder/suicide story yesterday?

suicide_methods_tag_tucson_dot_com.jpg

I've spent a little time thinking about what the tagger must have been thinking, but I'm drawing a blank. Strangely, there is another story on the Star's site with that tag (an opinion piece about gun violence), but it doesn't seem to be an on-going category. Also, I can't imagine anyone wants someone to come to their site to research the topic (if someone you do end up here from even the mention of "suicide methods," please call 1-800-273-8255 for help). So, while it's not the biggest deal (it's just a tag added on to a blog post about a truly unfortunate story), it does fit with the generally odd online strategy over at the Star sometimes.

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