Ever since I got tagging functionality on this site, I’ve been abusing it quite graphically. Few posts have fewer than seven tags these days, and many have enough to drown a small child. For those wondering how many tags it takes to drown a small child, I’m using the tried and true standard of twenty.

What does this have to do with anything?

Well, websites, like people and countries, are constantly dealing with the issue of scarcity. Returning to the drowning metaphor, let’s look at tags as if they were some fluid. Fluids we store in containers. When we have too much fluid, it can overflow and cover everything, and it can sometimes get icky. Similarly, we store tags in a container on web pages called “screen real estate.” When we have too many tags, we run into scarcity of screen real estate, and the tags begin covering everything. Ick.

If you’ll examine a sample archive page on this site (oh, say, all posts tagged jason), you’ll notice that the listed posts do not mention what tags they have been assigned. This is because if every post were to be accompanied by its tags, the screen would overflow with tags. I don’t want your screen getting icky, so I hide the slutty tags away.

If you absolutely need to visit them—and I won’t question your motives—you can check them out on the archives.