"I've never driven a car before, so I don't see why you should have a steering wheel rather than a steering tiller." A little video history, if you will, that's not necessarily en pointe but still entertaining: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_amZsf8A1Lo "Tags" are not an invention of social media. They are not an invention of Reddit. They are not an invention of Del.I.Cious, they are not an invention of Facebook. They aren't even an invention of Getty or Corbis, who have far more claim to the title than anyone else. They're an invention of Henriette Avram for the Library of Congress, who have been using them since 1968: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARC_standards This isn't a "I'm a neanderthal mashing the buttons" because I'm not used to change. This is a "taxonomy without meaning is useless." It's like your terminals - what sort of pompous, entitled, self-important retailer thinks that I should be required to read directions in order to give them money? I'm the customer. If standards have developed, ad-hoc or otherwise, those who deviate from them are the ones with explaining to do, not those who do not choose to adhere to your whims. Every single person using this site learned the Dewey Decimal System in 3rd grade. Every single person using this site has been involved in some form of categorization or other. And every single person using this site has two things they can follow: users and tags. I can block users. This was suggested, implemented and celebrated. I can't block tags. This has been suggested and the argument against it is "well, everybody else does that, but we want to be different." If you're going to alienate your customers, you need to give them an experience better than what they'd get elsewhere. If you're going to deviate from the norm, you had better be able to provide substantial benefit to put up with the alienation. Putting the brake pedal on the right because it seems like a neat idea and let's see how it works out is not visionary thinking.