The Open Web Tagging Experiment on the Ol' Patio Boat Blog

Just a quick note to eagle-eyed Patio Boat blog followers. If the fine content you always see at this site seems a bit ... um, repetitive ... this month, it is. We're trying an experiment at work to see how tagging open web content with terms from Wikidata and the VIAF (Virtual International Authority File) affects web visibility.

Our hypothesis is that by adding some open-web authority control, we will make content more visible, which will result in seeing more hits for the tagged versions of the posts.

What I'll be doing is posting two versions of various posts that I've meant to write up this year, but haven't yet written up. One will be tagged with those open-web vocabulary terms, mostly names, but also a few concepts. One will just launch naked unto the web. (Note to self: the phrase "naked unto the web" will probably generate the most search hits of all.)

The idea is to see whether doing this tagging on the Blogger platform makes a significant different in the visibility of each post to search engines. The untagged versions will serve as a control. I'll be alternating posting the tagged and untagged versions of posts first, so that hopefully the release order won't affect the outcome.

I'll collect up the posts and some statistics here, as the experiment unfolds.

So stay tuned, gentle reader! The Patio Boat blog is embarking on its most ambitious scientific experiment since The Great Sierra-Nevada Beercicle Experiment of Twenty-Fifteen.

Update: We now have a few posts up. I won't link to them here. Obviously you can find them on the blog, but if you get a chance, go look out on the web and see if you can find them. Here are the topics:

1. Hurricane Matthew and its lingering economic impact on Freeport and Grand Bahama Island.

2. Some lovely prospective rat rods that I saw in Lebanon, Missouri.

I did it for SCIENCE!

Here at the ol' Patio Boat we firmly support science in the search of truth, no matter how difficult and arduous the process. And so, as a service to you, gentle reader, I conducted a grueling and difficult experiment Sunday night while Monique and I watched the Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special.

THEORY: It's freaking cold out! I'll bet I could freeze a beer lickety split.

EXPERIMENT: Six room temperature Sierra-Nevada Pale Ales (ABV 5.6%) were placed out on our porch. By pouring them into a glass at intervals and measuring the temperature of the beer, I hope to establish the rate at which I can make a beercicle when it's freaking cold out.

(Rest assured, each beer was disposed of promptly and humanely after its temperature was measured. Here at the Patio Boat we temper our thirst for science with the milk of human kindness.)

CONDITIONS:

Starting temperature of beer, which had been sitting on our living-room floor: 63 degrees. (It had gotten a wee bit chilly inside the house, too!)

Outdoor temperature: -5.7° F at the start of the experiment at 9:47 pm. -8.0° F at the conclusion, 70 minutes later.

OBSERVATIONS:

Minutes	Beer Temp	Outside Temp
0	63	-5.7
13	53	-6.2
33	42	-6.7
50	32	-7.1
57	28	-7.5
70	28	-8

Note: Beers were measured at 0, 13, 33, 50, and 70 minutes. The 57-minute mark was interpolated once the temperature of phase change was established at 28° F.

CONCLUSION: It was freaking cold out Sunday night! Cold enough to freeze a tasty Sierra-Nevada Pale Ale in less than hour.

PUBLIC-SERVICE WARNING #1: Please do not try this experiment at home ... unless you, too, are willing to promptly and humanely dispose of several tasty Sierra-Nevada Pale Ales.

PUBLIC-SERVICE WARNING #2: If you choose to use Nature's Cooler to chill your adult beverages this winter, you'd better keep a sharp eye on them once the temperature drops below zero! Really, it's probably just best to drink them with little delay, just for safety's sake.