Is there a good and bad outcome to tagging? What does it mean?

Well bad tagging would be tagging a book as unpostable or missing a dust jacket.  Personal tags are supposed to be obviously personal like "Michelle's TBR". That would be an OK tag.  But "water damaged" would not be ok. For one thing people have posted that they've gotten unpostable books from people who said they made a tag of the damage and so the requestor knew it was damaged. Um no-doesn't work that way.  Even a tag like "missing dust jacket" is not a good tag because someone might think it applies to the copy they are ordering. Yes dust jackets are not required but it implies that all the copies have "no dust jacket".  Notes are better for marking things like "no dust jacket" and "unpostable" because only you can see them.

Some people are really obsessed with tags and other people can't stand them.  Personally I don't really notice them much anymore.  There is the option to turn them off.  I don't mind personal tags although the ones with the WL line positions annoy me a little.  I mean you can use a note for that and it's always changing.  You can also just pull up your WL to see where you are in line for all your WL books.  I also don't care for the tags that duplicate the listing info.  I just don't see the need to tag a book with the author's name since it's in teh listing. Now tagging a book with an author's psuedonym-I can see that.  Like tagging JD Robb books with Nora Roberts.  Makes sense.  But tagging Nora Roberts books with Nora Roberts just seems like useless clutter and a waste of time to me.

I have tagged my reminder list books because they are eventually going to combine the RL and the WL and I jsut don't want that long of a list. Also it's useful in some games where be play for books on our reminder lists. You can put a link to your tags in the forums so people can see them.  Can't do that with notes. 

If I have a wishlist book but it has a different ISBN, I will tag the wish list book  " there are copies under ISBN (enter the ISBN number of your book)".  I also tag genre - historical romance, mystery, thriller, paranormal etc, if it is a series it is nice to see the order so I tag the book # in the series, and name of the series such as Stephanie Plum or Death on Demand.   I agree with Mary - do not tag the condition of the book, but personal tags such as WL Line - TBR info etc are ok, though I do not use tags for that purpose.

I do add the more popular authors or authors I enjoy.  As Mary said it is redunant but it brings up two different views.  If  you click on the author's name already in the book information it will bring you to the list view (Green copies are in the system and red there aren't any copies posted) and books that are to be released in the future.  When you add the author's name in a  tag it will bring up a different view - with the cover and the option to order, post, tag, add to reminder and the more options button.  So it is a personal choice the view you prefer.  If I was checking out what was not posted quickly or wanting to add to my WL I would select  the list view, but if I was looking to order, add to by TBR, reminder list - etc I would select the tag. 

Everyone has a different view on Tags - I personally like them if they relevant to the book in general. 

You can get the expanded book information by searching for the author's name, either by using the Search tab or by typing in the name in the search box at the upper right side of the screen.  I'm thinking that if you click on an author's name on a tag, you can miss books if they have never been tagged with that author's name.

I've found the tags very helpful, especially the ones that tell me series # or books that have a particular theme or setting.