---
title: Status
feed_description: more polished version
author: Issa Rice
creation_date: 2014-12-22
last_major_revision_date: 2015-06-29
language: English
# Possible values are "notes", "draft", "in progress", and
# "mostly finished"
status: in progress
# Possible values are "certain", "highly likely", "likely", "possible",
# "unlikely", "highly unlikely", "remote", "impossible", "fiction", and
# "emotional"
belief: likely
# accepts "CC0", "CC-BY", or "CC-BY-SA"
license: CC-BY
tags: site-info
aliases: status-tag, status tags, status marker, status markers
---

This page is about the status notices (or tags) that are displayed at
the top of pages of this site.  The **status** efficiently communicates
to the reader at what stage of development a particular page is.  In
practice, it's mostly useful as a shorthand for something to the effect
of "This page is a draft, so the content on here might be incomplete,
unpolished, incorrect, or otherwise not up to the same level of quality
as finished pages."

I took the idea of status tags [from gwern][gw st].  Here is his
original explanation, though my use (explained below) differs slightly.

[gw st]: http://www.gwern.net/About#belief-tags

> The "status" tag describes the state of completion: whether it's a
> pile of links & snippets & "notes", or whether it is a "draft" which
> at least has some structure and conveys a coherent thesis, or it's a
> well-developed draft which could be described as "in progress", and
> finally when a page is done - in lieu of additional material turning
> up - it is simply "finished".

Below is how I use status tags:

Notes
:    Same as gwern, i.e. for pages that are just collections of links
and quotes.  I also use this for brief posts in general; one can treat
them like Facebook status updates, except that they might eventually
build up to something more.

Draft
:    Same as gwern, i.e. for pages that have a rough direction but
aren't solid.

In progress
:    Same as gwern, i.e. for pages that are fairly solid but aren't very
polished or meticulous.

Mostly finished
:    For pages that I consider mostly done, needing only minor
corrections.

I prefer to think of my writings as continuously improving drafts, partly because I might obtain better feedback.
For instance [Anne Ruggles Gere writes][arg] (quoted in "[Shutting Down Tolkien]" by Brandon Rhodes):

[arg]: https://books.google.com/books?id=4NPCUmKBxO8C&lpg=PA75&ots=VBeEGQ5hyM&dq=anne%20ruggles%20gere%20when%20participants%20in%20writing%20groups%20read%20finished%20writing&pg=PA75#v=onepage&q=anne%20ruggles%20gere%20when%20participants%20in%20writing%20groups%20read%20finished%20writing&f=false
[Shutting Down Tolkien]: http://rhodesmill.org/brandon/slides/2014-08-pygotham/#anne-ruggles-gere

> [W]hen participants in writing groups read "finished" writing, the
> language of the group often became acerbic or vacuous because members
> felt (perhaps unconsciously) that they had no purpose.

# See also

- [Belief]() tags are also used on this site.