For the record, I think the tags are a super-awesome idea! And I hope the next iterations will be even better.

I realize this is not a fair comparison, but in the friendly environment during the weekend, I was thinking about the "Elevatorgate" I read about online, and it seemed to me like a huge cultural contrast. Like a strong evidence that rationalists sometimes do win big in real life. I mean, if the tags would be fully respected (which unfortunately they were not, but I have a hope for the future), we would have a solution for avoiding some unwanted interactions, other than the suboptimal "better play it safe and avoid doing anything that might hypothetically offend someone (unless you have high enough status to protect you from a potential damage)". Because some people don't want to be hugged, but other people do, and while respecting the former is the basic decency, it would be great to also provide better options for the latter, as long as these goals are not in contradiction.

Speaking for myself, I am not good at reading body language of other people, but it also seems to me that other people are not good at reading my signals. (Maybe the abilities to "read" and to "speak" the body language are related. Is there a research for this? Or maybe there are actually multiple languages, so the speakers of the majority language get most success.) So I prefer using words, instead of relying on an unreliable channel. I also think that some people are genuinely good at reading body language, but there are many who merely overestimate their own ability. Unfortunately, verbal asking can sometimes also be considered offensive. (In the environment that created "Elevatorgate", how long could you walk around asking people whether it's okay to hug them, until someone would write a similar blog about you? Maybe I overestimate the risk, but I would rather play safe than risk becoming a global archetype of creepiness.) And because we are not good enough at reading other people's minds, having some content of the mind displayed visibly is the next best option.

I can imagine possible problems with explicit symbols in general; for example people feeling social pressure to display a tag they don't really identify with. (For example, in a strongly religious country, not wearing a symbol of the dominant religion could be harmful. Or wearing a symbol of a non-approved sexual orientation.) Maybe I am ignoring something, but I believe this is not a problem in our community. However, if some specific tags would become socially dangerous (create a risk to the user either for wearing them or for not wearing them), the solution could be to ban those specific tags. Another possible failure could be people wearing untrue tags because it would give them some advantage in manipulating others. -- But the situation with "hugs" / "no touching" seems perfect for the tag system, because people belonging to both groups want to be classified correctly by everyone else.