[Trac] Tags

[Alexey Shamrin]

Hello Muness!

1. Regarding tag vs label vs category I will agree with Christopher
that adding an option
here and there is not an option %-) It's better to be consistent.

2. Maybe it'll be better to replace "/" with ":" as a separator
(Wikipedia uses this in some places. For example Help:Contents). It
will make it clear that wiki hierarchies is not the same that
hierarchical URLs. And using ":SubPage" to denote the subpage of the
current wiki page is somewhat clearer than "/SubPage" (confusing with
top-level) or "./SubPage" (confusing with the file in current
directory as in Unix), I think.

Or you can use ":" to denote the subpage and still use "/" as a separator:

:SubPage/SubSubPage/GoingDeeper

(but this is little inconsistent).

3. How about merging the concept of tag and hierarchy? For example, I
tag ExamplePage
with IndexTag. Now IndexTag/ExamplePage (or Index:ExamplePage)
automatically becomes the synonym of IndexTag. Of course ExamplePage
can also be tagged with SuperTag giving automatic
SuperTag/ExamplePage.

This way you can throw away ListTags. And your examples:

[[ListTags(COMP313)]]
[[ListTags(COMP313,Week1)]]

become (must be implemented in Trac, of course):

COMP313/*
Comp313/Week1/*

or 

COMP313:*
Comp313:Week1:*

4. Another thing that just came to my mind is the concept of top-level
tag (can be denoted
as "/" for example). Essentially all wiki pages in current
implementation of Trac are implicitly tagged under top-level tag. If
#3 will be implemented it will become explicit and one will have the
ability to untag the page from top-level and leave it somewhere else.

Alexey


On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 10:51:26 -0500, Muness Alrubaie <muness at gmail.com> wrote:
> Alexey,
> 
> 1) Some people prefer tag, others category, and others still label.  I
> don't have a preference.  (The terms I think of is "overlapping
> namespaces", but I don't think that'd ever be widely accepted.)  This
> can be configurable so that people can use whichever terminology they
> prefer.  Does that sound reasonable?
> 
> 2) I started with organizing things hierarchically, hence the "/" all
> over the place.  I think tagging/labelling/categorizing can do
> everything hierarchies can do, but have not been inclined to actually
> go ahead and make all hierarchical entries flat.  This may be the best
> thing to do.  What would be nice if I had a whole bunch of content to
> tag and see how to best do things.  (Labels with hierarchies or labels
> with no hierarchies.)
> 
> 3) See 1.  This can be configurable.
> 
> 4) The "%" is being used in ListTags, not TagIt.  This goes back to
> the hierarchical stuff.  By adding a "%" to the end of a topic, e.g.
> "COMP313%", I match against "COMP313" and everything that is -
> hierarchically - underneath it, e.g. COMP313/Week1, etc.
> 
> Again, this may simply be a non issue if I limited myself and stopped
> using hierarchies.  So, instead of labeling a topic COMP313/Week1, I'd
> label it COMP313,Week1.  So, if I need to query COMP313, I just do a
> [[ListTags(COMP313)]].  For COMP313 Week1 entries a
> [[ListTags(COMP313,Week1)]] would work.
> 
> I think that until we get experience with using labels in contrast
> with hierarchies, it'll take a while to figure out how to best use
> them.  Note that, for example, del.icio.us users often use "/" or "."
> to make their tags to behave hierarchically even though the service
> does not provide for it.  I don't think this is because hierarchies
> are more expressive, but because labelling is still new.  (The only
> real, easy to use systems are del.icio.us - and its copy cats - and
> gmail.)
> 
> I am tempted to strip all hierarchical structure out of the tags.
> Maybe I should simply treat all "/" as ",".  It'd be interesting to
> see how well that'd work.
> 
> Thanks for your input!
> 
> Muness
> 
> On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 09:15:09 +0300, Alexey Shamrin <shamrin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hello Muness!
> >
> > Your project looks nice. But I thought it would be interesting for you
> > to read about my initial feelings about it.
> >
> > 1. Why do use the term "tag" instead of (much better in my
> > opinion) "label"? It will more comfortable for Gmail users, I think.
> > Also you may use the term "category" in some places (see #3).
> >
> > 2. Your examples are confusing. The reason for this is that your
> > wiki names contain "/" too often. It's tempting to think that
> > this your use of "/" _is_ the use of tags. I would suggest to
> > give tag examples without "/".
> >
> > 3. When I tag some page (TagIt) it becomes "Tag:tag_name".
> > The better way I think would be something like the following:
> >
> > This page belongs to the following categies: tag_name
> >
> > or (if you like the term "tag" more)
> >
> > This page is tagged under the following categories: tag_name
> >
> > or something similar.
> >
> > 4. I don't really understand how "%" in TagIt is interpreted.
> >
> > Alexey
> >
> 
> --
> See my blog at http://muness.blogspot.com
>