Comments on: Is tagging an obligation?

By: Meble

Meble — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 18:32:22 +0000

Enjoyed browsing through the site. Keep up the good work. Greetings nad thanks from Poland

By: lillbra » Blog Archive » Om taggar och eventuella snÃ¥r pÃ¥ sociala webben

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 06:58:34 +0000

[...] ios possible, no matter what the content of their actual site where. Robert’s talk - [...]

By: Robert Nyman

Robert Nyman — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 08:06:49 +0000

Thanks everyone for very valid comments, and good suggestions! Also, thanks for the link, Mr T.

asdf,

Not probably what you expected, but I’m going to dignify your comment with a reply (it’s just too bad that you feel the need to be anonymous here).

Internet is definitely full of meaningless blog entries, but what might be extremely dull to one person might be the most interesting read in a long time for another.

By: Mr T

Mr T — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 01:07:11 +0000

read this scientific approach:

http://www.rawsugar.com/www2006/29.pdf

By: asdf

asdf — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:02:41 +0000

Another question could be: Internet before meaningless blog entries - better or worse?

By: Chris Sullins

Chris Sullins — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:00:48 +0000

Tagging, like everyone has been saying, is very powerful. But I can’t see any justification for making it obligatory. You have to consider the context. For example, on Flickr I post pictures for my friends. So, the tags that I put on them are meaningful in that context. “me” and “SST” and tags like that would not be meaningful outside of the group. However, on deviantART, I use tags like “sunset” or “downtown Portland”, which would make the pictures more accessible to anyone. If you made tagging obligatory, you would also imply that they should add the universal tags like “sunset” in any context, regardless of the audience. And I would call that absurd.

By: Kalle Wibeck

Kalle Wibeck — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 18:48:34 +0000

I read an interesting article about tags a while ago at BetaAlfa, a swedish blog. The writer dreamed about user provided tags in true W2.0 spirit.
Maybe that could solve some of the issues here - at least if we spice it up with a “diggish” rating system?!

By: Triple Johan

Triple Johan — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 16:14:14 +0000

what about duplicate tags
Should our tags be a description of the
image (eg that plant, that bridge, that person) or (plants, bridges, persons) or (picture taken where? = geo-location, picture taken in that weather condition) … When we add favorites folders for browsing convenience, we use categories. But categories can be vague as singletons when not related?

By: Sea Fraser

Sea Fraser — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 15:43:26 +0000

It will run overbaord.

Technorati is a search engine. Technorati identifies articles with multiple tags in multiple “categories”. Tantek’s precise use of tags is accurate and informative; they allow for exhaustive searches. Folksonomies or taxonomies regardless. Other search engines, e.g., Yahoo, have taken an interest in the future of social bookmarking tags. SEO companies, too. Tags are another element that has begun to be subverted by knowledgable SEO companies. It’s just a small matter of time before shyster companies understand the significance of tags and use them.

And, once shyster SEO companies get involved, bookmarking tags are bound to become the next meta:keywords element. That’s running overboard, isn’t it.

By: Jesse

Jesse — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 14:05:15 +0000

It should be optional but I also understand that in order for the semantic web to work effectively folksonomies might need to become closer to taxonomies. Trusting the tag names would be difficult if you can’t validate the data to ensure the tag is an accurate representation of the data.

I suppose the whole idea of XML namespaces comes into the discussion at some point as well. You could define a namespace for your stuff but goodness that would be tedious. Only the geeks would do it…

When you look at facebook or myspace you see how consistant naming helps people connect. For example I am from Sault Ste Marie but in facebook if I put the local term ‘the Soo’ or the US spelling, Sault Sainte Marie, I would be less likely to find people. The same goes for Flickr or anything else that uses tags.

But the issue of tagging and the application of it seems to degrade to standardista like discussion about the *correct* way. I think that is counter productive. Sure there are issues with tagging but having the average person tag their data is far better than they not do it because they are afraid of doing it *wrong*.

By: Per Zimmerman

Per Zimmerman — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 09:21:59 +0000

It should be optional. I agree it’s up to each person to choose their own tags and how many. My tags represent my view. And when I add a link to del.icio.us I can see how others has tagged the same link. That’s the beauty of it. Maybe Flickr should have a feature where the users can add tags to your images. So you would have two sets of tags, by the user and by others.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 09:18:57 +0000

I think it is no problem if someone misuses tags (it’s his/her loss, as you wrote).
It is common that in systems with many users some data is not correct. But if only 2% of the data is not correct (or not correct tagged) this means that 98% is correct.
The System has to be this error-tolerant.

Apart from this I think it’s not a goog idea to force someone to tag s.th. because this would tempt users to use tags like asdf or myname etc.

By: Kalle

Kalle — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 08:55:38 +0000

That’s a hard question. I think that tags should be allowed to some extent but as you wrote it can be misused. Adding 5 tags to everything you publish just to get it out there seems quite weird.