jducoeur

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A conversation pointer: I've just made a post over in CommYou that some folks here might be interested in. Basically, I'm mulling over the concepts of tagging and context, as they relate to conversations -- it's all still rather vague, and I'm looking for any insights and opinions people may have. Anyone ought to be able to follow that link (although the look and feel may be a bit crappy in old browsers); if you don't have a CommYou account, feel free to comment here...

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From:

cellio

"Tags" are creator-defined, and are there for -- well, honestly, I'm not entirely sure *what* they're for, because LJ has never leveraged them well.

Tags are for publication (signalling content) or for indexing. This tends to vary from user to user and occasionally from entry to entry. I'm an indexer; almost all of my tags are so I can find things later, and if they're informative to others, well, nice bonus but that's mostly not why I do it. My tag sets are crafted to work around limitations in LJ's implementation (which offends my inner purist, but the inner purist is tamed by an outer pragmatist). I think it's because I'm an indexer that the lack of boolean expression grates so much. Anyway, some of the people I read clearly use tags to signal content; whether they also use them for indexing I couldn't say.

My indexing is primarily for me, but I'm mindful of the fact that other people might click on those tag links too. All I can promise, though, is that my "foo" entries will all be of a kind. They will probably not have much in common with your "foo" entries, as we've discussed. And some of them should never be combined in that way; my "my family" tag is categorically different from your "my family" tag. I would never submit such a tag to del.icio.us, but these aren't del.icio.us tags; they have a context (my journal). (Heh. You think of tags as contexts, and that's true too, but tags also have contexts.)

"Memories" are defined by readers, for lookup by those readers.

Sometimes. Look around; there are different uses out there. Some people record only their own entries in "memories"; this was especially useful before LJ implemented tags. Other people save only other people's entries in their memories, using other means to look up their own entries. Other people use a hybrid approach. I haven't kept it up, but I have one memory category for what I think of as my most significant posts (on anything), and almost all of those are cross-entered into some other category too. It seemed like an interesting idea several years ago but, as I said, I haven't been dilligent or consistent about it.

If I could put my own private tags on others' entries, I might not need memories at all. (Note that I don't mean "if I could tag others' entries"; that feature exists, but it's not what I mean. I think a journal's tag set has to make sense in the context of that journal; how I would tag your entry for my use is different from how either of us would tag it for use with your journal.)

"Interests" are more like a del.icio.us tag cloud model, where the semantics are collectively defined.

Good point. I hadn't thought about interests, but you're right -- just another (common, not local) tag.

From:

jducoeur

I think it's because I'm an indexer that the lack of boolean expression grates so much.

Amusing -- whereas for me, the lack annoys me because I want to be able to filter *other* peoples' entries better. That is, I'm focused on content-signaling, but I want to be able to *use* that in a formal way.

I use tags for indexing a little as well, but of course that's what the Memories mechanism is *supposed* to be for. Unfortunately, having two half-baked indexing schemes proves to be far worse than having one good one would have been -- part of why I lean towards a single, powerful, flexible concept that can be leveraged in a lot of ways.

(Heh. You think of tags as contexts, and that's true too, but tags also have contexts.)

True. It's all about metadata, and the ways that metadata combines.

If I could put my own private tags on others' entries, I might not need memories at all.

Yep -- I've already got a story for that one, for precisely that reason. This is also why I want contexts/tags to apply to *messages*, not conversations -- because sometimes what you want to remember is one specific node in the tree, not the whole thing...

From:

cellio

Amusing -- whereas for me, the lack annoys me because I want to be able to filter *other* peoples' entries better.

Ah. Whereas to me, filtering others' entries is always going to be haphazard -- people use different tags, and some people's posts on X are interesting while others' are not, and... I guess it's more reactive: "reading this post reminds me that I don't want to see any more of those from you".

I use tags for indexing a little as well, but of course that's what the Memories mechanism is *supposed* to be for.

That's how I used to use memories, but having to look at the messages one at a time means I can't easily scan for the one I want, unlike a tag-specific view. These are implementation details, but I think one reason LJ has so many ways to do similar things is that they're all half-baked and implementation details matter. (Another reason is that it all developed organically over years but you can never take a feature away without causing a ruckus.)

This is also why I want contexts/tags to apply to *messages*, not conversations -- because sometimes what you want to remember is one specific node in the tree, not the whole thing...

Absolutely. To take an extreme case: I have one mail folder (called "people") whose sole purpose in life is to collect contact information -- which might well be buried in something else, like a party invitation. I don't care about the invitation two years later; I kept it for the street address.

From:

jducoeur

people use different tags, and some people's posts on X are interesting while others' are not

Oh, sure -- what I really mean is that I want to be able to combine tags in with my other filters. For example, fond though I am of

dglenn, I often would prefer to put his quote postings in an entirely different filter from his diary entries.

Indeed, one possible UI element is, on the line where I say whether or not to follow a particular friend, I can select from their tags as part of that -- someone might want to specifically follow just your daf bits, or "ignore everything this person tags as TMI".

(Another reason is that it all developed organically over years but you can never take a feature away without causing a ruckus.)

Yeah -- I have to admit that one motivation for trying to cram in a lot of wild experimentation on CommYou right now is that it becomes a lot more difficult and dangerous down the road. While I only have a couple dozen users, it's still feasible to say, "Okay, that was a dead end" and take it out...