best practice for reducing tagset

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Benjamin Gittel

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May 21, 2024, 7:16:46 AM5/21/24
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Hi,
what is the best way to to reduce the tagset of an existing project that already has several annotated and curated documents, that I don't want to modify?

I see that I can deactivate single features on layers (and i presume that the data annotated with this features remains unmodified in this case)? 

But what if i have a string feature with an own tagset and i want to disable certain tags. I only see the option to delete certain tags. What happens in this case to the documents already annotated with this tag? 

Also can I rename a tag and automatically update the annotated/curated documents? I'm trying to understand the general behavior of Inception in such cases. 

Best,
Benjamin

Richard Eckart de Castilho

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May 21, 2024, 7:28:32 AM5/21/24
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Hi,

> On 21. May 2024, at 13:16, 'Benjamin Gittel' via inception-users <incepti...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> what is the best way to to reduce the tagset of an existing project that already has several annotated and curated documents, that I don't want to modify?

I hope that the answers below will shed some light.

> I see that I can deactivate single features on layers (and i presume that the data annotated with this features remains unmodified in this case)?

Disabling a feature should not change any annotated data. The annotators or curators won't be able to see the feature anymore, but any annotations made on the feature should remain. So when you turn the feature back on again, everything should still be there.

> But what if i have a string feature with an own tagset and i want to disable certain tags. I only see the option to delete certain tags. What happens in this case to the documents already annotated with this tag?

There is currently no option to disable individual tags.

If you delete a tag, it will no longer be visible from the dropdown/selection on the annotation page.

If validation for the layer is enabled, the system will probably report annotations containing the tag as invalid because the tag is not in the tagset anymore. But the annotations should not be changed.

> Also can I rename a tag and automatically update the annotated/curated documents? I'm trying to understand the general behavior of Inception in such cases.

Renaming the tag does only change the dropdown/selection on the annotation page - it does not update already annotated data. The same regarding validation as if you deleted the tag would apply.

How about starting a new project if you make significant changes to your annotation scheme?

Cheers,

-- Richard

Benjamin Gittel

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May 21, 2024, 10:03:49 AM5/21/24
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Hi,
thank you for the quick reply. I'm reluctant to create a new project, because I just want to simplify my tagset and i like to see all annotated docs and calculate agreement etc. But maybe it's the cleaner way to recreate a new project. Is there a way to copy all layers, tags, constraints into the new project. Can I just export the whole project and import it under a new name in the same instance of inception? 

"If validation for the layer is enabled, the system will probably report annotations containing the tag as invalid because the tag is not in the tagset anymore."
I guess this is a real problem, if it means that I can't reopen an already curated document without being forced to deal with all the "invalid" annotations. Maybe it would be the better solution to just tell the annotators not to use the tag in question any more instead of deleting it.  

Best,
Benj


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Richard Eckart de Castilho

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May 21, 2024, 10:09:21 AM5/21/24
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Hi,

> On 21. May 2024, at 16:03, 'Benjamin Gittel' via inception-users <incepti...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> thank you for the quick reply. I'm reluctant to create a new project, because I just want to simplify my tagset and i like to see all annotated docs and calculate agreement etc. But maybe it's the cleaner way to recreate a new project. Is there a way to copy all layers, tags, constraints into the new project. Can I just export the whole project and import it under a new name in the same instance of inception?

Typically you can export a project and re-import it into the current or another instance, yes.

There is only one known case where this does not work: if you used invite links and allowed guest annotators [1],
then re-importing the project into the same instance again won't work.

Otherwise, it should not be a problem.

-- Richard

[1] https://inception-project.github.io/releases/32.2/docs/user-guide.html#sect_projects_sharing

Benjamin Gittel

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May 21, 2024, 10:26:44 AM5/21/24
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Thank you!

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