Categories, categories, categories
Steve
When we last visited Carleton, Matt had suggested that we try and get
a uniform Category list before it got out of control. If memory serves
me correctly (and please correct me if it doesn't), the gist of the
conversation was that as Carleton's sites were built, users added
their own Categories causing problems (e.g. duplications,
misspellings, incorrect usage, overly specific, etc.).
In thinking this out, we've come up with a great deal of questions,
which I'll just spew out.
What is the intended role of a categories? Are they intended for front-
use or can you use them for coding? Both? How is Carleton using them?
We have a list of about 200 topics/categories/keywords that our public
information department uses. Does this number seem high?
Would we categorize a news item about a bassoon player as Music,
Orchestra, Band, Double Reeds, and Bassoon? Should we get that finite?
Or do we globally have Music, Orchestra, and Band categories and let
the Music department add more finite categories for their site?
I can't find it right now, but I thought there was a type that allowed
nested categorization (e.g. Music -> Orchestra). Did I imagine this?
If so, why was this the only type that allowed this nesting idea? If
not, sorry I must be crazy.
What would be the best way to implement a global category list across
all of our sites?
Thanks for any ideas and input,
Steve
Matt Ryan
Good questions... I'll try to answer them in the context of your email.
On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 11:22 AM, Steve <steve...@luther.edu> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> When we last visited Carleton, Matt had suggested that we try and get
> a uniform Category list before it got out of control. If memory serves
> me correctly (and please correct me if it doesn't), the gist of the
> conversation was that as Carleton's sites were built, users added
> their own Categories causing problems (e.g. duplications,
> misspellings, incorrect usage, overly specific, etc.).
>
> In thinking this out, we've come up with a great deal of questions,
> which I'll just spew out.
>
> What is the intended role of a categories? Are they intended for front-
> use or can you use them for coding? Both? How is Carleton using them?
Categories are essentially tags, implemented as Reason entities. The
idea behind them is your site maintainers can use them to classify
items of various types using a semi-standardized vocabulary
("semi-standardized" because, unless you lock down category creation,
they can always add additional categories to the set available.)
Many (most?) types are categorizable -- for example, events, posts,
images, pages, faqs, etc. can all be associated with categories. The
tags can (to the extent to which they are shared among sites) be used
to pull items that have the same tag from various sites, or can be
used to flow information around on a given site. There are some
out-of-the-box tools that facilitate this, and developers can use the
category system to build new functionality as well.
A simple way that categories are used is obvious in the workings of
the events and publication modules -- they produce lists of all the
categories in use on that module, and users can see just those events
or posts that have been tagged with a given category.
We also use categories in a more sophisticated way in our Giving to
Carleton site. On the giving site, stories automatically flow into
appropriate sidebars because of how they are categorized. We set up
some site-specific categories like "Planned Gifts", "Annual Gifts",
"Endowed Funds,", etc., and when they publish a new story they assign
it to the categories that it touches upon. We have also tagged various
pages in their site with the same categories -- so the pages that have
to do with endowed funds, for example, are assigned the "Endowed
Funds" category -- and have set the publications sidebar module to
only include stories that are associated with the same categories as
the page. This way, when they publish a story, all they have to to is
give it the appropriate categories, and it automatically appears in
all the proper places on the site.
We do something similar on our language center site -- each language
is a category, each language has a page, and all the events and posts
are tagged with their languages. This way we flow Japanese events and
posts onto the japanese page, etc.
We have not yet used categories to pull items from multiple sites very
much, partially because of our fractured and inconsistent set of
categories, but a sitewide events calendar provides a bit of the
possibility, allowing one to see all the events tagged with
"Workshops" or "Lectures."
>
> We have a list of about 200 topics/categories/keywords that our public
> information department uses. Does this number seem high?
It doesn't seem ridiculous to me.
>
> Would we categorize a news item about a bassoon player as Music,
> Orchestra, Band, Double Reeds, and Bassoon? Should we get that finite?
> Or do we globally have Music, Orchestra, and Band categories and let
> the Music department add more finite categories for their site?
It does make some sense to limit the "global" categories, just to keep
things from being too overwhelming to maintainers. In addition,
because categories are not hierarchical (see the next part of the
email), categories will not always be displayed with similar
categories, instead listed alphabetically or by some other criterion.
>
> I can't find it right now, but I thought there was a type that allowed
> nested categorization (e.g. Music -> Orchestra). Did I imagine this?
> If so, why was this the only type that allowed this nesting idea? If
> not, sorry I must be crazy.
Sorry, you must be crazy. :)
We have discussed setting up category hierarchies, but given that
categories are currently implemented as a flat, tag-like tool, it
would be very hard to do. An alternative approach we have discussed is
the idea of a separate taxonomy type that is more explicitly
hierarchical and controlled. Such a thing does not currently exist,
though anyone is welcome to try implementing it. :)
>
> What would be the best way to implement a global category list across
> all of our sites?
I would set up all the global categories in a site set up explicitly
for that purpose, or in your office's site, and share them. Stes will
need to borrow the categories to use them -- what we do now, when we
set up a site, is borrow the categories that seem likely to be used in
the site into the site, and show them how they can borrow additional
categories when needed.
There are a couple issues which are known, and less-than-ideal. The
main one is that there is nothing to prevent sites from duplicating
categories given the existing system. While it would not be hard to
prevent exact matches, "fuzzy" matches or synonym categories would
require some sort of approval/merger process by admins... in any case,
these are just thoughts; at the moment the only way to make sure that
sites do not duplicate categories is to set them up so they cannot add
or edit categories, only borrow existing ones.
>
> Thanks for any ideas and input,
> Steve
I hope that this has been helpful!
Matt