The Concept of Tags and Tagging

[Mat]

This was originally intended as a post for a github discussion on "Hidden tags" but I figure it could be of general interest.


[...]
I think a lot of what has come up [in that github thread] reflects different ways of using a TW: There are different applications - however, more fundamentally, there are simply different ways of thinking. It is not strange that we have different needs for TW considering the close connection between TW and ones brain. I partly think of tags as an analogy to cognitive associations. Sometimes associations function as transitional segways ("that reminds me of X") but other times it is just a flash triggering into something. We can use tags to categorize and elegantly structure tiddlers,. This takes logic and thinking to do. But quite as often, tags are used in the much more ephemeral activity; searching. Tagging is of course a key feature for effective search. But the best tags for search efficiency are not at all necessarily those carefully thought out and pretty "category tags" but instead actually whatever pops into your mind! If I say "yellow" and you say "banana", then you just demonstrated that this is a more natural association than e.g "colour". If I want to trigger "banana" in your mind, then it could well be that "yellow" is a more efficient word than the "logicially" much closer word "fruit". This aspect is not human irrationality, it is part of our cognitive power and extremely efficient for our thinking processes and IMO we should take advante of this in TW.

Let me give you a concrete example of this:

Just an hour ago I came up with a brilliant idea (yes, they're all brilliant ;-) that we should have a "TW mockup notation" consisting of graphic images, such as a generic "blank tiddler", a "blank button", a "blank tab", a "blank tagpill" etc so that anyone easily can create nice mockups in TW to illustrate ideas (primarily for the TW community, I guess). The idea is still very rough and I've pretty much only made a quick tiddler to note down a few words so I don't forget the idea when my brain whizzes off in other direction.

Where does this idea come from? Well, other than that I illustrate a lot of my ideas to explain them, this is probably inspired by Astrids railroads and Jeremys talk about different notations in TW. And quite possibly also by the poster hullabaloo. These are associations I make, and it gives the concept a context both in content and time.

Now, how should I tag this tiddler? Well, with some category tags for sure;  TWconcept, IdeaRank4, mockup. But I would really also want the much more associative aspects: graphics, illustration, paint.net, railroad, Astrid, draft, sketch, notation, model, Duarte, .... I fully understand that not everyone can identify with this workflow, not to mention my associations. But TiddlyWiki is for noting down things so this is not about trying to shoehorn TW into something it isn't "supposed to be", at least not as far as I can tell. [Wanting to] tag like this is really about making TW fit around your brain. If TW doesn't allow for this... it probably should.

However [referring to the github thread] a consequence of this is a lot of tags that you don't want to see immediately - for (exactly) the same reason that you don't want your brain to flash around if you're actually focussing on a subject. Tags (associations) call for attention. For this reason it is desirable to be able to hide tags from view mode(!) on command.
...

I'm reminded of the early search engines (was it Altavista or even before? And *alt.net* or whatever it was called?). They tried to *structure* the internet into categories. This was bound to fail and within a few years this was totally replaced by the ad hoc search we still have (even if much refined). Also the early email-boxes with strictly hierarchical folder structures. Feels "logic" and things are in order... but it turns out our minds don't quite work like that. We cross-correlate things. In the case of email, I think it was google that first came up with tags for making things less rigid.


<:-)

[Astrid Elocson]

Hi Mat,

> there are simply different ways of thinking

And people have different requirements as to what they want to be able to extract from a wiki.

> Now, how should I tag this tiddler?

A key decision is whether you want people other than yourself to be able to find the tiddler. There's a world of difference between searching for a particular tiddler you know exists (because you put it there) and searching to see whether any relevant tiddlers exist. Preparing a wiki to support the latter is like writing an index. I really like Douglas Hofstadter's comment at the start of the index to his book Le Ton beau de Marot: "Doing an index is a lesson to end all lessons in the vagueness and subjectivity of human categories."

> For this reason it is desirable to be able to hide tags from view mode(!) on command.

Yes. But the techniques to support this already exist. Tags can be classified in various ways (at least three have been suggested), and the view template can then filter based on that classification – and a simple UI can allow the user to change the filter as desired.

– æ

[PMario]

On Friday, January 16, 2015 at 10:33:58 AM UTC+1, Mat wrote:

This was originally intended as a post for a github discussion on "Hidden tags" but I figure it could be of general interest.

Again. IMO hiding information is wrong. If information is hidden it's just bloat and probably should be removed.
 

Let me give you a concrete example of this:

Using your example and say that the text below is your tiddler text content.
 

Just an hour ago I came up with a brilliant idea (yes, they're all brilliant ;-) that we should have a "TW mockup notation" consisting of graphic images, such as a generic "blank tiddler", a "blank button", a "blank tab", a "blank tagpill" etc so that anyone easily can create nice mockups in TW to illustrate ideas (primarily for the TW community, I guess). The idea is still very rough and I've pretty much only made a quick tiddler to note down a few words so I don't forget the idea when my brain whizzes off in other direction.

Where does this idea come from? Well, other than that I illustrate a lot of my ideas to explain them, this is probably inspired by Astrids railroads and Jeremys talk about different notations in TW. And quite possibly also by the poster hullabaloo. These are associations I make, and it gives the concept a context both in content and time.

---- end of content ----

tags: concept, idea, mockup, rank4
hidden tags: graphics, illustration, paint.net, railroad, Astrid, draft, sketch, notation, model, Duarte,

a) railroad, notation and Astrid

• are part of the content text and redundant. so hiding them is just waste of time.
• remove them from the hidden tag list, because they are part of the text

b) illustrate (in text) vs illustration as hidden tag

• If you search for "illustrat" .. the tag and the text give you the tiddler title.
  
• so no need to have them both
  
• Due to the weakness of the current search mechanism we can't detect "illustrate" if we search for "illustration".
  
• If you search for "ilustrat" you'll get no result at all
• But these problems can't be solved with hidden tags
• What we need here is something that's called "word stemming" as en extension for the search mechanism
  

I know, that I'm rude, if I say, just remove your hidden tags, if they are part of the text already. But what is the purpose of your hidden tags here?

• They are key words
• Reminders to yourself, that you can improve your idea when you have time to think about it.
  

So my suggestion for a) is simple:

Move your hidden tags at the end of your text and make them visible information for every one, that reads your tiddler. So you can work with it. ... Hiding information is wasting resources.

eg Your tiddler text could look like this:

! Idea

Just an hour ago I came up with a brilliant idea (yes, they're all brilliant ;-) that we should have a "TW mockup notation" consisting of graphic images, such as a generic "blank tiddler", a "blank button", a "blank tab", a "blank tagpill" etc so that anyone easily can create nice mockups in TW to illustrate ideas (primarily for the TW community, I guess). The idea is still very rough and I've pretty much only made a quick tiddler to note down a few words so I don't forget the idea when my brain whizzes off in other direction.

Where does this idea come from? Well, other than that I illustrate a lot of my ideas to explain them, this is probably inspired by Astrids railroads and Jeremys talk about different notations in TW. And quite possibly also by the poster hullabaloo. These are associations I make, and it gives the concept a context both in content and time.

!!!! Related Topics

graphics, illustration, paint.net, railroad, Astrid, draft, sketch, notation, model, Duarte,

Now your hidden tags are not hidden any more but have the priority and visibility they deserve.
When you have time for refactoring the text some terms may become real tags and some terms me be deleted, because the are part of the text now.

• Your search results will be the same, because the text area will be responsible for the hits.
• No need to modify the TW core
• You can use this mechanism out of the box. -> Now!

A solution for b) will need a plugin

There are javascript libraries, that allow you to stem words [1] so illustration, illustrate and even ilustrait will be found, if done right.

But as I said. Hidden tags are no solution to this problem.

have fun!
mario

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stemming

[Tobias Beer]

Hi Mat,

 

We can use tags to categorize and elegantly structure tiddlers.

This takes logic and thinking to do. 

This is the only use I have for tags,

(besides perhaps having a functional aspect, e.g. system tags).

I find tagging rather intuitive.

No heavy-weight thinking or permanent structuring.

In short, a tag defines a parent => child relationship,

whereas each tiddler tagging to it is some form of offspring.

If you turn that paradigm around,

you're putting the cart before the horse.

 

But quite as often, tags are used in the much more ephemeral activity; searching.

As explained at that Hidden Tags ticket (#1366),

this is not at all what I relate with tags in TiddlyWiki.

This kind of use simply clutters the "tag-space" for no good reason.

The kind of tags you say you wish to define, e.g.

"I need to attach this very long reminder to that tiddler"

...clearly are not in any way parent to that tiddler.

They are, in fact, (perhaps actionable) children that should be

tiddlers themselves, tagging to the tiddler they refer to,

and categories like task, action or reference, etc...

So, use new here.

Tagging is of course a key feature for effective search.

True. Searching by tag should actually take precedence over non-tag tiddlers,

as tags are more higher-level than any children pointing to them.

But the best tags for search efficiency are not at all necessarily those carefully thought out and pretty "category tags" but instead actually whatever pops into your mind!

We all have those "pops into my mind" moments.

However, I think most of that should be part of the content.

Otherwise your content may be severely lacking in body.

Then,if it's not a parent thing, i.e. a tag,

it is a child, so make it a tiddler tagging to this one. — Simple.

 

Now, how should I tag this tiddler?

Simple, add:

1. a tag
• everything that is a worthy parent category
• likely to have +1 other tiddlers tagging to it
2. the text
• everything in need of mentioning
• not a categorization, just a textual reference
• perhaps even a link 
3. a child tiddler (tagging to this one) — new here
• when things that would explode this tiddler
• and thus need to be extracted into their own little tiddler

Well, with some category tags for sure;  TWconcept, IdeaRank4, mockup. But I would really also want the much more associative aspects: graphics, illustration, paint.net, railroad, Astrid, draft, sketch, notation, model, Duarte

Again, you can easily do the above differentiation and

put your keywords either into the tags or directly into the text.

Having keywords that are neither seems counter productive to me as

you were not explicit as to where and how they relates to the actual content of this tiddler.

If you still think you need those,

visually separate them from everything that is neither tag nor content,

simply by ending your tiddler like so...

; keywords
: foo, bar, baz

...or a keywords macro, rendering the above output in a style that can later be changed...

<<keywords foo, bar, baz>>

with...

\define keywords()

; keywords
: <<paramString>>
\end

Which reminds me that I do want that variable.

However, notice how his does not introduce some artificial keywords field,

simply an enumeration of keywords you wish to find content by,

keywords that are not anywhere in the content and also not used as tags.

Of course, if you want to, you could also create that keywords field

at every tiddler where you want it and then

amend search with a search results tab for keywords.

To display keywords at the bottom of every tiddler that defines them,

simply create a Conditional ViewTemplate Section

calling the above macro to render the keywords.

But don't use the tags field when something is not a (parent) tag!

However [referring to the github thread] a consequence of this is a lot of tags that you don't want to see immediately.

That's why I say: Change your method, not the core.

Be clear about...

• what's a parent
• what's a child
  
• what's content
• what's a property (field)

And that's it!

It is obvious to me that you run into a multitude of somewhat artificial problems

when you wish to repurpose something that it has not been designed for,

e.g. turning that implicit parent => child paradigm of tags on its head.

Best wishes, Tobias.

[Tobias Beer]

 

Of course, if you want to, 

you could also create that keywords field

at every tiddler where you want it and then

amend search with a search results tab for keywords.

To display keywords at the bottom of every tiddler that defines them,
simply create a Conditional ViewTemplate Section
calling the above macro to render the keywords.

 

Added instructions for both here...

Search By Keywords Tab @ tb5

 

Best wishes, Tobias.

[Tobias Beer]

Also relevant...

Hide Tag Buttons @ tb5

Best wishes, Tobias.

[Birthe C]

Very good advice on how to tag.
Lately I find that I am not systematic enough, planning too little before starting a new TW. One of the charms for TW for me has always been, I find myself with a mixture of data I need to collect somewhere and in a hurry. Only later on with a TW growing in size and when I have better time, I usually will get the data sorted and better tagged in several wiki's.

Thinking back in time I realise that it is also very much a question of habit,  how do we think and work spontaneously.
When I first started using TWc for sure I was not using tags to my advantage. For me the eyeopening moment came with using MPTW and wonderful tagglytagging. Not at the very first sight, but soon after. Two days later I had my very own cookbook with all my grandmothers and mothers old recipes in it. It is still working well today. I have added very little, tiddlers and tagglytagging makes all the work.

We often discuss how to make things easier for newbies, how to tag would benefit enormously with tagglytagging as in MPTW, your choices are visualised right before your eyes..and then more ;-)

I do not want to hide my tags.

Birthe

[Mat]

Thank you guys!, you give some ideas that I will implement for my own TWs, thank you!

But I do think it is unfortunate to intentionally limit the system in this regard for at least three reasons:
1) Conceptual confusion: TW does not, as far as I can tell, fulfill the general perception of what tags are: Wikipedia article Tag, and Wordpress on Categories vs Tags.
2) Compromises: There are several aspects of tags that a user might miss out on if he cannot use his words as tags. Differences in search behaviour from if they were tags. And, again, compromising the text is not necessarily OK; what should you do for a tddler intended to depict Mona Lisa?
3) Obstructed use case : Both the process Mario kindly details and Tobias' parent=>child restrictions force a lot of analysis. I love thinking and I love logic structures, but there is simply a place for ad hoc too, particulary in note taking tools and creative work. If nothing else, it can work as a transitory phase before structuring. (Compare to e.g formal braintstorming: analysis/evaluation/judgement is directly detrimental in the initial stages and will simply not produce good results.) A tool designed for very structured tagging is probably more about documentation than note taking. I just don't see why TW should be limited in this respect.

Apropo this last point, TW perhaps being a tool more for documentation more than note taking, I've touched on this from some other angles, particulary the somewhat slow workflow for documenting things in TW (e.g tiddler creation). Just maybe there should, after all, be a theme specializing on a more impromptu and careless workflow (TW jazz!) rather than the conscientious current workflow. Or maybe "theme" is the wrong word... because ideally the input should be easy to refine (organize and structure) if the preference for this arises. ...Considering the dynamic nature of TW, we could have different page templates, showing tools etc for the application at hand. Maybe called different modes? "Swithin' over to note-taking mode." Is there a mechanism for switching page templates?


<:-)

[Tobias Beer]

Hi Birthe,

I have put a summary of the above up here...

Tags-101 @ tb5

Best wishes, Tobias.

[Tobias Beer]

Hi Mat,

 

1) Conceptual confusion: TW does not, as far as I can tell, fulfill the general perception of what tags are: Wikipedia article Tag, and Wordpress on Categories vs Tags.

Interesting stuff, for sure. Please note, that there is no 1:1 relation to what wikipedia or wordpress subsume under the notion tags, i,e, things like meta-tags, and what a tag is and how it works in TiddlyWiki. Tags in TiddlyWiki are of a rather well defined nature and so I find them not at all to be congruent with the former ...and they don't have to be.

Considering static tiddlers, the question of "How do I model html meta-tags?" is indeed an important one and there could be an established consensus that anything defined with the prefix meta-- will yield a meta tag in the static representation, e.g.

meta--keywords: foo bar baz {{!!tags}}

 

2) Compromises: There are several aspects of tags that a user might miss out on if he cannot use words as tags. Differences in search behaviour from if they were tags. And, again, compromising the text is not necessarily OK; what should you do for a tiddler intended to depict Mona Lisa?

Feel free to use tags any way you want, and also fields, but be aware the implications.

If you don't like those implications, your head might just meet a brick-wall...

and it's really nobody's fault or task to watch out for how you decide to move in TiddlyWiki.

3) Obstructed use case : Both the process Mario kindly details and Tobias' parent=>child restrictions force a lot of analysis.

There is no need at all to premeditate on structure, it comes about... au-naturel.

 

I love thinking and I love logic structures, but there is simply a place for ad hoc too, particulary in note taking tools and creative work.

Again, using tags as parents to a tiddler is not impinging on creativity. In fact, the opposite is true. The more well defined a basic toolset is, the easier it is to be truly creative. If "anything" is possible, creativity is meaningless... because everything is arbitrary. Cretivity comes about, imho, by making astounding use of the — sometimes incredibly scarce and limited — resources at hand.

If nothing else, it can work as a transitory phase before structuring.

Like everything in a wiki — or in real-life — tags are fluid, dynamic and emergent. Things are not set in stone just because one decides at some point to assign to that poor tiddler some heavyweight category called a "tag".

(Compare to e.g formal braintstorming: analysis/evaluation/judgement is directly detrimental in the initial stages and will simply not produce good results.)

Brainstorming, too, has rules to it. You are playing freely, but without the boundaries set forth in the method. The idea of brainstorming is not "do whatever you want".

A tool designed for very structured tagging is probably more about documentation than note taking. I just don't see why TW should be limited in this respect.

I'd like to understand better why you keep on expressing that as a limitation. How exactly is it a limitation that is restricting you?

You are free to use tags in any way that make sense to *you*. If it works for you, great! However, the way you use tags has consequences. When that yields inconsistencies which wouldn't exist if you used a thing for what it's designed for, then it's not for tags to change their behavior. You wouldn't use a calculator as a scoop either, unless you wanted to make a one-time joke of it. 

TW perhaps being a tool more for documentation more than note taking,

I do not see how and why you distinguish the two. To me, it's literally the the same process: dump stuff from my brain so as to not juggle it around in my head alone.

 

Just maybe there should, after all, be a theme specializing on a more impromptu and careless workflow (TW jazz!) rather than the conscientious current workflow.

It would surely be quite interesting to see what you'd invent there. I'm far from suggesting that experiments like that would be pointless. To the contrary. Structures and patterns emerge out of what first appeared as chaos. Sometimes, though, chaos is just that... a lot of noise, so always have some ear-plugs at hand. :D

ideally the input should be easy to refine (organize and structure) if the preference for this arises

I can see how you can turn Mozart into Jazz, the other way around, not quite so much. Perhaps we've forgotten the art of that. To me, it's pretty clear that those masters and geniuses and their symphonies were reflecting more on patterns than chaos, patterns of scales, of rhythm, of harmony, of balance... patterns ...and creatively interpreting those.

Considering the dynamic nature of TW, we could have different page templates, showing tools etc for the application at hand.

While TW5 already provides a big heap of functional variability, this is indeed something very important for the core to provide... the means to easily adapt and extend the user interface to different applications / workflows / processing needs. 

 

Maybe called different modes? "Swithin' over to note-taking mode." 

Is there a mechanism for switching page templates?

There are two sides to this, both of which the core actually does cater for already...

• theme-switching / triggering on a page level
• view-mode switching / triggering on a tiddler level

Best wishes, Tobias.

[Astrid Elocson]

Regarding the parent–child relationship, notice how the core table-of-contents macro assumes that tags are pointers to parent tiddlers.

– æ

[Mat]

I must just say thank you for sharing your thought processes and reasoning on this most interesting, and important, topic.

Just so there is no misunderstanding; As you point out, nobody is stopping me from using tags anyway I want but this is of course about making TW as useful as possible.

Ok, it remains a fact that in the end we still have a few practical problems with the current design that isn't ideal for more careless tagging:

• There will be tiddlers that are difficult to find, as exemplified by the tiddler Tagging and someone curious about how to use tags and therefore searches "tags". Note that this is an example of a carefully designed and tagged tiddler. 
• If we delegate ad hoc tags to be part of the text, we have a problem when the tiddler is not really common text. An image, a rendered list, a transcluded text where we might not ahead know if certain words appear, etc. A technical solution to insert tags in the content anyway compromises the resulting impression (this is not a small matter) and to demand attention to if tags really appear in the text, if there in deed is text, compromises the workflow for sure.
• If we, hypothetically, limted tag to only be parent-child relationships then people who use tags as more arbitrary labels must learn that it is not OK to tag freely.

Overall, I think TW currently is designed for an unnecessarily late stage in the brains tought process, not quite letting us take advante of the brains associative nature before we structure stuff mentally. If we really want TW to be designed to fit around your brain I say we should tap into this - because we can and it would make TW an even more creative work environment.

I don't think I have much more to say on it right now so will put on, um, keep on, my thinking hat.

BTW, this made me remeber an actual project I had to give up on because of other limitations in tagging (TWC at that time) and this time with very structured tagging! It's really a funny case so I will detail it soon. It would be fantastic if it turns out I was just approaching it the wrong way.

@Astrid and particularly Mario and Tobias - great hearing your reasoning!

<:-)

[Astrid Elocson]

Hi Mat,

> There will be tiddlers that are difficult to find, as exemplified by the tiddler Tagging and someone curious about how to use tags and therefore searches "tags".

Part of the difficulty is the word-stemming issue that Mario has mentioned. At present, the search system looks for exact matches only, so a search for tags will not find tagging. At least the search system is case-insensitive :)

But there's also the issue of synonyms and controlled vocabularies. The user might search for labels or categories, unaware that TiddlyWiki terminology uses the word tag.

Perhaps it would be nice if the search system made it clear which of the results were found as tags, just as it currently indicates which of the results were found in titles. One can imagine a dedicated mechanism for searching only the tags, perhaps as a filter at the top of the Tags tab in the sidebar. Perhaps the Tags tab should be promoted to the top level of the sidebar, as at http://tb5.tiddlyspot.com/, where users would discover it more easily.

> Note that this is an example of a carefully designed and tagged tiddler.

But has the Tagging tiddler been sufficiently carefully designed and tagged? In my opinion, it contains too much information – too many sections that really belong in tiddlers of their own. And I think the Tagging tiddler should be called Tags, as that's a more likely thing for people to search for. ("Tags" are concrete things; "tagging" is an action – more abstract and complicated-seeming.)

The Tagging/Tags tiddler currently carries the Concepts tag. In other words, it's been filed (correctly) under Concepts. Likewise, other tiddlers that discuss how to use tags should be filed under (i.e. tagged with) Tags.

Tags are such an important concept in TiddlyWiki that it's slightly surprising that tiddlywiki.com doesn't yet have a Tags tag.

> If we delegate ad hoc tags to be part of the text, we have a problem when the tiddler is not really common text.

I'm not fully understanding the difference between an ad hoc tag and any other tag. A tag X is just a way of saying "I want to file this tiddler under X". The neat thing about tags, of course, is that – unlike folder-based filing systems – you can file the same tiddler under several tags. The table of contents (TOC) can then present your filing system as if it was folder-based, and you can choose which tags participate in the TOC.

Perhaps an ad hoc tag is merely a tag that isn't attached to the TOC, i.e. a tag whose tiddler isn't tagged TableOfContents or whatever.

– æ

[PMario]

On Sunday, January 18, 2015 at 10:53:21 AM UTC+1, Astrid Elocson wrote:

> If we delegate ad hoc tags to be part of the text, we have a problem when the tiddler is not really common text.

I'm not fully understanding the difference between an ad hoc tag and any other tag.

I think "ad hoc" tags as Mat wants to use them are just keywords, that help him find (search) for tiddlers. They can also act as an anchor for additional ideas that may be important, when you have more time for refactoring.

-m

[Mat]

Astrid Elocson wrote:

But there's also the issue of synonyms and controlled vocabularies. The user might search for labels or categories, unaware that TiddlyWiki terminology uses the word tag.

Perhaps it would be nice if the search system made it clear which of the results were found as tags, just as it currently indicates which of the results were found in titles. One can imagine a dedicated mechanism for searching only the tags, perhaps as a filter at the top of the Tags tab in the sidebar. Perhaps the Tags tab should be promoted to the top level of the sidebar, as at http://tb5.tiddlyspot.com/, where users would discover it more easily.

[To my frustration other duties are calling today but I can't resist from commeting on the synonym issue as it was one reason why the project I hinted at above failed. Will come back regarding your other interesting comments later.]

Part of my problem was basically too many tags exactly because it had to deal with synonyms. So I did work out some ideas on the matter, basically:

You group synonyms into a more general special SynonymList tiddler, i.e a tiddler tagged with SynonymList and for the synonyms to tags it is titled e.g "TagSynonymList". All tiddlers tagged SynonymList are treated in a special way by the search engine: They contain a manually entered list of synonyms that search looks through. The idea with a manual list so you can figure out synonyms ahead of time, including words that are not tiddlers. But sych a synonym list, e.g TagSynonymList, can also have children that are also synonyms. The idea with this is so you can easily turn a tiddler into a synonym at any time. For example:

title: TagSynonymList
tag:SynonymList
text: Tag, Lable, Category

title:Keyword
tag:TagSynonymList

The search mechanism identifies all tiddlers tagged SynonymList and prioritizes equally the "listed terms in its text" and the children tiddlertitles. If searching for the term Keyword, the search mechanism must thus note that the tiddler Keyword is tagged with TagSynonymList which in turn is tagged SynonymList. (this was one reason why my project failed because it was, surprisingly, not possible to achieve with the TWC plugin ForEachTiddler that I relied heavily upon. However I know none other than Tobias has defined exactly this filter for TW5. Hoorray for Tobias!!!)

Note that terms listed in a synonym list tiddler don't have to really be synonyms. The point is to have a search produce the right results. In the case of the tw.com tiddler "Tagging" I would perhaps include the list:

Tag, Tags, Tagged, Lable, Lables, Category, Categories

...or more elegant; Tag*, Lable*, Categor* if the user is that sophisticated, which we can't expect, i.e it should be allowed to list both term Tag and term Tags.

...and if I came up with it at the time of writing the list, then I woudl also include the term Keyword. In the example above, it was "added via tagging" later instead, i.e because it was an actual tiddler. But including a term in the synonym list and having a real tiddler for it should of course not cause conflict.

Maybe there could be a synonyms field inside the tiddler Keyword then also, stating: synonym:Keyword* to cover e.g Keywording or whatever someone might search for.

As usual, we'd have to define how to order the search results but I think a tiddler titled with a synonym (e.g search for Tags wich identifies the tiddler Tagging) has a status just below the actual search string but before e.g tiddlers tagged with the search string or merely containing it in text.

<:-)

[Astrid Elocson]

Hi Mario,

Adding a tag to a tiddler means filing the tiddler under that tag, as a child to a parent, a many-to-one link. This is true even for tags that are just temporary markers or spur-of-the-moment annotations. Whether a user chooses to make any further use of that filing mechanism is up to them, but it's inherently there in TiddlyWiki's design.

– æ

[HansWobbe]

TiddlyWiki is one of the most supportive environments for tagging that I've found, with the result that I've made relatively extensive use of Tags.  For example, taking advantage of the UTF-8 support as well, its possible to make use of an extremely large number of distinct tags ( think in terms of using the majority of the defined UniCode values and it becomes possible to have on the order of 100,000 distinct tag values).  This lets one create a very "flat" namespace that significant reduces Search and Filter needs.

Of course, the use of a large number of (funny) "symbols" does make sharing harder, but that simply means its necessary to create different TW files for personal use and for sharing.

A lot of this type of thinking comes from the many predecessor efforts to develop Classification systems like the Dewey Decimal System, or the Library of Congress system, which clearly show that many people are very interested in what we are calling "tagging".  Furthermore, current efforts to develop the "Semantic Web" and the "Internet Of Things" are likely to result in even more people becoming involved.

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page shows just how much activity is taking place in the (OPEN) WikiData project.  I believe TW could interface to this work easily and would be able to add enough value to attract quite a lot of "new" (to TW) users.

[Tobias Beer]

Hi Hans,

 

taking advantage of the UTF-8 support as well

Would be interesting to see how you use it that way.

I guess it's a personal wiki though. :-)

Best wishes, Tobias.

[Mat]

PMario wrote:

I think "ad hoc" tags as Mat wants to use them are just keywords, that help him find (search) for tiddlers. They can also act as an anchor for additional ideas that may be important, when you have more time for refactoring.

You expressed it better than I could have done myself!

Astrid Elocson wrote:

Adding a tag to a tiddler means filing the tiddler under that tag, as a child to a parent, a many-to-one link. This is true even for tags that are just temporary markers or spur-of-the-moment annotations. Whether a user chooses to make any further use of that filing mechanism is up to them, but it's inherently there in TiddlyWiki's design.

Of course. But from a usability point it is a fact, probably unintentional, that the current UI makes it tricky to use these ad-hoc tags. Using many tags results in a cluttered tiddler display and because we don't have typed tags (as discussed elsewhere) we can't organize the display of tags. This "forces" you to limit your tagging and you're likely to end up with the usually more important and permanent tags - i.e the structured ones.

<:-)

[HansWobbe]

Hi Tobias,

I'll try to craft a meaningful subset and make it available through tiddlyspot.  I've been meaning to do this for some time, but I keep getting interrupted and simply haven't made enough progress yet.  My existing commitments likely preclude doing a "show & tell" at one of the hangouts, but I'll give some thought to doing that in March when I'm expecting to have a bit more time.

Cheers,
Hans