In brief defence (and request) of tag bundles

[Aristotle Pagaltzis]

Or, of a similar feature.

To Maciej,

I pretty much stopped using del.icio.us at the end of 2010 for two
reasons: the “sunset” brouhaha and their changes to the posting
bookmarklet. But I never made the move to Pinboard either, although
I spent some time fixing up my tags so they would import usefully.

The reason is its lack of tag bundles. They were a vital tool to me on
del.icio.us in service of tagging links quickly and consistenly: in
particular, to remind me of tags I would not have thought in the moment
to use. By collecting tags into coarse categories, my bundles let me
whittle down my full array of tags into the applicable sets for any
given link, so I would not have to pore over the full list of every last
tag I ever used.

I go to this length to curate my tags because my experience of ad-hoc
tagging is very long very messy lists of tags from mainly incompletely
tagged links – at which point I might as well punt on the significant
effort of tagging entirely and just use full-text search. (That does not
work half bad. Google turn out not to be entirely stupid, as it were.)

This is not only why I didn’t make the leap to Pinboard, it is also why
my use of del.icio.us did not pick back up: the new bookmarklet’s UX for
bundles is barely tolerable. (Or maybe was. They may have changed it in
the meantime, I haven’t checked, though I should.)

Unfortunately for me, when I asked about it on Twitter you indicated
that you dislike the feature and would like to avoid implementing it.
But you also invited me at the time to comment on what use it is to me,
and at long last, here that is.

I don’t know that the feature you do implement needs to be tag bundles
in the particular form they take on del.icio.us. But at the point of
bookmarking a link I need some way of quickly finding applicable tags
among those I have used previously, and being able to group them into
coarse categories is a simple and effective way to address that.

I would love to use my Pinboard account. Please consider this request.

Regards,
--
Aristotle Pagaltzis // <http://pinboard.in/u:ap>

[maciej]

Hi Aristotle,

Thanks for your thoughtful message about this. My reason for not
implementing tag bundles isn't that I think it's a bad idea, but that
it's kind of an ill-defined idea, or maybe several ideas combined into
one feature. I would like to add better bulk tag management to
Pinboard and I think this would be a good place for a bundle-like
feature if we could define it a little more clearly.

My experience with users has been that people use tags in very
divergent ways, and I think the same holds for tag bundles on
Delicious. I can think of the following uses I've seen:

- To emulate folders (the bundle is a top-level folder, and tags are
subfolders)
- To group by theme
- To group by project
- For better suggestions (your use)

So I'd like to hear more from other people who use tag bundles to
distill out a good design for this kind of tag grouping feature on
Pinboard. But it's important to note that I'm not against it; I've
just been nervous about adding something ad-hoc and then having to
make it overcomplicated to meet various legitimate user needs.

Kind regards,

Maciej

[Johannes]

I use tag bundles to group by theme & project.
But I currently wouldn't use them in Pinboard since the extensions don't support toolbars like the Delicious Firefox extension does.

"Tag bundles" as a feature are useful, but only of minor importance to my personal use.
It's a useful addon that is handy sometimes but that's it for me.

Looking forward to your ideas!

[Wim Leers]

I would like to propose hierarchical tags as an alternative.

I've been using them already in the format "google:apps", "google:adsense", and so on. Hence, I always tag things related to Google Adsense as follows: "google google:adsense <other tags>". This allows me to easily find all bookmarks relating to just Google Adsense in specific, or to Google in general.

If hierarchical tags would be explicitly supported in Pinboard (instead of the "double tagging" approach I'm currently using), then I'd ideally only need to tag it as "google:adsense" and Pinboard would either: 1) automatically create the "google" tag, or 2) automatically also find "google:adsense" tagged bookmarks when searching for "google".

Hierarchical tags:

- can easily also support tag bundles, albeit in a more narrow manner: the same tag can't exist in multiple bundles (parent tags), but needs to be created explicitly for each bundle (parent tag). In that sense, hierarchical tags are an "emulation of folders" (as maciej put it).

- hierarchical tags cover all cases (as stated by maciej) as far as I can tell: folders, group by theme, group by project, better suggestions (by simply continuing to use the same autocomplete mechanism)

- require less explicit support in the UI. If John Doe doesn't need it, hierarchical tags won't hinder him. It can be a completely transparently supported "power user" feature, documented in the FAQ.

I had been wanting to request this for a long time. I'm convinced it's superior to tag bundles — which I also used back on Delicious, but always found annoying/limiting because it wasn't tightly integrated with the tag autocompletion.

Wim

[zak]

Hi Wim

I quite like your ideas but I can think of a case where I'm not quite convinced it'll work.

What if I have google:adsense and advertising:adsense, and I then tag something with just "adsense"? Presumably I get a new top-level tag called adsense.

But if I only have google:adsense, then presumably because adsense is a standalone child of google, if I tag something "adsense" it should get "google:adsense".

I do think that your idea is the most elegant suggestion so far.

[Wim Leers]

You're right, that's a potentially confusing edge case.

However, a relatively minor modification to Pinboard's autocomplete widget could relatively elegantly handle this: start typing "adsense" and it will suggest "google:adsense". If you also have "advertising:adsense", it will also suggest that.

I think if a top-level "adsense" tag would be generated automatically, I think this would all end up to be too confusing.

Note: I'd also prefer if the implementation did *not* generate top-level tags (i.e. I'd prefer it to not generate "google" when you've entered "google:adsense"), but that Pinboard's logic handles this internally. I.e. you could filter by the "google" tag even if there is no standalone "google" tag, and you'd get all bookmarks tagged with "google:<whatever>". I believe that would provide the most elegant solution, with the least user confusion.

[maciej]

Leaving aside whether I think this is a good design or not, supporting
this would require touching quite a lot of code (changes to
autocomplete, indexing, UI, user tag and global tag pages, import
scripts, etc.). I think it's better for me to spend that development
time on other features that are more immediately useful to a wider set
of users.

This is the same rationale I've given for not doing an iOS version of
the site. I can see the appeal, but as a solo developer I can't
justify spending the time.

Hopefully the tech blister will burst soon and it will become possible
to hire help.

[Wim Leers]

I definitely understand and agree with that rationale.

Let's revisit it in the future, then :)

P.S.: a subset (yet suboptimal?) implementation — automatically adding the "google" tag when tagging with "google:adsense" — could be implemented without any major code changes. Just saying.

[Aristotle Pagaltzis]

* Aristotle Pagaltzis <paga...@gmx.de> [2011-09-21 14:50]:

> I would love to use my Pinboard account. Please consider this request.

Just spotted: <http://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/121664144247226368>.

@artbeatsandlife no tag bundles, but everybody and his brother wants
them, so I'll add them sometime later this month
—@Pinboard

Thank you.

[Merlin Kink Meme]

This is good to see. Since Pinboard currently supports description/
notes search, if bundles are implemented, Pinboard will be the best
option for our index.

As a brief note, hierarchical tags wouldn't work for us, as we bundle
the same tag into multiple bundles in several cases. Bundles in a
folder style allow us more flexibility. Basically, we just want it to
be intuitive and easy to pick through 700+ tags, since our users
primarily find what they want through tags, while we mods primarily
find what we want through search.

Thank you, MacieJ.

~Bea

[Wim Leers]

> As a brief note, hierarchical tags wouldn't work for us, as we bundle
> the same tag into multiple bundles in several cases

What about simply tagging multiple times? I.e. bundle1:tag, bundle2:tag.

> Bundles in a folder style allow us more flexibility.

By definition, they're less flexible. Hierarchical tags require more tag-typing work; tag bundles require additional UI.

Hierarchical tags can be used for disambiguation, tag bundles can't. e.g. "android" -> does this refer to Google's Android OS or just an "android" as defined by a dictionary ("a robot designed to look and act like a human"). That's why I always tag Google Android-related things with "google:android". And "google".

Also, tag bundles are not "folders" in the traditional sense, because in the traditional sense a file can only exist in one folder. You'd then need symlinks to achieve what you're doing with tag bundles.

I'm still not convinced.

But much depends on how maciej implements this. The delicious UI for tag bundles always got in my way. Hopefully Pinboard's won't. I'm very curious :)

[Douglas Michael Massing]

Thanks for your consideration, Maciej.

As a non-technical person, I am puzzled by your concern over use case.

The request(s) in my mind is/are:
1. Allow optional, editable, nonexclusive association of a subset of tags with (meta)tags.
2. Support easy, intuitive access to the subsets via something like a collapsible/expandable list that would be the primary tag access for those of us who choose to use the feature.
3. Insofar as possible, let the metatags behave like tags (for filtering, feeds, etc., ideally including Boolean operations).

Many of us were happy with the Delicious implementation of points one and two, and partial implementation of point 3. This functionality is quite independent of whether our organization is pseudo-hierarchical, thematic, by project, or decorative.

It's index-card dividers, only more versatile because of nonexclusivity. When a simple tool works for multiple purposes, why sweat all possible purposes and how the simple tool could be customized and thereby complicated?

I sincerely hope this helps, or stimulates other comment.

As always, all the best,
M.

[maciej]

It's index-card dividers, only more versatile because of nonexclusivity. When a simple tool works for multiple purposes, why sweat all possible purposes and how the simple tool could be customized and thereby complicated?

The reason for asking about specific uses is that they help guide my implementation.  On the backend, Pinboard is basically a small set of very highly optimized database queries.  I have to figure out how to map the abstract idea of tag bundles onto these queries in a way that will keep them fast while allowing for unanticipated uses.   Hearing in some detail about the way people used (or wanted to use) the feature elsewhere helps me in this task.

[Douglas Michael Massing]

OK, thanks for your answer. I guess what I'm not getting is what is abstract about the feature as I described it: associate a subset of queries, if that's what tags are, with another query, if that's what a bundloid would be. Again, as a non-techie who once administered and did a bit of configuration on an off-the-shelf database, that sounds like a pretty concrete way to describe a function.

Of course, you're not expected to "teach" me the answer. I had hoped to encapsulate what satisfies the known - and knowable? - universe of users clamoring for this feature. If I'm not helping your thinking, we can let the exchange die.

Best,
M.

[Douglas Michael Massing]

More concretely, then, my uses of Delicious bundles were:

• easy, intuitive access to my defined tag subsets via a collapsible/expandable list that was my primary tag access
• drill-down assist/jumpstart in combination with the related tags display
  
• defining feeds for publication, or links for private distribution, via intersections with a bundle's tags rather than unions of individual tags
  

That the first use was also reflected in drop-down form in the Firefox extension was icing on the cake.

Again, thanks and best,
M.

[Douglas Michael Massing]

More broadly, bundloids in the right-hand navigation/drilldown column makes 4000+ tags, well, more navigable and drill-downable.

Best,
M.

[Michael.Massing]

This is a bump of sorts. Are you still seeking user input? Do you have
any further thoughts or reservations to share?

Thanks,
Michael

[maciej]

I'm not seeking any more user input right now. I have bundles half-
implemented on my dev machine, but there are a bunch of pressing
housekeeping and server tasks I'll need to finish before I can get
back to the feature.

On Dec 16, 11:24 am, "Michael.Massing" <michael.mass...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Michael.Massing]

That's great to hear. Thanks for the update!

[Michael.Massing]

Also, please excuse my earlier crankiness and obtuseness about your
methods. I offer sincere thanks and admiration for your taking the
time and making the effort to understand what users wanted in bundles,
so that you could implement them thoughtfully and usefully.

Best,
M.

On Dec 16, 4:24 pm, maciej <mceglow...@gmail.com> wrote: