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The obvious benefit to using tagging is that tags can be anything. The obvious detriment to using tagging is that tags can be anything. Take, for example, a con
by drharris 14y ago
The obvious benefit to using tagging is that tags can be anything. The obvious detriment to using tagging is that tags can be anything. Take, for example, a contact in an address book. Did I tag "contact", "friend", "acquaintance", "people I know", or something else? How do I know what to search for? Obviously a contrived example but it easily extends for any type of document; put simply, a hierarchy is much easier to remember than a "cloud" of unlimited options. Not to mention the time it takes to save a file in a hierarchy versus tagging (how many tags should I use for optimal performance?)
I think the true future is in a hybrid. Improve the metadata on a file (Windows is making giant leaps in this territory), improve file search indexing and capabilities, and retain a hierarchy. This allows ease of both searching and browsing, and is not any different from what we're doing today (no retraining Grandma).
- joe_the_user 14y agoOne way to deal with ambiguous tags is to use aliases and related-to indicators. But I agree with you that a system can't discard the file hierarchy without discarding important qualities many people need.
- drharris 14y agoThat's of course a good point. However, one of the things the tagging proponents claim is that tagging reduces the effort of taxonomy. Having to manage aliases and tag links would then negate any such benefit, and might even be much more time consuming. Now, were we to talk about some standard of tagging that has link relationships baked in, we might be talking. But then we sacrifice customization.