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Eh, not really. Treating tags like folders isn't really bad; you might not be using them quite to their fullest extent, but you're also not really limiting you
by thaumaturgy 18y ago
Eh, not really.
Treating tags like folders isn't really bad; you might not be using them quite to their fullest extent, but you're also not really limiting yourself when it comes to categorizing data.
...which is where the single-hierarchy folder system wouldn't work, because it does create a limit.
I like to think of it this way: currently, the paradigm (I hate that word) is that you have a folder -- a category -- which owns lots of files. What I want instead is to have a file which owns lots of folders -- or categories.
The one client I mentioned in my Disqus response is doing some energy research, government contract and all that. They really need to keep things well-organized, and they need to be able to organize drawings, specs, notes, graphs, test data, etc. etc. by project, by contributor, by date, by revision, by ... etc. etc.
Another client is a doctor's office, and that's probably all I need to say about that. :-)
So, no. While a one-deep hierarchy solves some problems, it's still clutching on to a silly way of organizing things, without actually providing the flexibility of a really intelligent tagging system.
- joshwa 18y agoUltimately a folder (or a tag) is just another piece of metadata, like the ones you listed-- project, contributor, date, revision, etc. The core issues are input (how do I get this metadata attached to the content? dragging to a folder, document analysis, filesystem metadata, tag autocomplete) and retrieval (how can I quickly sort and filter to find the document(s) I need, based on some set of metadata criteria?) Whether or not that metadata has a hierarchical structure (a taxonomy/vocabulary), and whether that structure is controlled (e.g. only privileged users can create new terms) is secondary to the question of speedy, usable input and retrieval.
- wallflower 18y agoI worked with Documentum document management systems. Tags are critical to being able to retrieve a document once it's scanned in. The problem, of course, is mis-tagged documents.
- joshwa 18y agomis-tagged is the same as mis-filed. This is where having a controlled vocabulary makes sense, or at least a periodic orphan cleanup process.
- thaumaturgy 18y agoRight, mis-tagging is a process problem, not a software one. At least, I can't think of a software way right now to solve that. ...Although, like you mention above, being able to find documents quickly can make it much easier to handle. For example, the UI should give you the ability to show all documents modified in the last N days, by user X, etc.