New NI Discussion Forum Feature - Tagging!

[Ben]

Hi Ton,

I second the "tag a thread" idea.

For the case of long threads I have attempted to find the "best" post and tagged it. If there are other posts within a thread, they'll get tags that reflect their topics.

Provided they both share a common tag, they should end up cross-referencing each other.

To simplify that effort I posted my hack.

Ben

[Laura F.]

Hi Ton & Ben,

My opinion is that it is better to tag particular messages because then I can always find whatever message I tagged, no matter how long the thread is.  If I want to tag the whole thread, then I will tag the first message so that when I click on that tag to go to the thread, I will be taken to the top of the the thread.

There is not currently an option I can turn on for tagging threads, but if people feel strongly enough about it, I can put in a suggestion.

Thanks,
Laura

[Kevin_Price]

Ok, I'm not trying to be a crank, but I completely fail to "get" the whole hoo-hah about tagging.  I'm not opposed per se,

but the whole thing seems kinda arbitrary and random to me.  I can see that Ben is working valiantly to create some semblance

of order with his category_subcat_subcat syntax scheme, and more power to him.  But for me, trying to stay consistent with

such syntax conventions feels too much like hassle and I don't especially want to bother.

Where is this stuff coming from?  I'm guessing that there must be other sites using this tagging stuff to advantage somehow,

right?  Based on my unfamiliarity, I'm guessing maybe the social networking and blog kind of sites?  Can anyone point to a

place that clearly shows the benefits of tagging?  Maybe I just need a glimpse of the end game...

(Our local library website just redid their default search to a mode called "visual search" that produces tag-cloud-like results.  So far,

only 1 of about 10 searches I've accidentally done before remembering to manually revert to "classic search" have included the

item I wanted *anywhere* in the results.   These aren't obscure searches either -- they are full book titles or title keywords with

author's last name.  The "classic search" always found the right thing at the top of the list.  So that experience colors my perception

about tag-based searching.  I worry that search will get *WORSE* because poorly-tagged threads will start taking overly prominent

positions in search results.)

-Kevin P.

P.S.  Just thought of one potential advantage of tags -- the opportunity to compensate for misspellings.  On the other hand, one

could instead implement a slightly fuzzier keyword search.

[Ben]

Kevin wrote

"

I can see that Ben is working valiantly to create some semblance of order with his category_subcat_subcat syntax scheme, and more power to him. 

"

Thanks Kevin. I do not think the beauty of the Tags will reveal itself until we have about 10K tags up that are linked in the tag-mesh. I am still having trouble "seeing" the web that I am weaving. I look at it this way. We have enough subtstance in the forums to create an encyclopaedia (sp?) of LV knowledge. The problem is that it is not organized. "Articles" can be found if we know the right key words to search on. But if we don't know the right words the search approach is hit and miss.

Using the the Catagorical tags has allowed me to not only organize the "articles" but also provides cross-links. The cross-linking serves as the "see also" references found in encyclopaedia.

So the

Catagorical tags group realted articles

The cross-links tie together related topics.

But again I admit that it is hard to see this pattern with the "thread bear" fabric we have now. With time I hope to stich together a tapestry of of LV knowledge that features a gem at every nexus.

Please take another look after we have done more work.

Question!

I am concerened about the tags introducing noise. If you notice a tag or set of tags that seem extraneous, let me know! Tags are easy to delete, and will do so if indicated.

Ben

[Laura F.]

Hi Kevin,

I see the benefits of tagging in two ways - personal benefit and community benefit. 

• Personal Benefit:  By applying a tag to a message it will show up in your personal tag cloud and you can always find it later by clicking on that tag.  It's like a browser bookmark that is not stored locally in your browser.  For me, this is the biggest benefit to tagging.  I only recently started using del.icio.us to tag things I find on the internet and want to come back to sometime.  Before I started doing this, I wasn't convinced tagging was useful.  Now, I am hooked and tag all sorts of things, from work related articles about community and support to recipes, craft ideas, and tourist information.  This way, I can always find this internet content again without relying on search.

• Community Benefit:  By using tagging for your personal benefit, there is community benefit as well.  The two biggest benefits are seen search and browsing.  When you search within the forums, tags are searched at the same time as message content.  For example, there was a message posted by the previous forum moderator Molly about forum ranks that I like to reference.  However, I could never find this message in search.  Now, I've tagged it and it always shows up when anyone searches for information about "forum rank".  Ben is taking the approach of making browsing the forums easier.  By using the the hierarchy of tags, I can see it becoming very easy to browse LabVIEW forum messages by topic rather than date by looking at the related messages to LabVIEW tag cloud.

Of course, because tags are completely user-generated there will be noise in the tag clouds as everyone uses their own methods to tag messages.  There are a number of articles on wikipedia that I found useful about tagging:  Tag (metadata), Folksonomy, and Social Bookmarking.  I think they all present both the benefits and drawbacks of tagging.  There is also the Common Craft video Social Bookmarking in Plain English (I highly recommend this video as much for the interesting way it was made as for the content).  It is up to everyone to decide if they like tagging or not on our forum - it can always be disabled on a user bases on the tagging tab in My Profile. 

I enjoy discussing tagging and learning how everyone feels about it, so thanks for the post!

Regards,
Laura

[Kevin_Price]

Thanks Laura for the comments and pointers.  I can see the value in portable bookmarks and I'll check out some of those links when I get some time.

As to the 2nd purpose - community benefit - that'd be great, and I'd like to see it happen, but I'm not yet optimistic.  Here's an idea I think would give it a *much* better chance:  Provide a means for letting taggers select from some pre-defined tags.  These could include both general keywords and the post's own most popular tags (won't become relevant until some critical mass has been reached though).  Let them select multiple tag keywords.  Make these easier to select than the choice of entering free text. 

-Kevin P.

[Ben]

How can I not love and second Kevins suggestion

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Here's an idea I think would give it a *much* better chance:  Provide a means for letting taggers select from some pre-defined tags.  These could include both general keywords and the post's own most popular tags (won't become relevant until some critical mass has been reached though).  Let them select multiple tag keywords.  Make these easier to select than the choice of entering free text. 

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I posted a helper VI here that that automatically builds the catagorical tags (topic topic_Subtopic) with a single mouse click of a table containing all pre-existing tags.

The latest version also resized the text of each entry to give you a visual indication of how frequent that tag was used.

It is that tool that has allowed me to tag as many threads as I have. As time goes on I only have to add new tags when a new are of knowledge is add.

It is a hack but it does work!

Ben

[tst]

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Ben wrote:

I posted a helper VI here

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I really need to understand this - how can you read threads when they're sorted backwards? Why not sort them normally and use the link which brings you to the newest unread post?

[Ben]

I am very sorry tst!

I was on my way to the mens room when I replied, and remembered your previous request for me to sort chronologic before I post links. But the "call of nature" said "Post and run Ben!".

I have been trying hard to change the threads view before posting links. Please accept my appology and I'll try hard minimize the backward thread posts.

Re: "How can read threads ...backwards?"

It lets me prowl faster. I look at the # of new posts, go to the thread and scroll down by the # of new posts. I then scroll up to the top reading posts as I go. It just saves me a lot of scrolling. This method works as well on long threads as short.

Ben

[tst]

But sorting properly and clicking on the newest post link allows you to scroll even less.

Once you click that, you are brought immediately to the newest unread message and you can just start reading from there while scrolling down. You are exempt from having to scroll up, then down, if someone wrote a long post which does not fit in your screen and you are exempt from calculating exactly how many posts you already scrolled by.

The one exception is if there are large images. The NI site does not use placeholders for images, so if your browser does not load the images in time, you are brought to the right place, but then the right place "runs away from you" as the images load. I don't think this will happen you.