How should we use tags?

General
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How should we use tags in the forum? The only one I’ve created so far is news which will be useful for discovering notable developments in the SC universe. It seems that @alphapapa has already discovered it :slight_smile:

What other tags would be useful to filter topics across categories?

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Hm, it’s a bit early to tell, but maybe something along

  • configuration (applicable to both Guix and Emacs, maybe even Programming)
  • project (definitely applicable to all of them)
  • help-wanted (also)

But I guess it will be easier to see that when we have more content here :smiley:

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Good suggestions! I can definitely see how all of those would be useful.

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I suggest that we need a tag for humor. Alas, my attempt to use/create such a tag was rejected by the powers that Discourse.

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I just realized that you can probably mix tags, so they should not overlap if possible. Fortunately, the three I’ve provided didn’t (and I found at least two here help-wanted would be great :slight_smile: )

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Maybe something like

  • “showcase”
  • “discussion” or “external”
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Here are a few other ideas:

  • help (i.e. for tech support-type threads)
  • idea (the occasional “wouldn’t it be nice if Someone™ would make…”)
  • warning (the twice-a-decade “I just found out that this is very bad and you should know about it too”)
  • tip (sharing a helpful tip)

FWIW, if you were to not use at least zero of them, I would be offended and probably stop posting here.

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I suggest the tag not-alphapapa

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I’m not sure whether to be honored or offended. Well done.

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Also thought about tip.
On that note, should there be something like a weekly tips thread? (Like on reddit…)
Or everyone just opens a new thread if they learned something cool.

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Another idea:
Hardware…

Maybe even as a category? For me a hardware project would also be related to system crafting but not really sure

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Seems like hardware would be a good category, yeah.

Frankly, I think it’s a mistake (on Discourse’s part) to distinguish categorically (ha) between tags and categories. I think Google (Gmail, Reader, etc) showed that tags are better than folders (which is what categories essentially are).

What would make sense is to distinguish certain tags as, I don’t know, “major” ones, such as “Emacs” and “Hardware,” while others could be “minor” ones, like “humor” and “tip”.

The reason is that content can almost always fit into multiple “categories” (like Emacs, Guix, and Programming, if the post were about using the guix Emacs package to develop Guile packages with Emacs).

Bottom line: artificial restrictions are artificial. Discourse is not bad, but, come on, guys…

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We are actually having this discussion in IRC right now. I think we will ultimately move to a small handful of broad categories with tags to indicate specific topics or concepts.

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I guess we could talk all day about tagging :nerd_face:*

I am using the following distinction between categories and tags in my systems:

Tags are not used to describe broad themes like “emacs” and “guix” or “hardware” but to describe the use or function of an information. For example #todo or #done or #example or #definition … or in a forum #help-needed, #tip, #showcase, …

Categories on the other hand are those broad but distinct themes.

*Interesting links (more focused on personal information management but still):

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Like you said, all day :rofl:

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I would like to throw my hat in the ring for request-for-comments (or rfc) if people either want opinions on project ideas they intend to work on or if they’ve created something and would like someone to (code) review it.

I don’t know if that would be a thing us System Crafters would like, but it seems like it might be fun and a good way for people to help each other.

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