The Category & Tags Discussion

Any thoughts @Srinath @Miguel @emp ?

To me the following is my vision:

  • Only one category for discussion - Actualism . Right now Journals is a separate one, I think it should be merged while we have the low traffie we do (any thoughts @Felix ? )
  • Require one tag from the “category-level” tags, like experience-report, question , etc – these should look just like subcategories would have (colors, same style), but lowers barrier of entry of someone posting
  • Any number of optional tags of whatever people want to put. I think now you need trust level 1 or higher to create a tag, we can lower that to 0, but for now any new member gets trust level 1 until we have 50+ members.

If we discover new ‘category’ tags then they can be added to the set of options for the one required tag. This way site can grow organically.

If the main Actualism category gets overcrowded – which will be a good problem to have – then we can consider splitting categories off then.

I now yield the floor for discussion :smiley:

  • Only one category for discussion - Actualism . Right now Journals is a separate one, I think it should be merged while we have the low traffie we do (any thoughts @Felix ?)

So Journals could be a real subcategory inside Actualism OR the member should use a new tag “journal” OR use the existing one “diary”

  • Require one tag from the “category-level” tags, like experience-report, question , etc – these should look just like subcategories would have (colors, same style), but lowers barrier of entry of someone posting

I don’t know about the mandatory requirement until we collect more evidence… Besides, for example, to report about backups or notifications I have to choose between Staff or Site Feedback. Obviously, I can’t choose Staff if the information is for everyone, so I have to use Site Feedback. But no mandatory tag seems to me appropriate to add to these reports, so…

  • Any number of optional tags of whatever people want to put. I think now you need trust level 1 or higher to create a tag, we can lower that to 0, but for now any new member gets trust level 1 until we have 50+ members.

Yes, I think it would be fine, although a tag limit wouldn’t be bad either.

@solvan had said that

I think we need to sort out were we want to go with categories/required tags/extra tags.

So, considering that tags (unlike categories and subcategories), do not physically separate posts according to their content, I guess where we want to go with their use is that eventually members can search and filter posts to find information more relevant to their interests, but without falling into the rigidities that would impose predetermined categories and subcategories, right?

  • Journals would be with a “journal” tag, and this would be one of the possibilities for the ‘mandatory tag’
  • the mandatory requirement is just for ‘actualism’ category, the other categories dont have this requirement
  • i think there is already a limit of 5 tags actually
  • yes exactly, the idea is there is a one-stop ‘actualism’ category that has all the discussion (with the idea that it’s good for everyone to see everything, and to not have to decide where to click to start making your post) … but then if you want to filter by sub-type then you can do that

Then it seems like good suggestions. Let’s see what the others think.
Oh, and sooner or later we have to make a Help category (or topic, or page added to the menu or to the FAQ) to gather all this information for existing and new members.

Hey guys, i dont really mind where ny diary goes category wise, as long as I can post in my diary as much as I want without it clogging up the system for everyone else. For example it would have been a problem on Slack if I posted that much under general. But if the category tag takes care of that then sweet.

In these aspects the differences between a chat application and a forum can be better appreciated.
Regardless of what tags we end up adopting and regardless of what category or subcategory the staff ends up moving the topic “Felix’s Diary” to, you will be able to continue writing within the same topic, as much as you want, in successive posts. Unlike Slack, your posts will always be encapsulated in that topic, uninterrupted by other topics.

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Awesome. Yeah i love that aspect

Since I was the one who suggested the journals topic I guess I’m invested in it but it was mostly a way of spotlighting journals and giving a hint at the importance - and maybe encouraging more people to write them. That much said, if it works to reintegrate them it’s no big deal either way for me. I just like when things are clarified through visuals and I don’t always consider the tags visual enough.

That’s why I said that may be specifically journals could be a subcategory of Actualism instead of a tag.
What do you think for and against this possibility, @claudiu (and the rest, of course)?

I added a test category under Journals to see what it looks like, I’ll remove it in a couple of hours

I think we should stop forcing tags like “question” and “introduction” etc that doesn’t say anything about the topic.

What I have always found really useful on the AFT is the “by topic” pages, e.g. Richard's Selected Correspondence Index

If we are good at tagging topics with tags like “love”, “fear”, “pure-intent”, “pce”, “trust”, etc. then in the long run we will basically have the same index here. So if someone want to learn more about PCE they go and filter tags by “pce” tag. If you notice you can search in the tag list, so the intended use is to have a lot of distinct tags.

I would force people to use at least one tag on new posts but it can be any tag (including a new one if at right trust level), not just a predefined set of tags.

We should be pretty liberal with tags, so allow for “introduction” tag or whatever because it doesn’t interfere much with an extra tag or two.

If the actualism category gets too big we should add sub-categories, they could then be based on popular tags or something like “introductions”.

In short: remove the forced tag group wannabe sub-categories and free the tags to be used as “by topic” filters. Wait with sub-categories for now.