The Need For A Tagging Standard 200
John Carmichael writes "Tags are everywhere now. Not just blogs, but famous news sites, corporate press bulletins, forums, and even Slashdot. That's why it's such a shame that they're rendered almost entirely useless by the lack of a tagging standard with which tags from various sites and tag aggregators like Technorati and Del.icio.us can compare and relate tags to one another.
Depending on where you go and who you ask, tags are implemented differently, and even defined in their own unique way. Even more importantly, tags were meant to be universal and compatible: a medium of sharing and conveying info across the blogosphere — the very embodiment of a semantic web. Unfortunately, they're not. Far from it, tags create more discord and confusion than they do minimize it.
I have to say, it would be nice to just learn one way of tagging content and using it everywhere.""
Don't agree (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't thing the problem is a standard for tagging, the problem is having a standard for sharing tags between applications. But that's another problem and it doesn't need to be solved to implement tagging itself.
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<fud>
<notfud>
Re:Don't agree (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Don't agree (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Don't agree (Score:5, Interesting)
Tags are keywords.
There's a keyword line up in the header that isn't being used for much these days.
If you want to tag your document in a machine-readable way, put the tags in the keyword field. Problem solved.
MOD PARENT UP (Score:4, Insightful)
The only issue is what to do when there are multiple sub-documents on a single page, like if Slashdot allowed individual replies to be tagged.
Re:Don't agree (Score:5, Insightful)
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This is similar to the problem blogging sites have with cross site scripting. Try to tell a blogger you won't take HTML or bbcode posts (depending on generation of the blogger). Regardless of what you do, there's going to be sites that don't follow the rules and there will also be ways to screw it up for everybody.
There isn't a standard for many things on the internet which causes validation to be near impossib
Re:Don't agree (Score:5, Insightful)
The medium, as Marshall Maclluhan said, is the message. As soon as you standardize the format of the tags you will restrict the kind of information people can convey with them. That may be an acceptable limitation to you, but not to others, and they will find workarounds that effectively break the standard.
For example, if tags were standardized on underscores to separate words you would have to forbid spaces and caps to enforce that standard. And then we would have no way of distinguishing between Polish and polish, which would be bad if you were looking for things to do with Eastern European culture or furniture care products. People would then start doing things like expressing capitalization by some other syntactical hack which would be inconsistently applied and a greater mess would ensue.
Alternatively, tags could be represented as more complex markup:
<tag>
<word order="1">really</word>
<word order="2">stupid</word>
</tag>
But because words and concepts have no general one-to-one correspondence (many words do not convey a unique concept or a concept at all, and many concepts cannot be conveyed in one word) this would be inadequate, and in any case even if the content model of the "word" tag forbade spaces, caps and underscores, people would still create tags that looked like:
<tag><word>reallystupid</word></tag>
The basic idea of "semantic markup" is wrong. From the summary:
the very embodiment of a semantic web. Unfortunately, they're not. Far from it, tags create more discord and confusion than they do minimize it. I have to say, it would be nice to just learn one way of tagging content and using it everywhere.
Actually, tags as they stand are the very embodiment of the semantic web. The only function of the semantic web is to create confusion and discord, because confusion and discord is the essence of the human epistemological condition. And the call for "one way of doing X" has a nice religious ring to it, history shows that attempts to standardize things relating to human thought are very much misguided.
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Example:
privacy, Big Brother, government control
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Why are trying to take away my job?
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Maybe I'm missing the point to this, but shouldn't these variable formats all be parsed and handled by the software in the first place? How hard is it for a computer to be able to convert between, and simultaneously understand, the use of spaces, underscores, dashes, quotes, StudlyCaps, etc? Seems to me that is the right way of handling this, because you surely can't expect all implimentations and all users to know and follow whatever standard may possibly eventually arise.
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I agree with you, and would add:
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If any "standard" is proposed, it should be a mild, behind-the-scenes change. Perhaps a META TAGS header, i.e. rss/application or META KEYWORDS. And only to make it easier for scrapers and aggregators (and of course, our beloved Google).
If anything, we need to be focusing on "concept" mining. Synonyms, slang and syntax must all
Automatic tagging (Score:5, Insightful)
Herein lies the rub: You're never going to get everyone to agree on a set of appropriate tags. Even if you do, you'll never have them uniformly applied (well I find that humorous but you have it tagged as inappropriate).
There are other solutions here, such as automatic semantic generation. Hey, I never said it was an easy solution, but it's one that I'm certain can be accomplished. Flame away
Re:Automatic tagging (Score:5, Informative)
In the end, this could be said to be one of the central problems in AI. Basically, this is dimensionality reduction. People have been trying to do this manually for a long time. The Encyclopaedia Britannica's Propaedica is an example of a tentative semantic web for all human knowledge, but it's so inefficient that it's of very little use by a human, not to mention by automatic mechanisms.
You're never going to get everyone to agree on a set of appropriate tags
I believe it could be done if it were an automatically generated tag set. If it could be proven mathematically optimal in a certain context, it would be hard for anyone to disagree.
Re:Automatic tagging (Score:4, Interesting)
The automatically generated tags are exactly what I was talking about. I didn't get terribly explicit with my ideas, but you seem to be going in the same direction I was. Getting the software to both tag incoming documents and categorize the semantic webs generated by each is the key to some 'universal' tagging sytem. This way we have maximally efficient tags along with a standardized definition for each and (perhaps most importantly) an automatic way of tagging all the documents to be processed. No room for the "13 year old cheerleader tags" as someone so eloquently put before.
We still have the problem of naming the 'generic' tag categories generated by the software... The solution for that one is a lot hazier, though important. I don't think anyone will go looking for 'category 12233242' to find 'academic humor'.
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Isn't this recursive?
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Gotta luv those ifs - With English due to be a minority language before ye' know it, and since I already know Chinese/Japanese/Korean, let's just jump right ahead and use strokes. What? You don't have a clue? But what about the math-proven, optimally certain, shit-in-my-pants if it ain't true proposal ya'll just laid out...? Lead by example, ok?
itsatrap (Score:3, Funny)
You're never going to get everyone to agree on a set of appropriate tags.
Then how come everyone on here has agreed on a handful of standard tags:
?????
transporter_ii
Re:Automatic tagging (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, anyone trying to make a serious argument containing the word "blogosphere" should really try and get out more. Come on people, it's not world hunger we're solving here. Viz: http://coolestshop.com/headline-blog.html [coolestshop.com]
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This is just a problem I've worked on for a few years and have always had a small fascination with, I'm glad to share it (both in the mundane
Re:Automatic tagging (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that someone thinks something is funny and someone else thinks it is inappropriate is useful information to gather, if you get 5000 funny and 5 inappropriate, you have a lot more information than if you have nothing at all, but even in you get 10 and 10 you still have more information, which is probably a good thing.
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*shrugs*
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User query=> I use a mac. How do I upload?
Intelligent web answer=> Download Cyberduck [link]here[/link], it uses FTP to upload data to you
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Herein lies the rub: You're never going to get everyone to agree on a set of appropriate tags.
Yeah. That's not what TFA is about. You should read it.
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Oh, there's a problem, all right. The problem is that tags are worthless. As noted by pretty much everyone, 90% of the tags are 'yes, no, maybe, fud, notfud, itsatrap, thinkofthechildren' and words that are already in the title of the article. This is not helpful, this is noise. I have no idea what the tagging system is supposed to help with, other than providing everyone a
The other option (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The other option (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:The other option (Score:5, Informative)
That's existed since tags started, so problem solved!
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One Key Point (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One Key Point (Score:5, Funny)
I propose that we standardize the following tags:
thissux
omgthisrox
That should cover 100% of the content in a manner that everyone can relate to.
Re:One Key Point (Score:4, Insightful)
For technology, as an example, how do you quote things? How do you separate tokens? Do you use StudlyCaps and spaces? "Quoted words", and commas? If the later, what about nested quotes?
Bullshit question. The question is solved. Use XML. (Yeah, well, it is the web). We don't need Yet Another CSV "standard". Tags may be presented as lists, in spans, or WTF ever. But if you are talking about storage and transmission, then store the tokens separately, and transmit them in an unambiguous format; in 2007, on the web, the solutions are implementation-specific and XML, respectively.
For linguistics, thats harder. Nouns or verbs? Talk to a librarian, Im sure there are volumes of information on the right way. But I don't care, as I'm still disgusted that the technology problem even exists.
Right now it seems there is little discussion on the problem. Right now, if implementations are trying to reinvent data encoding schemes either the implementations are totally brain dead (and need a kick in the ass from an outside force), or are completely oblivious to the problems they are encoding into there core features (and thus still need a kick in the ass). This is so bad, its worse then wrong. You have to try to get to the point of being wrong.
Of course, I don't care because tags are stupid. OTOH, perhaps I would care if they at least were implemented in a potentially useful way.
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Tags are keywords. More specifically, they are subject keywords.
If you can wrap your head around this idea, then you might realize what the author is talking about is a list of 'standardized' subject headings. You may know this by its common street name: a thesaurus [wikipedia.org] (although some peopl
itsatrap (Score:2)
Er, I mean notatrap!
One big problem is that people can just make them up, then you get the "greifers" who put bogus joke tags all over the place.
(remember, the opposite of "itsatrap" is "!itsatrap", not "notatrap"!)
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People who insist on sticking to the fucking rules are the number one problem facing today's society, methinks.
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Way to go against the machine! Fight the power of the slashdot tag system FAQ [slashdot.org], and become a legendary internet hero/freedomfighter. Free yourself from this evil oppressor, and liberate your fellow slashdot (ab)users from these bonds.
Grow up
Didn't they have this problem in Babel? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure, but haven't we already figured out that tagging would require more tags than the actual information being tagged to accomplish what the original poster was asking for?
XML? (Score:2)
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Isn't needed (Score:2, Troll)
In the article, this guy is saying that some tags have spaces in them, and some don't, so that makes it hard. How about "where lcase(tags) like '%vista%'? How har
People actually pay that much attention to tags? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopeless (Score:5, Insightful)
But to standardize the format of tags and to standardize how to exchange tags between systems, is a great idea.
I Completely Agree... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I Completely Agree... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm fired, aren't I? (Score:4, Insightful)
Only thing worse would be something like, I dunno, "tags should be a Web 2.0 standard" or somesuch.
Excuse me, but "proactive" and "paradigm"? Aren't these just buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important?
Re:I'm fired, aren't I? (Score:5, Funny)
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Please engage brain first (Score:2)
First of all, the quote is by Feynman, who was a physicist, not a manager.
Second, I'm not sure where you see buzzwords in it, because I can't. It's a simple idea expressed in plain English, which is something a lot of PHBs and PR drones seem to have forgotten how to do.
Third, it's a very sane and simple advice to every
A standard for tagging (Score:2, Insightful)
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Hyphens. (Score:3, Funny)
Any-tagging-stuff-I-have-to-write-will-use-hyphen
Re:Hyphens. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the time, the tags have little to do with the actual article (eg. yes, no, maybe, fud, notfud, flamebait). I thought the purpose of tags was to be able to find an article easily later on when it has been archived, and the usefulness of the tags I just mentioned for this purpose is dubious at best. I do not pretend to have a solution to this problem, but I think the situation would be improved if the editors or maybe the
tagging (Score:5, Funny)
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Tags are for things that AREN'T standardized (Score:4, Insightful)
XSLT for Tags? (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree! (Score:2)
Too many chefs, etc. (Score:4, Informative)
Better to get rid of tagging altogether and go back to text searching!
No.. and yes (Score:2, Interesting)
First of all tags are not exclusive to the blogosphere - they exist on the boardscape (see boardtracker [boardtracker.com] for example) and of course on the many social nets and pretty much everywhere else.
There are already microformats [wikipedia.org] for defining tags which can and should be used.
Tags are for building a folksonomy [wikipedia.org] and created 'by the people' so are by their nature, to a certain extent, personalized and flexible.. what makes sense to you may make no sense to everyone else but so what? You made it, its good for you and t
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I can live with Web 2.0 and blogosphere, but you will never catch me saying "folksonomy" in any conversation except to deride it.
It's keywords. Welcome to usenet. There's nothing to see here. Seriously, internet pop culture is like some sort of weird reverse cargo cult that believes it invented every trivial technology.
Annotea Project (Score:2)
The Amaya web browser/editor [w3.org] is a W3C project that serves as a testbed for the consortium's standards - including an annotea implimentation (the most interesting part of the project imho).
Basically, you can keep your own local metadata, or have a central shared resource with that implimentation. Of course, you could build your own implimentation that has o
Patent Tagging (Score:2, Funny)
World's best tagging system (Score:2, Interesting)
Standards aren't the be-all-end-all (Score:2)
Just look at how well Genres worked out for MP3-ID3, especially on services like Gracenote where people would just upload any old cruft.
Social grouping? (Score:2)
Obviously though this would do nothing for Slashdot's tagging system which has (probably un
What would we use the standard for? (Score:2)
I've been asked to implement tags on an existing discussion site, and I'm afraid it's going to turn out as poorly as the tags on slashdot. Unless the tagging system is used by
the solution... (Score:2, Interesting)
Basically, people are too dumb/lazy/stupid to read a one-line description of how to format their tags. How confusing can it be? You just show people how to do it in the form, e.
Hurry, guys.... (Score:2)
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But really, I love the humor in the slashdot tags: "The Need For A Tagging Standard", tagged with: tag, tagging, and tags.
The "fuckoff" tag on "Is A Bad Attitude Damaging The IT Profession?" was pretty good, too.
Argh (Score:3, Funny)
Oh yes, Brain. (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't forget to make it structured, with methods and types and blah blah blah.
It's just words, fer chrissakes. When you can tell me the difference between "its" and "it's" then you can talk abou
RSS is the answer (Score:2)
there is a standard (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a standard but nobody uses it these days. Even the search engines disavow it anymore.
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Better hurry... (Score:4, Insightful)
standard tagging API (Score:2)
But I would like to see a single standard API for adding tags and searching for tags. The exact same code should be able to connect to every tag-enabled site. A nice simple REST thing, an HTTP GET to send a query and an XML fragment as result.
I figure there would be two types of query:
1) Send an object identifier (URL, photo id, whatever) and get back a list of tags.
2) Send a tag or li
Different strokes for different sites (Score:2)
Standard What? (Score:2)
One is the "standard" of representation. Tags are not like a contact lists or meta data laden resource indexes. They're just words, an array of strings. If your favorite language can figure out how to go from, say, "tag1, tag2" to "array('tag1','tag2')" you have bigger problems than standards.
The other issue is defining a universal, standard, taxonomy. From Dewey to RDF, we're no closer now than we ever were. You're asking people to all come to an agreement as to how they view the world
Um wait... (Score:2)
They're not that useful anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
Tags are boss! (Score:2)
I do this all the time on del.icio.us.
- Find a page that is likely to be bookmarked by anyone doing academia on web design
- Use the "others who have bookmarked this page" function to get a list of other users
who have tagged the URL in question.
- See anybody using the tag 'thesis'? You probably want to see what else they've tagged that way.
If you're lucky, you just saved yourself a butt load of research.
Tags allow people to usefully keep tra
My moment of realization (Score:3, Funny)
Tag Search (Score:2)
I would love to have a tag option in Google.
Opt-in specific tagging! (Score:2)
I am not opposing the free-style tagging, as many people wouldn't bother with any formal definitions, but having a standard so you can optionally u
Utter nonsense (Score:2)
Some words have more than one meaning in English alone, and different meanings throughout the different versions of English, then you can add in foreign languages too.
Take for example the words "strip" or "ass" as an example (um, not sure why those came into my head first...). Search for "ass" and you get things about donkeys, amongst a variety of more or less interesting things. My guess is that the few mental patients searching for
Huey, Dewey & Louis (Score:2)
Technorati has a standard... (Score:3, Interesting)
tagging "standards" for the semantic web (Score:2, Informative)
for those interested in a "tagging standard" for the semantic web (i.e. an ontology describing the concept of tagging) check out:
-ukio
We already have a book for tagging, its called... (Score:2, Interesting)
A dictionary.
There are people who live and die by tagging their information. They build folders and create lists.
There are people who just go through life serendipitously. They never use the laundry hamper and most people call them slobs.
Between these two groups are the rest of humanity. Sometimes they make lists and sometimes they don't. And just because the word, "librarian," strikes a fear of boredom, most people ignore library sciences. The science of tagging, if to be used as a global panacea, must
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Look at gmail, frinstance. Labels replace folders, and a mail can have more than one label. More importantly, they're predefined, and the interface doesn;t really allow you to be prolific with your tagging.
Compare this with the crappy way del.icio.us allows you to put a bi
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Dublin Core ... a cautionary tale (Score:2)
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What really sucks is that no filesystems properly support tags (aka meta-data), and we're left to software to "flatten" the database. (Think of your favorite mp3 player's library) YES, I _want_ my music placed into MULTIPLE genres.
File systems links are the fore-runner to this, but the creators didn't realize the general principle.
i.e.
For every game in my system, I have a screenshots folder
I wo