Folders vs. Tags For Shared Email Accounts?

binarybum writes "I run a student organization with a 10-member 'board of directors.' We hardly ever all have time to attend meetings and a large part of how we interact with the student body is through email. We have a shared email account (accessible by the 10 of us on the board) right now that is typically accessed through an outlook web-access portal. We've been attempting to keep things organized in the account through a complex collection of folders that have been tacked on ad libum. It's turned into a complete mess. I have the onerous task of restructuring the folder system in hopes of achieving sustainable organization, but I'm wondering if I should just switch us over to a tagging system — perhaps Gmail. Has anyone used tags for a multi-user account successfully or does it end up being just as messy?"

Forward to individual accounts

[Eric Smith]

The only way it's going to work well is if no one uses the group account directly, but rather all of the email it receives is forwarded to the individual accounts of the members. Then each member can organize the mail however he or she sees fit.

Use a group

[rmcd]

This sounds like an ideal application for a Google or Yahoo groups account. You would have a private group for the board. All of the e-mail would be available in a central location, with individual messages accessible by search, and each board member could forward each mail to their own personal account or not, as they see fit.

Re:Google Apps (but how?)

[rmcd]

Look into google groups. Each user can decide what to do with new messages, including forwarding messages to their own accounts.

Re:Tags: Good; Another Idea?

[Belial6]

No, I have been using Lotus Notes, which has allowed you to put the same email in multiple folders for well over a decade. Anything less is truly a crappy design. I am just shocked that every other email application out there is still decades behind in such a basic function.

Re:Go with tags

[Zhiroc]

When accessing GMail via IMAP, it emulates folders by interpreting a '/' in the tag as the "directory separator". It gives you the flexibility of tags with the organization of folders, if you want it. However, the web interface doesn't do this. And, of course, it doesn't solve the problems others mention with consistent use.

Re:Go with tags

[tom's a-cold]

Throw it all in a huge pile and just search it later.

Based on having done it a number of times before, I disagree. Free-text search gives poor result relevancy compared to search that's aware of metadata. So use tags, AND also invest in a decent search tool.

And it's worth spending some time coming up with an initial set of tags. That, by the way, is taxonomy not ontology. Ontology is about modeling a wider range of relationships than the "is-a"/"has-a" that taxonomy covers.

If the users want to add more tags, that's fine. Closed-ended taxonomies are seldom worth a hit. Unless you're a good-sized enterprise, don't waste time trying to impose a taxonomy on your users. It's costly and requires a lot of process discipline to do right.

Multi-rooted hierarchical tagging works best-- but a "flat" scheme isn't bad either.

Oh, and it's a trivial exercise to create a virtual-folder view based on tags. You can implement it either from a central repository of metadata or by carrying the metadata on the individual mail messages.

Regardless, using folders without tags is generally a lousy solution. Look at all the different and generally piss-poor ways that people organize information on their desktops for an idea of how well that usually works.

Re:Tags: Good; Another Idea?

[LMariachi]

Most modern email clients let you achieve this functionality with "smart folders" or "saved searches" or whatever nomenclature the particular client uses. These are basically dynamic search results in the guise of a folder. So you might have one smart folder that "contains" all email from [e-mail], wherever the actual messages reside in in the real folder hierarchy. Tagging lets you extend this by adding arbitrary criteria that don't exist in the original message, e.g. "StuffThatCanWait," "ProjectMayhem," whatever.

Re: LookOut

[nick_urbanik]

LookOut is what you do when you use OutLook.

Wrong tool for the wrong problem

[thoglette]

Firstly, what are you trying to do?
If it is "discussion between a group of people" then email is the wrong solution. That's what nttp was invented for - threaded discussions. Even a modern blog/bbs will do a better job.

Secondly, part the secretary's job is summarise and communicate the businesss and decisions of the board. And _sometimes_ the reasons for the decisions. If you can't write minutes, have a dedicated blog. With a printed hardcopy filed with your departmental/faculty secretary.

On that front, trusting Google with your records is like trusting Microsoft with your DRM' music.