Bad tagging

wizgriz

Right now there's "Admin added tag2 and removed tag1 tags." in half the discussions here. Maybe a development forum has especially confusing tags (like sandbox) and it should be up to admins to use straightforward tags with meaningful descriptions but it does seem like an issue. Users posting in wrong sub-forums already tends to be an issue and allowing mix and match tags on any discussion substantially increases the room for error on the user's end.

First thing I can point out is that descriptions could be emphasized more when starting a discussion (and not cut off). http://i.imgur.com/91ipc3T.png

Otherwise: Perhaps only a single main tag (the colored ones + sandbox) is allowed per discussion, and the sub-tags/mini-tags can just generally be considered less accurate. I dislike the lack of freedom in that but should stop users from going tag crazy.

Maybe choosing one main tag minimizes the others (meaning "you're probably good to go, but here are some sub/mini tags you could add"), but they're still accessible (meaning "you're sure this belongs in more categories?").

The sub/mini tags could also be automatically added via regex match of the post content or something similar as an advanced setting.

(Here's hoping I used the right tag.)

Toby

Thanks for the feedback, wizgriz 🙂

I agree that the tagging on this development forum is not being used perfectly. I think it's more of an issue with unclear tag names/descriptions rather than the mechanism itself. Perhaps the large number of people on this forum who speak English as a second language exaggerates the misuse of the tags.

The tag structure for this forum will be refreshed when we launch beta, and I'll also make a note to have tag descriptions display fully (rather than being cut off) in the tag selection dialog.

Limiting discussions to a single main tag is definitely a possibility for configuration. I like the idea of minimizing the other main tags after one has been chosen – but when you say they would still be accessible, how would they be so?

Auto-tagging based on regex match / some other clever algorithm is another thing that would be awesome to look into in the future.

Kulga

"Limiting discussions to a single main tag is definitely a possibility for configuration. I like the idea of minimizing the other main tags after one has been chosen – but when you say they would still be accessible, how would they be so?"
(terrible at markdown)
Toby
Perhaps when viewing a certain tag category, prioritize by:
active main tag
active secondary (3rd,4th) tag
inactive main tag
inactive secondary tag.
By active I mean something with a recent post in n days or some threshold of posts in period of time.
If a discussion is very lively with a secondary tag, it should take precedence over a primary tag that no one is responding to.

wizgriz

Toby I like the idea of minimizing the other main tags after one has been chosen – but when you say they would still be accessible, how would they be so?

I figured they would just be moved to top to stop taking vertical space with the labels hidden, but I don't really know. Something like that might just make things more confusing when the point is to make tag selecting simple.

You could type tags manually in the input box with tab-complete. That way once the category tags are hidden they can still be typed in manually. (And good for those who prefer using the keyboard.)

Not sure if these make any sense... the non category tags would still be prone for error which again just implies that tags just need to be well organized/written by the admins. I'm a huge fan of tagging though and looking forward to whatever developments in this area - so many possibilities!

Kulga (terrible at markdown)

You can select text and hit reply to quote only that portion. 😉

erlend_sh

I don't think discuss.flarum.org needs tags enabled for anything right now besides testing. So if possible, only Sandbox should have tags enabled, where users could tag like crazy. And I agree with @wizgriz that parent categories should be limited to one per post.

This topic for instance should only be in Meta. It's primarily concerning this forum, discuss.flarum.org, not Flarum's tag features.

"General Discussion" categories are dangerous, especially if you allow multiple categories, since everything fits in there. So when you're proposing a UX change that would obviously belong in UX, you start thinking "well, this is definitely of interest to the people discussing Flarum in general as well; I'll put it there too!". I like Discourse's "Uncategorised" category, because it implies a subtle slap on the wrist: "Are you SURE this doesn't fit into one of the designated categories? Well, no category for you then!"

We've touched on this before. Tags (and as an extension, humans) can not be depended on for cataloguing content. It's subjective and hugely prone to failure. Tags should be used to manage special, easily maintainable lists (i.e. 1-3 people share responsibility for a tag). I believe it's for that exact reason that GitHub will not let an untrusted user select any meta-data for a new Issue. The cataloguing is left entirely up to the developers - the trusted users - because they're the ones who are using this meta-data to try make their Issues queue match the way they've sorted things in their own head.

p.s. Sandbox having the same color as tags is kind of confusing. It looks as if the tags are children of Sandbox, which they're not.

Toby

@wizgriz @erlend_sh It's only a small update, but the config stuff to set the minimum/maximum numbers of primary/secondary tags is now implemented. It's set up on this forum (only 1 primary, up to 5 secondary). Once you've reached the maximum of either type, all of the other tags of that type disappear.

And here's the admin interface: https://files.gitter.im/flarum/flarum/vkis/tags2.gif

A few more thoughts:

I went with the names "primary tags" and "secondary tags" purely because it reflects the technical implementation (everything is a tag). But I'm thinking it'd just be simpler/less confusing to call "primary tags" → categories and "secondary tags" → tags, like everyone's familiar with. Thoughts?
You can configure to require a minimum of zero primary tags, so it would be possible for people to create discussions without any category/tags. Then we could show an "uncategorized" category. Alternatively admins could just create their own "uncategorized" category, or call it "off-topic" or whatever. Not really sure what the best approach is.
@erlend_sh I haven't forgotten about your idea to have tag "groups" which can each have special attributes/rules applied to them. It's too advanced at this point, but hopefully we'll transition as an update at some point in the future.
We're going to be overhauling this forum's tags over the weekend in preparation for our beta launch.

Dominion

Toby But I'm thinking it'd just be simpler/less confusing to call "primary tags" → categories and "secondary tags" → tags, like everyone's familiar with.

I think a lot depends on the user case. This makes a lot of sense if there's no special parent/child relationship between the primary and secondary tags. But if the use of secondary tags is restricted (i.e. you can use secondary tags 1 and 2 only if primary tag A is chosen, you can use secondary tags 3 through 5 only if primary tag B is chosen, and so on) then primary/secondary makes more sense.

I would say: go with primary/secondary so it'll be easy for admins to understand how things work technically, and let them customize the terminology to best fit their use case.

Toby Then we could show an "uncategorized" category. Alternatively admins could just create their own "uncategorized" category, or call it "off-topic" or whatever. Not really sure what the best approach is.

Would it be possible to combine the two functions in a single admin option? I envision it as a radio button or toggle named "Allow uncategorized discussions". When it is turned on:

The primary tag requirement is set to 0.
The "Uncategorized" category is displayed.

... And when the setting is turned off:

The primary tag requirement is set to 1.
The "Uncategorized" category is hidden or disabled.

That would make life easy on the admin, but it would limit things to only two configurations.

EDIT: Whoops, I guess you need to drop a line before and after lists with Markdown.

wizgriz

Toby I went with the names "primary tags" and "secondary tags" purely because it reflects the technical implementation (everything is a tag). But I'm thinking it'd just be simpler/less confusing to call "primary tags" → categories and "secondary tags" → tags, like everyone's familiar with. Thoughts?

After using it for a bit I'm inclined to calling it categories/tags. The technical implementation doesn't mean much beyond making gambits/everything saner to code, right? The only thing I can think of is the admin panel, but that too can be designed around the idea that primary tags are considered categories. It's not like you're trying to trick people into thinking it's something it's not, it's just a name, or flavor, that's more natural sounding.

erlend_sh

wizgriz Agreed. The names should reflect how it's used on the front-end, not how it works on the backend.

On that note, when speaking about it technically, in docs and the API and such, I would suggest referring to this system as a taxonomy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy_(general).

That's how WordPress has been doing it: If you've only ever been a WordPress user, you know that WordPress supports two common systems of groupings: Categories and Tags. As soon as you look under the hood though - as all developers and most designers & admins eventually do - you quickly learn that these (seemingly-) two systems are actually just the one system of taxonomies applied in slightly different ways.