What Are Tags?

Introduction

The larger a wiki gets, the harder it is to find content. This wiki tagging Plugin attempts to solve the issue based on these assumptions:

• Assertion 1: Intranet search does not work well due to inadequate ranking of search engines on intranets. This is because there are typically not many cross-links between pages.
• Assertion 2: Let the individuals build their own taxonomy to find content quickly
• Assertion 3: Let the users do the ranking to get an "human intelligence" ranking of important content

There are clear benefits in tagging content in a large TWiki (10K or more topics):

• Find relevant content in a large system quickly,
  • by quickly accessing related topics via the tags on a topic
  • by quickly accessing related topics via related tags listed in a specific tag view
  • by quickly identifying important tags in the tag cloud
• Access my favorite topics quickly (assuming I tag topics of interest)
• Solve the search ranking issue of wiki content indexed by a search engine
• Help solve stale content issue (old topics do not get tagged)

The design goals of the WhatAreTags were as follows:

• Any topic can be tagged by individuals -> create taxonomy for individuals
• Show tag statistics of all users on each topic -> show popularity
• Encourage users to reuse the same tag on a topic -> get a "collective ranking", or "vote for a tag", or "tag count"
• Make it as easy as possible to increase the tag count
• Make it as easy as possible to add a new tag to a topic
• Encourage users to create new tags, but try to avoid use of similar tags for the same subject
• Search for topic by tag, sorted by tag popularity

User Interface

Tag List on Topic

Every topic has a list showing all tags associated with the topic. Additional tags can be added to the topic, and new tags can be created.

Note: On the WAPAWiki, this is located at the very bottom of the page.

Screenshot of tags shown on a topic:

You see:

• a link to the all tags view,
• a list of tags with vote count and add/remove vote buttons,
• an add tag selector, and
• a link to create a new tag

Create New Tag

A never before used tag needs to be added to the system before a topic can be tagged with it. Use this form to add a new brand new tag.

• Add new tag: (use only alphanumeric characters and underscore)
  %TAGME{ tpaction="nop" tag="" }%
  

• Existing tags: %TAGME{ tpaction="showalltags" format="$tag" separator=", " }%

Add Tag to Topic

Once a new tag is created, it can be added in the tag list of the topic

List All Tags

TagMeViewAllTags? shows all tags used in the system. The font size indicates the overall tag count of a tag.

Screenshot of tag cloud in the list all tags view:

List My Tags

TagMeViewMyTags? shows all tags used by logged-in user. The font size indicates the overall tag count of a tag.

Tag Search

TagMeSearch? shows a list of topics that are tagged with a specific tag, sorted by relevance. Topics with a high tag count are shown first.

-- GeorgeClark - 13 May 2006