Created on 11 Jan 2006 by Nate Steiner

Categories or Tags

When it comes to reading weblogs, and more specifically web-graphics.com, how do you prefer to browse through older content?

We are collecting ideas for a web-graphics improvements, and want to know what you think. A little explanation of your choice would be greatly appreciated, but you can also just cast a “vote” if you’re short on time.

Got Something to say?

Mark as spam (?)


2 Use Tags

Pepe on 11 Jan 2006

I like Matt’s idea… most popular tags. I think they are flexible enough to work with the content of web-graphics.

gopal on 18 Mar 2007

wdsafsd fsadf dsaf dsaf dsaf sdf sdf sdf ds fsd fsadfdgsjdfpgfdsgjfdsgjfdjgfdsgjklfjdsgklfdj klgfjdsg jfdsjg kldsfjgj fdsgj klfdsjg klfjdgklj dfgjkl fjdsgkl fjdg fds jg fjdgj fdsgj kl

2 Use Categories

Justin Goodlett on 11 Jan 2006

I’d have to side with categories here - only in that I like browsing from a larger more collective pool, as opposed to tags where you can get fairly specific and view much of the content of the site at a glance. Categories in this instance just seem like a better approach to organization.

Andrew S. on 11 Jan 2006

I’m as much a fan of tags as the next guy, but I think for web-graphics, a focused-site, categories are a better way to go.

9 Both/Other

Nate Steiner on 11 Jan 2006

I’m leaning towards both, despite the ominous task of organizing five years of posts. But I’m not convinced that both would be helpful or even useful.

Matt Lindop on 11 Jan 2006

My reactionary ‘what’s wrong with the way we used to do things’ head says just categories would be fine… but tags are becoming so familiar & useful…

How about just displaying the most popular tags?

Joshua Brewer on 11 Jan 2006

I think some sort of combo would/could really work well. You could change it up and offer for people to browse by category or by tags. Actually, that could really be tied in with the search… you know, Search or browse by: Tag or Category and then AJAXify the thing…

Wilson on 11 Jan 2006

Fixed (or expert-managed) hierarchical category structures have a different purpose and benefit from loose, community-driven descriptors like tags. And they both have their weaknesses when they’re used in the wrong context. Categories completely break down when they’re not consistently maintained, and tags are next to useless when they’re too limited or controlled. In the right environment, you should be able to use both with great results.

Rob on 11 Jan 2006

Depending on how you use them. To put it very simply without getting into the details, considering a usual weblog structure, I’d say categories are best left to the overall structure and functionality of the website while tags make the most sense for browsing and searching archives, especially in the case of extensive archives.

Ghostnet on 12 Jan 2006

This has less to do with what’s easy for me vs what’s easy for users.

web-graphics Can get a huge improvement in search results with both. I use both because of the accuracy it yields in searching rather than general browsing. A user can focus on one category and search for very generic keywords and still find exactly what they want. The result match rate is amazing since 95% - 99% users on my private portal got what they wanted within the first 5 results. Of course the down side is extra input on the back end, but that’s a small price to pay to not inconvenience users.

… And I do use AJAX :P

Giorgio Martini on 21 Jan 2006

Tags for content, categories for kind—referred to blog postings, for example.

Giorgio Martini on 21 Jan 2006

Tags for content, categories for kind—referred to blog postings, for example.

kentsin on 2 Mar 2006

Use Tag if the user base is huge. Use other means to help tags.

Categories is good for a smaller user base.

Tag will success if there are huge inputs, with social network that refine the results. Without these, use categories.

 

Use Tags

Use Categories

Both/Other


captcha