Keywords = Tags ?
Hi,
I'm not sure I should get in the middle of this (
), but I would point out that Bookends also has virtual groups. That is, if you select more than one group, Bookends will do an AND or an OR on them (your choice). So in the last example, you could have smart search for cars, one for trains, and then either ADD or OR them (and any other searches) to get an idea of relationships.
Just in case anyone in this discussion might find such a thing useful...
Jon
Sonny Software
I'm not sure I should get in the middle of this (
), but I would point out that Bookends also has virtual groups. That is, if you select more than one group, Bookends will do an AND or an OR on them (your choice). So in the last example, you could have smart search for cars, one for trains, and then either ADD or OR them (and any other searches) to get an idea of relationships.Just in case anyone in this discussion might find such a thing useful...
Jon
Sonny Software
No, it is the equivalent of doing AND - except that you are given a list of suggestions as to possibly relevant keywords with which to perform the AND query, and rather than having to do a new search, you simply click on the keyword and immediatly see the results, allowing you to try a number of different searches very quickly.gke wrote:But isn't this exactly the same as using the Boolean operator OR for doing a search for records containing the keyword car or train?
I don't think virual groups is capable of suggesting possible keyword combinations, is it?
But more importantly, it is (as I said) about the ease of quickly narrowing down a search topic:
I start with "transportation" and then see "cars trains buses" or, I start with buses, see "transportation" and end up with "cars AND trains" (bad examples, but you can use your imagination to think of better ones).
Here are some useful articles:
http://www.shirky.com/writings/ontology_overrated.html
http://www.rashmisinha.com/archives/05_ ... itive.html
And sites to look at:
http://del.icio.us/help/tags
http://www.flickr.com/help/tags/#37
http://www.citeulike.org/
http://www.connotea.org/
But more importantly, it is (as I said) about the ease of quickly narrowing down a search topic:
I start with "transportation" and then see "cars trains buses" or, I start with buses, see "transportation" and end up with "cars AND trains" (bad examples, but you can use your imagination to think of better ones).
Here are some useful articles:
http://www.shirky.com/writings/ontology_overrated.html
http://www.rashmisinha.com/archives/05_ ... itive.html
And sites to look at:
http://del.icio.us/help/tags
http://www.flickr.com/help/tags/#37
http://www.citeulike.org/
http://www.connotea.org/
Of course not. But they are a great way to quickly (virtually instantly) explore commonalities between as many groups as you like, simultaneously.Luhmann wrote:I don't think virual groups is capable of suggesting possible keyword combinations, is it?
BTW, here's a quote from the flickr site:
"What are tags?
You can give your photos a "tag", which is like a keyword or category label. Tags help you find photos which have something in common. You can assign as many tags as you wish to each photo."
It seems to me that you are implying tags can let you see relationships not inherent in the keywords themselves. But, for example, I went to the flickr site tag cloud, clicked on "dogs", and what I ended up with was a lot of pictures of dogs. It might be helpful if you provided a concrete example of how you think tags would be *implemented*, and provide more functionality than Term Lists and/or smart groups.
Jon
Sonny Software
After you click on the tag dogs, click on the "dog clusters" link on the side. This is a little different from the example of how del.icio.us works which I think would be a better model for Bookends, but it does show you what I mean.
UPDATE: Here is a direct link:
http://flickr.com/photos/tags/dog/clusters/
and note that these clusters use the tag cloud feature of making more popular tags appear in larger and stronger type. The other option would be to list them all the same but show the number of items tagged in numbers. This seems more elegant.
UPDATE: Here is a direct link:
http://flickr.com/photos/tags/dog/clusters/
and note that these clusters use the tag cloud feature of making more popular tags appear in larger and stronger type. The other option would be to list them all the same but show the number of items tagged in numbers. This seems more elegant.
Hm. I think this reduces to the following: you want to be able to click on a keyword (or tag) and see a list (or cloud, or whatever) of all other combinations in which that word appeared.
So, if you have two references with these keyword:
dog
pet
and
pet
cat
you'd want to be able to choose dog and see a list in which cat is an option. And when you click on cat you want to see all references that have cats as a keyword?
Jon
Sonny Software
So, if you have two references with these keyword:
dog
pet
and
pet
cat
you'd want to be able to choose dog and see a list in which cat is an option. And when you click on cat you want to see all references that have cats as a keyword?
Jon
Sonny Software
I think you have to be logged in to del.icio.us and using your own bookmarks to see the additive tag searching feature, but you can see the related tags at work here:
http://del.icio.us/tag/dogs
When searching one's own tags these related tags from within your own set of tags will appear highlighted in green (standing out from the rest of the tags which are shades of blue) and clicking them will add them to refine your search.
What you see if you are not a member are just public tags, which is a little different from how it might look if you have been using del.icio.us for a while.
http://del.icio.us/tag/dogs
When searching one's own tags these related tags from within your own set of tags will appear highlighted in green (standing out from the rest of the tags which are shades of blue) and clicking them will add them to refine your search.
What you see if you are not a member are just public tags, which is a little different from how it might look if you have been using del.icio.us for a while.
There are four things that are potentially useful here:Jon wrote:Hm. I think this reduces to the following: you want to be able to click on a keyword (or tag) and see a list (or cloud, or whatever) of all other combinations in which that word appeared.
So, if you have two references with these keyword:
dog
pet
and
pet
cat
you'd want to be able to choose dog and see a list in which cat is an option. And when you click on cat you want to see all references that have cats as a keyword?
Jon
Sonny Software
1. The ability to see related keywords.
2. The ability to easily see the frequency with which those keywords are used.
3. The ability to easily search the suggested related keywords.
4. The ability to easily create a "virtual group" using combinations of these keywords.
Not discussed above are some easier ways of entering and managing keywords, which are also implemented in sites like del.icio.us.
Note that clusters as implemented on Flicker are actually suggested "virtual groups" not just suggested keywords from which one creates one's own "virtual groups" as in del.icio.us.
Just today someone announced a site which pulls Flickr data to use such information in searches.
http://lifehacker.com/software/flickr/f ... 193676.php
If you go to the linked site and search for "dogs" it will do two simultaneous searches - displayed separately. One for dogs, and one for dogs & related terms. I'm not asking for this feature, but I think it is interesting to see how people are thinking in new ways about storing and searching information.
Just today someone announced a site which pulls Flickr data to use such information in searches.
http://lifehacker.com/software/flickr/f ... 193676.php
If you go to the linked site and search for "dogs" it will do two simultaneous searches - displayed separately. One for dogs, and one for dogs & related terms. I'm not asking for this feature, but I think it is interesting to see how people are thinking in new ways about storing and searching information.
OK. I actually had some time to think about how this might be implemented in the current layout of Bookends.
Right now the Keywords list window shows a list with numbers identifying the number of records in that keyword. I am suggesting an option to make this appear as a tag-cloud instead (set in the user preferences or via a toggle button).
When a user selects one keyword, related keywords (only the most popular related keywords rather than all of them) would appear highlighted in a different color. Multiple selection with AND/OR would work as it already does - allowing virtual groups. I would also consider having the ability to only show related keywords when one keyword is selected.
When the Keywords list window is toggled to management mode (from browse mode), then I would suggest some additional options be added to the list - such as: "Replace Keyword" which would replace all the selected keywords with a given keyword - perhaps opening up the Global Change window with the appropriate settings allowing the user to modify it before changing if they feel comfortable doing so, but otherwise doing just what they asked for. And another option to "Normalize Deliminators" which would find any offending deliminators and change them to carriage returns "¬" - including colons, dashes, commas, hyphens, and even spaces if people like, perhaps offering a check list and then a space where additional characters could be added.
The above represents the most conservative set of changes I can think of which would implement some of the features I've suggested. Somewhat more radical suggestions would include the elimination of the list windows altogether, merging them into the main "list view" as alternatives to "groups" - i.e. you could select a drop down menu to see either groups, keywords, authors, journals, or whatever other list you wished. All lists would behave in similar ways - so that you could modify an author spelling as easily as a keyword, or see journal titles in a tag cloud. Perhaps something to think about for a Cocoa version? Another radical change would be the ability to use deliminators other than carriage returns as the default for the keywords list.
I hope these suggestions are more concrete and useful than how I started - but it took some questioning and discussion before I was able to think about this more clearly.
Right now the Keywords list window shows a list with numbers identifying the number of records in that keyword. I am suggesting an option to make this appear as a tag-cloud instead (set in the user preferences or via a toggle button).
When a user selects one keyword, related keywords (only the most popular related keywords rather than all of them) would appear highlighted in a different color. Multiple selection with AND/OR would work as it already does - allowing virtual groups. I would also consider having the ability to only show related keywords when one keyword is selected.
When the Keywords list window is toggled to management mode (from browse mode), then I would suggest some additional options be added to the list - such as: "Replace Keyword" which would replace all the selected keywords with a given keyword - perhaps opening up the Global Change window with the appropriate settings allowing the user to modify it before changing if they feel comfortable doing so, but otherwise doing just what they asked for. And another option to "Normalize Deliminators" which would find any offending deliminators and change them to carriage returns "¬" - including colons, dashes, commas, hyphens, and even spaces if people like, perhaps offering a check list and then a space where additional characters could be added.
The above represents the most conservative set of changes I can think of which would implement some of the features I've suggested. Somewhat more radical suggestions would include the elimination of the list windows altogether, merging them into the main "list view" as alternatives to "groups" - i.e. you could select a drop down menu to see either groups, keywords, authors, journals, or whatever other list you wished. All lists would behave in similar ways - so that you could modify an author spelling as easily as a keyword, or see journal titles in a tag cloud. Perhaps something to think about for a Cocoa version? Another radical change would be the ability to use deliminators other than carriage returns as the default for the keywords list.
I hope these suggestions are more concrete and useful than how I started - but it took some questioning and discussion before I was able to think about this more clearly.
I forgot one feature I find VERY useful at del.icio.us: tag bundles.
This allows the user to group a bunch of tags/keywords together under a general heading. Then they appear together in the list when you browse through your tags.
So, for instance, if I had a bunch of references related to molecular biology and another related to linguistics, I could put all the keywords for "cell structure, acids, dna, genetics, etc." in one bundle, and all the keywords for "syntax, morphology, phonology" in another bundle. It is possible to do so already with clever naming, for instance I use COURSE:coursename for all my syllabi, but I find the tag bundle approach much simpler to use, since I don't need to remember a special syntax for each bundle - I just use the words that come to mind and they are automatically grouped together.
This is somewhat like the "cluster" feature in Flickr, except it is user-defined, not automaticly detected.
This allows the user to group a bunch of tags/keywords together under a general heading. Then they appear together in the list when you browse through your tags.
So, for instance, if I had a bunch of references related to molecular biology and another related to linguistics, I could put all the keywords for "cell structure, acids, dna, genetics, etc." in one bundle, and all the keywords for "syntax, morphology, phonology" in another bundle. It is possible to do so already with clever naming, for instance I use COURSE:coursename for all my syllabi, but I find the tag bundle approach much simpler to use, since I don't need to remember a special syntax for each bundle - I just use the words that come to mind and they are automatically grouped together.
This is somewhat like the "cluster" feature in Flickr, except it is user-defined, not automaticly detected.
I was looking around del.icio.us and discovered you don't need to be logged in to see the features I was discussing. Go to this URL:
http://del.icio.us/jenfur19th/Smoking
Choose some of the options at the bottom of the list on the right (maybe you need to be logged in to see these?) including: show cloud, show bundles, and "use minimum 5" the last is good when there are lots of tags - it will only display those with at least five items, so you don't get lots of items with unique tags.
Even if you don't make these changes you will see at the top a "related tags" list. Each tag can be clicked on - switching to that tag, or you can click on the "+" sign to add that tag to your search, thus limiting your search to a virtual group.
It sounds complex, but works quite well if you take a look.
(I don't smoke, and it isn't my account, it is just an example I found...)
http://del.icio.us/jenfur19th/Smoking
Choose some of the options at the bottom of the list on the right (maybe you need to be logged in to see these?) including: show cloud, show bundles, and "use minimum 5" the last is good when there are lots of tags - it will only display those with at least five items, so you don't get lots of items with unique tags.
Even if you don't make these changes you will see at the top a "related tags" list. Each tag can be clicked on - switching to that tag, or you can click on the "+" sign to add that tag to your search, thus limiting your search to a virtual group.
It sounds complex, but works quite well if you take a look.
(I don't smoke, and it isn't my account, it is just an example I found...)