[mb-users] using folksonomy tags for personal collections/wishlists

[Alex Dupuy]

Robert Kaye wrote:
> 
> Now, about creating tags that contain editor names -- I think that is  
> something we should avoid doing, if at all possible.
> 
> What if I suggest that we make it clear that when viewing a tag cloud  
> that you can see which tags you applied (in one color) and aggregate  
> tags others applied (another color). This way, if you apply a "want"  
> tag (without editor name), you can see which releases/tracks you want  
> to have in your collection. And if the want tag appears in an  
> aggregate tag, we know that there are lots of people who want to have  
> that release/track.
> 

Putting the editor name in the tag was a hack, and I agree that we probably
don't want to do this. Your suggestion that you can see your own tags in one
color eliminates one of the uses for the hack (finding releases that you own
or want) but doesn't address the other use for the hack (finding other
people who have or want a release).

There are clearly privacy issues here, but if an editor is willing to make
their tags non-anonymous, having some ability to view the list of editors
who have (non-anonymously) applied a given tag to a release (and perhaps
even the list of releases that an editor applied a given tag to, although
this is less critical) would be an important feature (and is something that
other folksonomy sites provide).



> Finally, I'd like to undertake some UI changes:
> 
> 1. As suggested above, distinguish your tags from aggregate tags.
> 2. Show the most popular aggregate tags on the artist/release/track/ 
> label page
> 3. Add a preference to not show tags artist/release/track/label pages
> 4. Add caching support to tags.
> 5. Add some short verbiage about folksonomy syntax below the tag box.
> 
> What other UI tweaks do we need?
> 

Something that threw me in my experimentation with MBz tags was that
whitespace is not a separator (only comma is).  I'm not even sure that the
"verbiage about folksonomy syntax" you added will help prevent this
confusion (and the resulting creation of lots of different long tags like
"emo punk rock" and "punk emo", which will complicate and hinder tag
aggregation).  It's also hard to see this distinction in the tag display,
where two(?) spaces are used to separate tags (which might contain spaces) -
its unclear what you need to enter if you want to re-add a tag that's
already present (and which you agree with).

I'm not aware of any other folksonomy sites where whitespace isn't a
separator by default (if you really want it in your tag, you need to use
quotes).  I presume the logic for this in MBz tags is some idea that it is
more desirable for "grunge death metal" (without the quotes) to be parsed as
one tag rather than three.  But I'm not at all convinced that this is
actually better.  You can always join words with a hyphen if you want a
single tag (e.g. death-metal) although I suspect most people will find
deathmetal easier to type and just as effective.

If you really think whitespace should not be a separator, having a
single-line field with an "Add" button next to it that updates the free-text
field (and appends a comma to the tag) would make it easier while still
having a free-text multi-line field, which is easier for an experienced
editor, I think.

I see that you have implemented some of the proposed changes in the UI on
the test server already.  Displaying your own tags in a different color is a
good idea, but unfortunately orange on white is a very low-contrast color
choice, making it difficult to read your own tags.  I'd suggest instead to
use dark blue on an orange background (or dark blue on white background with
orange box lines around the text) for tags you have added (bold would
indicate that others have used it as well, and non-bold font implies that
only you have added the tag).

I couldn't get the "Who tagged this?" feature to work - does this rely on
indices that are only updated once a day or something?  It also looks like
it would only allow one to find editors who used this tag for some type
(artist, release, etc.) but not the editors who used this tag for this
specific artist/release/etc.  Is that correct?
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