On Feb 8, 2009, at 7:20 AM, Evan Prodromou wrote:
If we tried to make groups and tags the same thing, we would ruin
people's expectations of hash tags in order to make a bad version of
groups. I would prefer not to do either.
I should perhaps start by clarifying that I actually *like* groups, a
lot, and I like them even more after hearing some of Evan's plans for
how they will evolve with distinct features over time. I started this
discussion as a *response* to other people's concerns over the !group/
#tag issue, not any immediate ones of my own.
More specifically, I agree with Evan here when he says that trying to
make groups and tags the same thing would ruin people's expectations
of both. It's also why I didn't like Jaiku's notion of overloading the
hashtag to mean both tags *and* groups: different functions should be
designated by users explicitly.
I think there's an interesting problem with posting a notice to !php
with the tag #php. The question is one of addressing; are you trying
to address a group of people you belong to, or just trying to mark a
message with a topic (which may be interesting to that group of
people, or to others)?
That's precisely the question I had with regard to the large amount of
double-ups I see in group notices, but quickly resolved for myself
when I started to gain an (I hope correct) understanding of the
distinction between groups and tags. There are many imaginable
situations in which a notice to a group could logically contain a tag
of the same name. Some hypothetical examples:
!javascript #Opera's new #JavaScript #engine is called Carakan—
speedy and sexy!
If I were a machine, I might read this notice as: to JavaScript group,
about: Opera JavaScript engine. A less technical example:
!parents I have a son who wants to drop out of high #school. My
#parents thought me crazy, but I'm happy for my son!
Again as a machine: "this is a notice to the Parents group that is
about a member's parents and school."
While both of these notices are well under 140 characters so they can
accommodate a doubling of a tag and a group, which I think in both of
these examples is extremely reasonable, but of course sometimes lots
of people (myself included) have trouble fitting everything we want to
say into the 140-character limit. It is in those situations only that
I'd think to use one of those (admittedly ugly looking) "banghash"
contractions. (And they are just like English-language contractions in
the patch I explored it with: I'll = I will, !#parents = !parents
#parents)
I think the fact that so many of our current groups (like !ubuntu)
are related to particular topics makes this even more confusing, but
I think that as groups mature this will become less of an issue.
Very much agreed.
I'd be happy to add an additional tag for each group in a message,
so that "!php hello world" is automatically tagged with "php" and
will show up in the tag stream for that tag. That would at least
save people the trouble of having to add an extra hashtag.
-Evan
I'm not sure this is a good idea. As you say, so many of our current
groups (like !php) are about particular topics so this would
*probably* make sense for a group like that. I'm concerned that it
won't make sense for *all* groups *all* the time, however, and in
those situations getting automatically tagged could be a surprise to
more people than the other way around. Also, it might clutter a
legitimate stream of tagged notices. For instance:
!php Did you guys see Ramus's shoes?!? I like polka-dots, too!
This, clearly, is not a notice about PHP itself, but could very well
be something that is sent to the PHP group. In a case like that, auto-
tagging the notice would feel a little "the system went behind my
back" to me.
All of this, of course = just my 2¢.
Cheers,
-Meitar Moscovitz
Personal: http://maymay.net
Professional: http://MeitarMoscovitz.com
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