Yes, it is a tricky one. I'm don't know what I'd like to do here. Here
are some responses to the points you brought up.
On Sep 29, 2005, at 12:53 PM, Allen Gilliland wrote:
This indeed is a tricky situation.
The way we allow for parent/child categories right now is pretty
similar. What would happen to that if we allowed for multiple
categories? I think we would definitely be pushing the complexity
boundries if we allowed for both multiple categories as well as
hierarchical categories, plus having tag support.
I disagree. We'd be replacing a many-to-one with a many-to-many
relationship and that's pretty much it.
I definitely agree that the existing hierarchical category (and
bookmark folder) code is complex and a somewhat confusing. Part of that
is due to the goal of making recursive queries possible with only one
SQL statement and supporting both categories and bookmark folders, but
it could definitely use some refactoring.
On Thu, 2005-09-29 at 08:31, Dave Johnson wrote:
I agree with James. Weblog categories is a feature that is incomplete.
Most blog servers support multiple categories and we should too.
true, but none of those blog servers support tagging and as Elias
suggested, once you introduce tagging in many ways you probably don't
need categories.
Other servers are supporting tagging too. Pebble (by Simon Brown, used
by HP) is one example and I think it support both categories and tags.
I think LiveJournal is another.
But yes, on second thought, it is appealing to rip out the complex
hierarchical cats code. I wouldn't mind doing that. Since both
categories and bookmarks use the hierarchy stuff, we'd use tags in the
bookmarks system too -- Roller would have del.icio.us built right in.
Here's some data to consider.
This blog software matrix seems to show that the majority of blog
servers DO NOT have hierarchical cats:
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/images/blog_software_comparison.cfm
This one indicates that a majority of blogs servers DO support multiple
categories:
http://www.asymptomatic.net/blogbreakdown.htm
No mention of hierarchical categories in this analysis of a corporate
blog server "win"
<http://www.corante.com/strange/archives/2005/06/13/
dark_blogs_case_study_01_a_european_pharmaceutical_group.php>
or http://tinyurl.com/asrap
Is hierarchy the fundamental difference between categories and tags?
What can you do with tags that Roller categories don't allow? Assign
multiple tags to each blog entry. Create new tags on the fly. Easily
query for tags across multiple blogs. We could modify Roller categories
to allow those things and be more like tags.
So far I see three options:
1) Complete categories by allowing multiple and add tags too
2) Replace existing category (and bookmark folder) code with tags
3) Refactor and rework existing category system so that it acts like
tags
Other ideas?
- Dave
