I had an excellent lunch-time conversation with a few mates from here at TrustMe Security as well as Derek Hatchard from ArdentDev. So good was the conversation that I thought I’d bring the underlying question (in my mind) to the web and try to get some feedback.
At issue were the fundamentally different styles of tagging that we use. Although the differences in the end result of our methodologies is minimal, I think I can learn by understanding them. My main motivation is to find the best possible tagging methodology for myself while making my tags relevant for others to find the content.
So my questions are:
- How do you tag your content?
- What, if any, questions do you ask yourself when determining tags for your content?
- Do these questions differ based on the tag provider? (e.g. is your methodology fundamentally different when tagging for digg, delicious, you own blog, etc.?).
For example, when I tag for del.icio.us I sometimes pretend I’m telling somebody about the site I am tagging and use tags based on how I’d describe it to them. I think I am likely to use those words/phrases again when searching for this bookmark in the future. Until recently I didn’t really understand any other way of doing it. See? I need some feedback!