To piggyback on what Haney's posted above: this format is an experiment he and I are conducting to see how we can include more and more people in the conversation by only discussing tagging here on omidyar.net.

This means Haney and I will not be talking about tagging face-to-face (or via phone or other non-omidyar.net-based methods), and I expect it'll be a challenge for us given the fact our desks are situated across the aisle from each other here in the office. If for some reason he and I slip and speak to each other about tagging not here on the discussion, we'll admit it in a comment and post as much of what we said as we can remember.

I fully expect this to be awkward to start, but it should get better over time.

I do want to echo Haney's tip of the cap to Norbert and Ted and Brad and Brandon and others who've tried mightily to make tagging happen despite the technology present on omidyar.net. You all have helped illustrate some of what's possible with tagging and we're looking forward to your helping make the formal inclusion of tagging work a lot better than without your input.

Looking forward to clarifying the goals for the tagging system with all of you and getting the prototype launched.

Dang... this is going to be tough. I just turned around and spoke to Haney to suggest he rename this discussion from "Tagging Goals" to something more compelling.

He's already agreed and done it. And I'm already admitting to having spoken to him.

Our beginning goals are to help people use omidyar.net to:

1. re-find content once they stumble upon it the first time by whatever means (a la del.icio.us)

2. point to content that others haven't yet seen (like Flickr)

3. find content they haven't yet seen (another user-created way to traverse the user-created content on omidyar.net)

4. track content in between visits to omidyar.net

My biggest concern here is helping people who are new to onet to be able to easily find groups or discussions that are of interest to them so that they can find a way to help make good things happen. (#3)

Secondarily, it would be nice to find things from the past.(#1)

Amazing that this happened just as we had started a new discussion on tagging!

That was a grand coincidence.

I agree that making omidyar.net net easier to navigate for new members is critical. My hope and expectation is that the tagging that members do for #1 will pay off for new members in #3.

Few questions and thoughts. Would tagging included in all profiles, posts, thread and groups? Would, could or should tagging be different in any of those four contexts?

One of the things about YouTube tagging that I like is first you must select one of 12 top level categories, then there are unlimited (virtually) personal tags users can create.

Plastic.com used to have a great tagging-like feature years ago. Oh, I just looked, they still do it.

Under each members profile they list the top 10 words each members uses in all their posts, and the number of times they've used the words.

I suspect they have avoid words like "the, a, he, she..." but could do better probably avoiding words like (since, might, every)

Still trying to noodle with how tags can be used for o/net members desiring taking action, maybe as simple as a "takeaction" tag, I'm not as deep into tagging as most people I suspect.

COOL!!! just tagging this thread! ;) back in a few hours

Mark Grimes said:

Still trying to noodle with how tags can be used for o/net members desiring taking action, maybe as simple as a "takeaction" tag, I'm not as deep into tagging as most people I suspect.

In the spirit of focusing on goals first: Does that translate into a goal?

Good point, I guess actionable content is not one of the initial four goals, it maybe just more of a function of using a tag perhaps.

It would be awesome if new users could immediately see how to use the tags to find people who want to discuss their favorite issues.

I'm imagining a two level hierarchy of tags, a cascading menu, with things like Energy:Solar or Energy:Conservation, etc. However, maybe it would be better to start with a simple one level list.

Maybe we could propose tags in a thread kind of like the Word Association Game, and then give points to the ones we like best.

David Frayne in Phoenix said:

It would be awesome if new users could immediately see how to use the tags to find people who want to discuss their favorite issues.

That sounds like it has goal potential.

interesting link nmw pos 50

Haney Armstrong said:

I’ve created a workspace that will reflect the evolving goals statement as we incorporate some of the ideas generated in this discussion.

Suggestion: use the "on-include" command to include the workspace at the top of the thread. That way, first-timers would be able to see the document being discussed -- and perhaps also invite them to participate (edit the workspace) with a link to edit the page.

Great news that this is now on the "to do" list. Let me also strongly suggest consulting experts who deal with the issues involved on a daily basis. One such expert is Marcia Bates (UCLA -- don't know if she's still there), to whose articles I have linked before.

[interesting link nmw pos 50]

Two things that have occurred to me at first blush:

1. Level of specificity of the tagging language/vocabulary

By this I mean: Can I have "personal" tags vs. "group" tags vs. "omidyar.net" tags (perhaps even vs. "offsite" [i.e. "WWW"]) tags? That way terms like like "genius" or "beautiful" need not influence other tags the way they might in a "sharing" environment (e.g. del.icio.us)

2. Are these tags supposed to be "open" to the wider internet?

For example: should they be links that might be ranked by a search engine that determines relevance using the the hyperlink text [cf. "miserable failure"]? If not, a solution could be sought that makes the tags only available within the omidyar.net context (if that were desired).

I am not advocating either position on either of these points -- I am just bringing them up as something to think about.

:) nmw

Oh, boy -- like:

Hear hear!

How about the goal of being able to get the gist of a 30 page thread by reading the posts that users tag as "central to the discussion".

Another goal is to allow off-topic stuff to be tagged so that people can skip it if they want to quickly read a discussion.

I really would like to see personal tags. Tags within a profile so that if someone posts in a profile, I like to sail, say, and if Gerry also posts, I am passionate about sailing, that would pop up. So then Gerry would see the newcomer and perhaps the newcomer would connect with Gerry because there would be a way to show who else mentions sailing in a profile. Or, say, in more the spirit of O/Net of collaboration, if I were to mention that I am interested in the plight of Native Americans, I would be able to see who else i interested in discussion and possible collaboration around helping support projects that would improve the life of Native Americans. If I know who might share common ground with me, then I am more likely to want to stick around. Maybe form groups accordingly. I'd also like to see less duplication of efforts. Perhaps when people think about forming a group, there would be a tag to an existing group. That would make navigation easier, too. OR when I am attempting to help newcomers navigate and my interests don't jive with theirs, it would better enable me to point them in the right direction and potentially connect with the people who would be of use to them. Straight off the bat.

>>4. track content in between visits to omidyar.net<<

I would giggle like a school girl if I could subscribe to a tag and every time (or a daily notice) someone put "social entrepreneur" in their profile I received a PM.

Ooooh! Can you do that, pretty please, just so I can imagine Mark giggling like a schoolgirl?

Silliness aside, that's a good idea. Or some other form of notification. I like the thought of a newcomer setting up a profile stating what their passions are and immediately seeing who they might connect to. I think more people would stick around and enrich the community if some profile connecting technology were instituted.

Mark Grimes said:

>>4. track content in between visits to omidyar.net<<

I would giggle like a school girl if I could subscribe to a tag and every time (or a daily notice) someone put "social entrepreneur" in their profile I received a PM.

would you want it only to send you an email when the profile was changed to add "social entrepreneur"? What if "social entrepreneur" appeared twice? Or how about if people kept writing "social entrepreneur" into their profiles, then removing "social entrepreneur", then writing "social entrepreneur" again?

Or how about a daily RSS feed that would keep you up to date in a daily basis of each and every profile that had the string "social entrepreneur" in it?

;D nmw

Glad to see the conversation is starting here!

I'm going to try responding to several folks in one comment to save space, but if it turns out you'd prefer I limit responding to one person per comment, let me know so I can change my method.

Norbert...

Thanks for the links to the work of Marcia Bates. Regarding the specificity, I think we're looking at one set of tags for all of omidyar.net, so that a person could see a list of every item tagged "Chicago" regardless of which group the item was in or who applied the tag. I think we're also looking for something that's specific to content here on omidyar.net v. the WWW writ large. Although I'd be really interested to see examples of tags that cross multiple domains.

I'm having a little trouble understanding how tags explain feedback, as I don't yet know how one would apply a tag to a feedback point.

David...

As I read your comment, it sounds like you're after something like a goal for synthesizing content. This is a really interesting concept. Have you seen other examples where tags have been used like you're describing (tagging on-/off-topic to shorten long discussions)? Please provide links!

Debbie...

It sounds like you're a strong advocate of both goal #3 (find content not previously seen) and of goal #1 (re-find content) as a way to both find new things for yourself and point others to the good stuff. One of my hopes with a tagging system here on omidyar.net is that there will be a new type of "group" (in addition to the current owner/sponsor kinds) that's based on shared tags.

I've created a workspace to capture a list of sites that use tagging so we can have some good "gimme some of that!" examples to look at together. Please add to Examples of Tagging Systems as you can.

Thomas Kriese said:

David...

As I read your comment, it sounds like you're after something like a goal for synthesizing content. This is a really interesting concept. Have you seen other examples where tags have been used like you're describing (tagging on-/off-topic to shorten long discussions)? Please provide links!

Interesting, Thomas -- my tagging has so far lengthened discussions rather than shortening them.

When I was an owner of the appreciation group I tried to bring "off topic" comments "on topic" -- and that was widely objected to (to the extent that I decided to resign as owner).

So in saying this should shorten and/or simplify discussions, I am intrigued -- does anyone feel this might actually be a goal (i.e., to "weed out" off topic comments from discussions in order to shorten them)?

Thomas, the first example that comes to mind is in places like match.com where you can select "Show Only Profiles With Pictures".

O/net has the "show only comments with feedback greater than X" feature, but feedback is given for lots of different reasons, and in varying amounts. Tagging shouldn't cost anything, people should just be able to tag something as, e.g., "Humorous", and then you could say, show only humorous comments in this thread.

Other tags that might be nice for comments: Off Topic, Central To Discussion, New Idea, Contrary View

Thomas Kriese said:

Norbert...

Thanks for the links to the work of Marcia Bates.

I have no idea, really, whether she is the expert (I actually doubt it, since I haven't really researched the literature all that much in the past years) -- but I did find those articles were very insightful. Perhaps if you contacted her she might be able to direct you to more "state of the art" resources.

Regarding the specificity, I think we're looking at one set of tags for all of omidyar.net, so that a person could see a list of every item tagged "Chicago" regardless of which group the item was in or who applied the tag.

I think this might make the system less reliable than if users were able to choose their level of specificity.

I think we're also looking for something that's specific to content here on omidyar.net v. the WWW writ large. Although I'd be really interested to see examples of tags that cross multiple domains.

see >> "miserable failure"

I'm having a little trouble understanding how tags explain feedback, as I don't yet know how one would apply a tag to a feedback point.

I just thought this would be neat-o (and I thought we weren't supposed to focus on the technical realization at this point)

From a going forward point once the feature was created I would like a daily PM of any "tags/keywords" subscribed too...much like the "Google Alerts" feature. And no RSS please, RSS tho simple isn’t something that's worked for me.

David Frayne in Phoenix said:

Other tags that might be nice for comments: Off Topic, Central To Discussion, New Idea, Contrary View

David,

you are on the right track here, I think -- especially if the tags are only for o.net wide use.

What you're addressing here is the "vocabulary" (and I think Debbie alluded to it also withe the idea of a "drop-down" list.

In previous discussions, Brad has proposed the idea of having a "moving target" list that might change over time (perhaps listing items by popularity). I feel this is a dangerous path (and one that would probably lead into a quagmire of items haphazardly tagged).

I still would prefer to have both omidyar-wide tags and also group-specific tags (or at least the ability to construct the database in a manner such that the "tag search" could be limited to specific groups).

nmw said:

I'm having a little trouble understanding how tags explain feedback, as I don't yet know how one would apply a tag to a feedback point.

I just thought this would be neat-o (and I thought we weren't supposed to focus on the technical realization at this point)

Thanks for the gentle reminder that we're not talking about implementation yet.

To help me better understand: an example of what you're talking about is what we see in the slashdot feedback labels? where both the quantity (a point) and a label (interesting, funny, off-topic, etc) are applied at the same time?