[uf-discuss] hCa* CATEGORIES as TAGS

[Jon Tan]

Benjamin Carlyle <benjamincarlyle at optusnet.com.au> wrote:

> [...]If you wanted
> your post to be associated with those tags, why didn't you structure
> your site's categorisation in the same way? I suspect that if the
> information isn't useful to users browsing your pages then it isn't
> really something that should be visible to them, and perhaps should not
> exist at all.

One practical reason I structured our site with categories and tags is to 
cater for folks searching for information with different depths in 
vocabulary. E.g. some folks will be interested in the category 'code' 
generally but not be specifically looking for information on a specific tag 
that might be used in a post like, 'php'. The category name appears on the 
site and in the URI. The tag is linked via Technorati to other posts tagged 
with that subject. So the seperation of categories and tags allows wide 
broadcasting of the content and narrow broadcasting at the same time which 
may give better access to folks with different interest / knowledge levels 
in the audience. It's by no means perfect, but it does allow someone 
interested in reading generally about, 'code' to also see specific articles 
that also relate to (for example) Microformats. Also vice versa. It could 
been seen as an attempt at a very simple controlled vocabulary with the tags 
as sub-categories but it's rather an attempt at widening the viewport.

Jon Tan
www.gr0w.com