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List:       kde-pim
Subject:    Re: [Kde-pim] Request for Comment - A Tag based
From:       Punit Agrawal <punit () cs ! mcgill ! ca>
Date:       2006-05-01 23:18:54
Message-ID: 4456975E.3080805 () cs ! mcgill ! ca
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> That's my vision, too. A content manager that lets you organize and browse any 
> information, regardless whether it's a mail, file, website, note.... Maybe 
> the usability people can give input here from the usability POV, iirc someone 
> (Jan?) had some ideas about such a content manager.
> 
/me dreamily looks into the future... :)

>> A quick retrieval system like spotlight/quicksilver via our very own
>> kicker on steroids would allow direct user access to the infrastructure
>> - so filtering on 'toread' would list all the items tagged such and I
>> could quickly select one. This would work similar to del.icio.us but on
>> a much broader range of data than just bookmarks. And also I think
>> del.icio.us doesn't support multiple tag filtering which severly
>> restricts it's usefulness.
> 
> With tag filtering you mean combining tags like "kde+desktop", "soccer+match"?
> 
Yes. So imagine you have "todo+reading", "todo+chores" etc.

> Filtering of tags is crucial I think, especially when using flat tags.
> An advantage of tags is the ability to tag arbitrary data, on the other hand, 
> the number of tags can explode quickly so you get a unmanagable mess (where a 
> folder hierarchy gives you at least some "entry points", and you can 
> search ). Also, some tags will be only useful in certain contexts in most 
> cases, like tags used for mp3s might be just noise in your email client 
> (_but_ sometimes, you just want to do that, tag a mail and a mp3 with the 
> same tag).
> 
Exactly. Tagging is allowing the user the flexibility to bunch/cluster 
items in a way which makes semantic sense to him/her.

But this also raises an interesting question -
Imagine kmail asking for all items with tag "x", where "x" is also a tag 
for an mp3. In which case it wouldn't do for kmail to be given the mp3 
entry from the database.

Proposed solutions -
1. A concept similar to namespaces

But why involve additional vocabulary when the current one would suffice.

2. Support for two classes of tags - user tag and application tag. 
Application tag indicates ownership. Infact too keep the system as 
consistent as possible instead, we could adopt a convention where 
something like "@@@tag" (something which the user is unlikely to use) is 
used for internal purposes "@@@mail", "@@@todocategory" etc


>> * How about Tenor?
>> Tenor seems to be taking the other extreme. Though closer in
>> purpose/ideology to what is proposed except that it doesn't support
>> explicit user hinting (at least that is my understanding from the
>> documents I could find). But I would really like to see if it is
>> possible to re-concile both the approaches in a way that the sum is
>> greater than the parts. Tenor seems to be a very promising approach.
> 
> What do you mean by user-hinting? Automatic classification? Or the opposite, 
> explicit filing by the user? Tenor would support both, although the vision is 
> to do it as automatically as possible. Well, whether to prefer manual or 
> automatic filing depends on many variables IMHO: a) quality of automatic 
> classification b) user type (control freak vs. laissez-fair) c) value of the 
> information (important information with personal value you might want to file 
> manually to be safe).
> The roadmap here could be to start conservatively (manual filing) and explore 
> the possibilities of automatic classification. Ideally the user can decide 
> where to use what.

User Hinting - allowing the user to specify his/her own tags. Not the 
best choice of words I guess. User providing hint explicitly.

The way I was thinking about it was that there would be some amount of 
tagging going on automatically at the application level and additional 
tagging from the user. Which is why I thought Tenor and this should be 
done together. Tenor is taking the tag system to the next level (much 
bigger leap though).

Punit
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