Michael Wayne Goodman wrote:
> It seems this "tags vs folders" thing is debated all over the place
> (not just f-spot), so I set up a simple Drupal poll to see what people
> think.
>
> http://goodmami.org/?q=node/4
>
> I set it up so you can vote without logging in, therefore the results
> cannot be taken too seriously, but it might be a good indicator of
> where preferences lie (which could guide future development).
>
> If you have a second, please vote once for your preference. I only
> included the options "Folders", "Tags", "Both", and "Other", so if
> your choice isn't represented you can write something in the comments
> (or to this mailinglist). Note that for comments, if you don't log
> in, the comment will be held for moderation, so it won't show up
> immediately.
>
> (Anyway, sorry for posting a link to my personal site, but I needed
> somewhere to host the poll. There is no advertising or anything on
> the site. If this is still a no-no, please let me know)
>
> Hope to get some good responses!
>
> On 7/11/07, Daniel Falk <f-spot mbx zapto org> wrote:
>> Todd,
>> I really enjoy discussing this stuff. You have a different perspective
>> that I'm trying to be more aware of.
>> >> A simple example. Let's say you went to venice and decided to tag
>> >> it The
>> >> Streets and Venice. Then you wanted to change the tag to be "The
>> >> Canals".
>> >> But you can't, because the tag doesn't correspond to a complete idea,
>> >> but
>> >> only a set of words.
>> > Why not? Don't we use words to represent ideas? I could easily change
>> > the tag from "streets" to "canals". Maybe I just want to find all the
>> > canal pictures I have, I don't want to have to search for
>> > canals+venice, canals+eerie, canals+someotherplacethathascanals. Or
>> > even drill down some hierarchy like Places > Planets > Earth > Land >
>> > Continents > Europe > Countries > Italy > Cities > Venice > Canals.
>> While we use words to convey concepts, the concepts themselves are
>> separate from the word we use. "The Streets of Rome" can be a single
>> concept, whereas the words are many. And it often goes the other way
>> too, where you have one word corresponding to several different
>> concepts. The bottom line: words are not the same thing as concepts.
>>
>> When organizing photos, I'm interested in the concept more than the
>> words. Otherwise I could just type keywords for every picture. Some
>> photo organizers work that way. I don't find that powerful enough. So
>> I'd rather have a tag that corresponds to the concept [streets of rome]
>> if I so choose, that allows me to put whatever words I feel like on
>> the tag.
>>
>> Perhaps in the case of Rome and streets, that makes good sense to have a
>> Streets tag and a Rome tag. But consider this example. I have pictures
>> of my family and my wife's family. I've taken pictures of my mom and my
>> wife's. So I have a "Mom" tag and a "My Family" tag and a "Wife's
>> family" tag. My mother-in-law is tagged with "Mom" and "Wife's
>> family". Now let's suppose I want to rename the "Mom" tag to "Wife's
>> mom". It will rename all the mothers in my entire photo collection to
>> "Wife's Mom". Clearly not what I want. That was my point about the
>> "Canals" example earlier as well. It comes when you want to assign new
>> words to your tag.
>>
>> I hope that's clearer. I'm poor at explaining this, as you might have
>> noticed.
>> >> It's not that I don't see the value of a list or cloud, but can't we
>> >> allow
>> >> for both concepts in the same interface?
>> > I'm not a developer, just a user.
>> I am a developer, so maybe that's why I see things differently, but I'm
>> also into photography on the side. So far I have not contributed to
>> F-Spot as far as development goes, but I am interested in doing so in
>> the future.
>> >> In my humble opinion, it's a deficiency to not allow tag names to
>> >> have the
>> >> same name. Unnecessary, and confusing to certain people. Should
>> this
>> >> discussion go to the bug report? Does anybody have the link for
>> that?
>> > It sounds like you want nested folders and I want tags. I think Picasa
>> > allows for both options in its interface, though the last time I
>> > looked the tags interface was rather clunky. I believe they called
>> > them keywords, but you can also use I think what they call albums.
>> Perhaps I want something closer to nested folders. But those aren't
>> powerful enough either. Linux give you the ability to nest folders
>> without using a photo manager like f-spot, so if that's all I wanted,
>> the file system would suffice.
>>
>> If you want a good example of what I like (as far as tags go), there is
>> a program called Adobe Photoshop Album on windows.
>>
>> I never liked picasa's system because I found the folders too weak and
>> the labels too weak. If they were put together into the same thing like
>> Photoshop Album does, then it would have the best of both worlds.
>> > Can you just clarify why you need to use duplicate tags? I still don't
>> > understand. I mean as an end-user, I'm just interested in your process
>> > since obviously I'm not doing any coding.
>> It's not duplicate tags, but rather tags that happen to have the same
>> name. I just think they ought to be able to have the same name as long
>> as the tags have different parent tags. I mean, if my brother's name is
>> Gary and I went to school in Gary, Indiana, I wouldn't want them both
>> showing up all the time if I wanted to search for one or the other. One
>> solution is to name the tags "Gary, the brother" and "Gary, the place".
>> Or you could do Places > Gary and People > Gary.
>>
>> By the way, I really like your idea about related tags for when you
>> select "giraffe" and it gives you a list of related tags you have. I
>> think your approach to organization makes perfect sense, especially for
>> you, but I would like something capable of doing something more powerful
>> as well. I don't see why the system shouldn't be capable of doing
>> both. Therefore, if you don't like Category tags, don't make any, and
>> it should work fine.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
What does your poll mean by both? It's been my point that tags could
have a hierarchical structure without affecting those who want a flat
structure (i.e., pleases both points of view). Is that what you mean by
both? Or do you mean like how picasa does it?