Currently (as of the addition of tag muffling) we've effectively got two systems of user-controlled post metadata (cws and #tags, but I'll be calling them all "tags" in this post) with several overlapping features:
allow users to search content
allow users to apply filters to content
for search, we have:
tags for site-wide search
tags for page-wide search
for filtering, we have:
tags that are opt-out-to-see
tags that are opt-in-to-see
the current system has:
#tags: filter (opt-out), search (site + page)
cws: filter (opt-in), no search
I do think it could be useful to have a way to control these at a finer level, but then, actually making this simple and intuitive to use in common cases would be a challenge, and the current system works well enough.
However! If we ignore the problems of designing an intuitive and simple interface and just speculate on functionality, I have a few ideas, and I'm keen to have them pulled apart and improved. Maybe they can lead to further improvements to the tagging system, even if they aren't directly implemented:
design 1: i don't actually want this, but it's a good baseline to compare the others to
every tag applied to a post is visible on the post. beyond that, everything else is optional.
if a user wants a particular tag to affect search results, they choose whether it appears in site search, page search on their page, or both.
if a user wants a particular tag to affect whether a post is hidden behind a click-through, they can choose whether to make that opt-in (e.g. cw's) or opt-out (e.g. muffling).
I hate this design. Too many toggles, and a lot of these cases feel redundant. e.g. if someone has tagged a post "#star wars" only for search purposes, why shouldn't I be able to filter it if I hate star wars? If I tag something "#cooking" for site search, why would I ever want that post to not appear in the "#cooking" tag on my page?
design 2: a bit more refined but still could probably be better
every tag applied to a post is visible on the post, and every tag can be filtered out (i.e. you can do muffling to it). beyond that, everything else is optional.
if a user wants a particular tag to affect search results, it will always appear in page search on their page. they choose whether it appears in site search or not.
if
a user wants a particular tag to make their post opt-in (like cw's do), they can choose that.
Xoey
Currently (as of the addition of tag muffling) we've effectively got two systems of user-controlled post metadata (cws and #tags, but I'll be calling them all "tags" in this post) with several overlapping features:
for search, we have:
for filtering, we have:
the current system has:
I do think it could be useful to have a way to control these at a finer level, but then, actually making this simple and intuitive to use in common cases would be a challenge, and the current system works well enough.
However! If we ignore the problems of designing an intuitive and simple interface and just speculate on functionality, I have a few ideas, and I'm keen to have them pulled apart and improved. Maybe they can lead to further improvements to the tagging system, even if they aren't directly implemented:
design 1: i don't actually want this, but it's a good baseline to compare the others to
I hate this design. Too many toggles, and a lot of these cases feel redundant. e.g. if someone has tagged a post "#star wars" only for search purposes, why shouldn't I be able to filter it if I hate star wars? If I tag something "#cooking" for site search, why would I ever want that post to not appear in the "#cooking" tag on my page?
design 2: a bit more refined but still could probably be better
2 people like this idea