[Sigia-l] Tag separators in text fields - standardise please

[Louise Hewitt]

Hi,

interesting topic,

anyone thought about non-english speakers or alternative alphabets?

I know we all like to pretend it doesn't matter, but there are quite a  
lot of people in China after all it seems.

perhaps the carriage return is the best method, with forms that accept  
one term at a time and then collect the next following a carriage  
returns? That would give the semantic web a good kickstart in being  
able to tag with more specific attributes than single word terms, and  
re-use a familiar action that has been used for years by anyone  
involved in data entry for years (and that's a lot of people). And to  
my mind it's pretty universal.

Cheers,

Louise.

On 30 Jul 2008, at 16:01, Paola Kathuria wrote:

> Web sites which allow tagging of content provide a long
> text field which accept one of two delimiters:
>
> space: phrases must be quoted: pencil pen "ink blotter" desk (Flickr)
> space (no spaces in tags): pencil pen inkblotter, desk (delicious)
> comma: pencil, pen, ink blotter, desk (Kaboodle)
>
> However, most sites seem to be using commas as separators.
>
> I can imagine how someone thought that commas were better because
> a) they're normally how people write lists of things, b) quoting
> requires the shift key and is c) unintuitive. However, because
> there's no accepted standard, each time I register with a new web
> site nowadays, I have some moments of using the wrong format and
> end up with a sentence of tags.
>
> I would like sites to standardise on a space delimiter, quoting
> multi-word tags.
>
> Here's my reasoning: I reckon that most tags are single word and
> so NOT having to write commas between each would be easier and
> quicker to type. This more than makes up for having to quote
> uncommon multi-word tags.
>
> I see that this has been discussed before:
>
>   http://www.37signals.com/svn/archives2/tag_formats_cant_we_all_just_get_along.php
>   http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20060212/2940/
>   http://www.vimeo.com/forums/topic:5411
>
>
> Paola
> --
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---------------------

Louise Hewitt
Head of User Experience

Semantico, Floor 1, 21-23 Dyke Road, Brighton, BN1 3FE
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