1. Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by jeremy (admin) Oct 31, 2010
- 1245 views
Categories work for messages also. See message:113229. I added the Tip Category to the topic (same as wiki page, add Category whatever to the bottom). Now see wiki:CategoryTip. Notice you can toggle between only wiki resources or show all resources. Click on "all"
In an environment like ours many times the forum will contain new product announcements, cool solutions to problems everyone encounters, questions that others will be seeking the answer to as well. Although there is a search function it's sometimes hard to nail down a forum post you are looking for or one that you hope exists. Thus, with the new category system we can categorize forum posts also. For example there may be a FAQ Category, maybe a message is asking a How To question about Win32 lib, etc... By categorizing posts in a friendly manner (and not overdoing it!) we can now easily find those via the Category interface.
Jeremy
CategoryWiki
2. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by DanM Oct 31, 2010
- 1320 views
Categories work for messages also. See message:113229. I added the Tip Category to the topic (same as wiki page, add Category whatever to the bottom). Now see wiki:CategoryTip. Notice you can toggle between only wiki resources or show all resources. Click on "all"
In an environment like ours many times the forum will contain new product announcements, cool solutions to problems everyone encounters, questions that others will be seeking the answer to as well. Although there is a search function it's sometimes hard to nail down a forum post you are looking for or one that you hope exists. Thus, with the new category system we can categorize forum posts also. For example there may be a FAQ Category, maybe a message is asking a How To question about Win32 lib, etc... By categorizing posts in a friendly manner (and not overdoing it!) we can now easily find those via the Category interface.
Jeremy
CategoryWiki
Ok, I'm finding this "Categories" idea/system interesting, probably powerful, but still somewhat confusing.
For instance, I see you have "categorized" this page into the Wiki category, but what would you maybe categorize it to reflect it's contents so that it could, as you indicate, be more easily found than the search facility?
And where might we find a LIST of possibly relevant categories, so if people DO categorize some posts, we won't end up with a million different terms of categorization for fundamentally similar categories?
Dan
3. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by jeremy (admin) Nov 01, 2010
- 1624 views
For instance, I see you have "categorized" this page into the Wiki category, but what would you maybe categorize it to reflect it's contents so that it could, as you indicate, be more easily found than the search facility?
Hm. I would categorize it as CategoryWiki because it deals with the maintaining the wiki. I'm not sure I would put it in another category. The CategoryWiki has pages such as CreoleHelp, Sandbox (place for people to test editing/formatting) and WikiCategories (describes how to use wiki categories).
And where might we find a LIST of possibly relevant categories, so if people DO categorize some posts, we won't end up with a million different terms of categorization for fundamentally similar categories?
Well, at this point it's like most other wikis that implement categories... at the humans mercy. Now, what saves the day is a few people who monitor the wiki and keep things in check. Our wiki is not huge. I'd imagine that after a few weeks we'll have 20 categories or so. Not too many. As the wiki grows we can look into adding functionality to list or suggest categories, doing fuzzy matching when saving and giving prompts like "Did you mean CategoryWin32Lib instead of CategoryWin32?"
but.. for now it's the human. I know of quite a few wiki's that are maintained in this fashion that have > 40,000 pages and hundreds of contributors. We have some room and time to grow.
Jeremy
4. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by DanM Nov 01, 2010
- 1442 views
For instance, I see you have "categorized" this page into the Wiki category, but what would you maybe categorize it to reflect it's contents so that it could, as you indicate, be more easily found than the search facility?
Hm. I would categorize it as CategoryWiki because it deals with the maintaining the wiki. I'm not sure I would put it in another category. The CategoryWiki has pages such as CreoleHelp, Sandbox (place for people to test editing/formatting) and WikiCategories (describes how to use wiki categories).
Well, no, this message is really informing people that they can use the "Category" system to "index" FORUM messages, right? Not actually about MAINTAINING the WIKI, I think, but rather about USING the Wiki to find forum messages?
And where might we find a LIST of possibly relevant categories, so if people DO categorize some posts, we won't end up with a million different terms of categorization for fundamentally similar categories?
Well, at this point it's like most other wikis that implement categories... at the humans mercy. Now, what saves the day is a few people who monitor the wiki and keep things in check. Our wiki is not huge. I'd imagine that after a few weeks we'll have 20 categories or so. Not too many. As the wiki grows we can look into adding functionality to list or suggest categories, doing fuzzy matching when saving and giving prompts like "Did you mean CategoryWin32Lib instead of CategoryWin32?"
but.. for now it's the human. I know of quite a few wiki's that are maintained in this fashion that have > 40,000 pages and hundreds of contributors. We have some room and time to grow.
Jeremy
Ok, that sounds reasonable, but since this post is about how the categorizing system works also with FORUM POSTS, I still suggest that if there were a specific LIST of all FORUM categories to reference to, then people could see existing categories to USE for FORUM posts, instead of creating many many unnecessarily different but fundamentally similar categories.
5. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by jimcbrown (admin) Nov 01, 2010
- 1533 views
For instance, I see you have "categorized" this page into the Wiki category, but what would you maybe categorize it to reflect it's contents so that it could, as you indicate, be more easily found than the search facility?
Hm. I would categorize it as CategoryWiki because it deals with the maintaining the wiki. I'm not sure I would put it in another category. The CategoryWiki has pages such as CreoleHelp, Sandbox (place for people to test editing/formatting) and WikiCategories (describes how to use wiki categories).
Well, no, this message is really informing people that they can use the "Category" system to "index" FORUM messages, right? Not actually about MAINTAINING the WIKI, I think, but rather about USING the Wiki to find forum messages?
I feel the message fulfills both categories. That is,
1) It explains how to find forum messages using the Categories feature of the wiki.
2) It explains how to maintain the Categories entries on the wiki by tagging forum messages appropriately, and provides an example of doing so.
That is, by tagging forum messages, you add to the wiki.
And where might we find a LIST of possibly relevant categories, so if people DO categorize some posts, we won't end up with a million different terms of categorization for fundamentally similar categories?
Well, at this point it's like most other wikis that implement categories... at the humans mercy. Now, what saves the day is a few people who monitor the wiki and keep things in check. Our wiki is not huge. I'd imagine that after a few weeks we'll have 20 categories or so. Not too many. As the wiki grows we can look into adding functionality to list or suggest categories, doing fuzzy matching when saving and giving prompts like "Did you mean CategoryWin32Lib instead of CategoryWin32?"
but.. for now it's the human. I know of quite a few wiki's that are maintained in this fashion that have > 40,000 pages and hundreds of contributors. We have some room and time to grow.
Jeremy
Ok, that sounds reasonable, but since this post is about how the categorizing system works also with FORUM POSTS, I still suggest that if there were a specific LIST of all FORUM categories to reference to, then people could see existing categories to USE for FORUM posts, instead of creating many many unnecessarily different but fundamentally similar categories.
Why can't we use the same categories for wiki and forum posts? The wiki already has a filter option, so if you only want the wiki entries in a category or vice versa, you can do this.
6. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by jeremy (admin) Nov 01, 2010
- 1214 views
Well, no, this message is really informing people that they can use the "Category" system to "index" FORUM messages, right? Not actually about MAINTAINING the WIKI, I think, but rather about USING the Wiki to find forum messages?
It's not necessarily about finding messages via the wiki, it's about using wiki categories to group like content.
Ok, that sounds reasonable, but since this post is about how the categorizing system works also with FORUM POSTS, I still suggest that if there were a specific LIST of all FORUM categories to reference to, then people could see existing categories to USE for FORUM posts, instead of creating many many unnecessarily different but fundamentally similar categories.
The power in categories is that it can show resources of any type. Forum categories should be the same as Wiki categories. When viewing resources in Category Tip, I don't really care if it's a forum message or a wiki, what I care about is that it's a tip to show me some cool thing with Euphoria I hadn't thought about before.
Jeremy
7. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by jimcbrown (admin) Nov 01, 2010
- 1189 views
Well, no, this message is really informing people that they can use the "Category" system to "index" FORUM messages, right? Not actually about MAINTAINING the WIKI, I think, but rather about USING the Wiki to find forum messages?
Now that I think of it, I'm not sure if this is a good idea. You can't go and edit a forum message to remove it from a Category, the way you can with a wiki page.
And where might we find a LIST of possibly relevant categories, so if people DO categorize some posts, we won't end up with a million different terms of categorization for fundamentally similar categories?
Ok, that sounds reasonable, but since this post is about how the categorizing system works also with FORUM POSTS, I still suggest that if there were a specific LIST of all FORUM categories to reference to, then people could see existing categories to USE for FORUM posts, instead of creating many many unnecessarily different but fundamentally similar categories.
Well, we have a human-maintained list of categories, but some sort of automated list of categories might be useful for the people who maintain the human-maintained list.
8. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by DanM Nov 01, 2010
- 1215 views
Well, no, this message is really informing people that they can use the "Category" system to "index" FORUM messages, right? Not actually about MAINTAINING the WIKI, I think, but rather about USING the Wiki to find forum messages?
It's not necessarily about finding messages via the wiki, it's about using wiki categories to group like content.
Well, I guess I got confused and thought it WAS about finding messages via the wiki, because you said,
"Although there is a search function it's sometimes hard to nail down a forum post you are looking for or one that you hope exists. Thus, with the new category system we can categorize forum posts also."
Ok, that sounds reasonable, but since this post is about how the categorizing system works also with FORUM POSTS, I still suggest that if there were a specific LIST of all FORUM categories to reference to, then people could see existing categories to USE for FORUM posts, instead of creating many many unnecessarily different but fundamentally similar categories.
The power in categories is that it can show resources of any type. Forum categories should be the same as Wiki categories. When viewing resources in Category Tip, I don't really care if it's a forum message or a wiki, what I care about is that it's a tip to show me some cool thing with Euphoria I hadn't thought about before.
ok, that sounds reasonable to me
9. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by DerekParnell (admin) Nov 01, 2010
- 1203 views
Now that I think of it, I'm not sure if this is a good idea. You can't go and edit a forum message to remove it from a Category, the way you can with a wiki page.
Forum posts can be edited by Admins and by the creator.
10. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by jeremy (admin) Nov 01, 2010
- 1178 views
It's not necessarily about finding messages via the wiki, it's about using wiki categories to group like content.
Well, I guess I got confused and thought it WAS about finding messages via the wiki, because you said,
"Although there is a search function it's sometimes hard to nail down a forum post you are looking for or one that you hope exists. Thus, with the new category system we can categorize forum posts also."
Sorry for the confusion. I should have said something to the effect of organizing differing resource types into categories.
Jeremy
11. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by jimcbrown (admin) Nov 01, 2010
- 1175 views
Now that I think of it, I'm not sure if this is a good idea. You can't go and edit a forum message to remove it from a Category, the way you can with a wiki page.
Forum posts can be edited by Admins and by the creator.
The author of the post may later leave the forum. Then no one but admins (and moderators?) can make the necessary updates. This is imvho somewhat contrary to the spirit of a wiki.
12. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by DanM Nov 01, 2010
- 1196 views
Well, no, this message is really informing people that they can use the "Category" system to "index" FORUM messages, right? Not actually about MAINTAINING the WIKI, I think, but rather about USING the Wiki to find forum messages?
Now that I think of it, I'm not sure if this is a good idea. You can't go and edit a forum message to remove it from a Category, the way you can with a wiki page.
Yes, that does sound like a real problem, I just liked the basic idea of "categorizing"/indexing posts for easier later retrieval, as Jeremy alluded to at the top of this thread. Maybe forum admins could take care of removing posts from a Category when necessary?
13. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by jeremy (admin) Nov 01, 2010
- 1200 views
Now that I think of it, I'm not sure if this is a good idea. You can't go and edit a forum message to remove it from a Category, the way you can with a wiki page.
Forum posts can be edited by Admins and by the creator.
They can also be added during creation and by the author, who can edit his/her message. They cannot be edited by just anyone, so that is the difference between a message and a wiki page for this purpose. However, that does not take away the great utility that categorizing messages gives us.
One problem with many sites is that when you go to them you have to search the forum, then the docs, then the wiki pages. Some can search all three at the same time (we can) but being able to categorize all in one lump category is something I've not seen before. I'm pretty excited about how that will enable people to find the information they are looking for, even if they didn't know it existed! For example, CategoryTip or CategoryHowTo
Jeremy
14. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by DerekParnell (admin) Nov 01, 2010
- 1241 views
The author of the post may later leave the forum. Then no one but admins (and moderators?) can make the necessary updates. This is imvho somewhat contrary to the spirit of a wiki.
True, it is not in the spirit of a wiki but then this is a forum and not a wiki anyhow.
What I was trying to get across was the idea that even if a forum message had been categorized as 'X', it does not therefore mean that that message will forever be in that category. The message can be edited (by a limited set of people, sure) to remove or re-categorize it as appropriate. Forums have moderators for this very purpose - to make sure message content is acceptable.
15. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by jimcbrown (admin) Nov 01, 2010
- 1194 views
The author of the post may later leave the forum. Then no one but admins (and moderators?) can make the necessary updates. This is imvho somewhat contrary to the spirit of a wiki.
True, it is not in the spirit of a wiki but then this is a forum and not a wiki anyhow.
What I was trying to get across was the idea that even if a forum message had been categorized as 'X', it does not therefore mean that that message will forever be in that category. The message can be edited (by a limited set of people, sure) to remove or re-categorize it as appropriate. Forums have moderators for this very purpose - to make sure message content is acceptable.
Yes, but these aren't forum categories (in the sense that post X should have gone into the "OpenEuphoria website" subforum instead of the "Win32Lib" subforum). We're attaching forum messages to categories which are stored in the wiki.
I don't have a problem with being able to add forum messages to the Categories, the issue I have is that only a limited set of people can do this. I see no justification for this.
16. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by DerekParnell (admin) Nov 01, 2010
- 1225 views
Yes, but these aren't forum categories (in the sense that post X should have gone into the "OpenEuphoria website" subforum instead of the "Win32Lib" subforum). We're attaching forum messages to categories which are stored in the wiki.
I don't have a problem with being able to add forum messages to the Categories, the issue I have is that only a limited set of people can do this. I see no justification for this.
Either I don't understand what you are saying, or you (or I) don't understand what Categories are about.
Categories are not stored in the wiki. The wiki engine happens to be the tool to show you what items are in a specific category, but the items themselves can be wiki pages, forum messages, ticket comments, etc ...
Anyone can add their forum posts to any category they like. This is not being restricted to only a limited set of people. And note, it is the forum message being added to a category and not the forum topic. This means that it is possible for each message in a given topic to belong to different categories, if that's what the message authors choose to do.
Also, any given message can belong to multiple categories. This is not a restriction either.
17. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by jimcbrown (admin) Nov 01, 2010
- 1178 views
Yes, but these aren't forum categories (in the sense that post X should have gone into the "OpenEuphoria website" subforum instead of the "Win32Lib" subforum). We're attaching forum messages to categories which are stored in the wiki.
I don't have a problem with being able to add forum messages to the Categories, the issue I have is that only a limited set of people can do this. I see no justification for this.
Either I don't understand what you are saying
Yeah...
Anyone can add their forum posts to any category they like. This is not being restricted to only a limited set of people.
Looking back at the email archive, I see a lot of messages that might be categorized as Category "UsefulWin32LibTips" or such. I'll go ahead and tag them as such .. oops! Can't.
Very well. I've counted them out to be 1,224 separate messages. I'll need to contact an admin and notify them to add these messages into the new Category that I want to create. Derek, I've emailed you the 1,224 links and expect you to have this task completed ASAP.
18. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by mattlewis (admin) Nov 01, 2010
- 1166 views
Looking back at the email archive, I see a lot of messages that might be categorized as Category "UsefulWin32LibTips" or such. I'll go ahead and tag them as such .. oops! Can't.
Very well. I've counted them out to be 1,224 separate messages. I'll need to contact an admin and notify them to add these messages into the new Category that I want to create. Derek, I've emailed you the 1,224 links and expect you to have this task completed ASAP.
This certainly isn't the only way to get them connected to the category. It's super easy to link to a message--I assume the [[message:1234~]~] link now works from the wiki. So create a wiki page that links to the messages, and categorize the wiki page. I guess it's maybe not as convenient as directly editing the post, but probably no less useful to the end user looking for information. And easy enough for anyone to do.
Matt
19. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by jeremy (admin) Nov 01, 2010
- 1189 views
Anyone can add their forum posts to any category they like. This is not being restricted to only a limited set of people.
Looking back at the email archive, I see a lot of messages that might be categorized as Category "UsefulWin32LibTips" or such. I'll go ahead and tag them as such .. oops! Can't.
Very well. I've counted them out to be 1,224 separate messages. I'll need to contact an admin and notify them to add these messages into the new Category that I want to create. Derek, I've emailed you the 1,224 links and expect you to have this task completed ASAP.
It may not be perfect, but it's a very useful function. Maybe you can make a feature request to allow users to add categories to a message? I can see if the user is Authenticated then allow them to Categorize a message by entering in a text box the categories they wish to add. For example:
+---------------------------------------------------+ | Subject: New version of Win32Lib released | | Body: Hello, I've released a new version of | +---------------------------------------------------+ | Reply, Reply with Quote, Categorize: ______ [add] | +---------------------------------------------------+
I can also see where it might be nice to recognize a category link and provide a little superscript (x) to it to remove the category.
All this should be discussed in whatever ticket would be written up.
Jeremy
20. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by jimcbrown (admin) Nov 01, 2010
- 1153 views
Looking back at the email archive, I see a lot of messages that might be categorized as Category "UsefulWin32LibTips" or such. I'll go ahead and tag them as such .. oops! Can't.
Very well. I've counted them out to be 1,224 separate messages. I'll need to contact an admin and notify them to add these messages into the new Category that I want to create. Derek, I've emailed you the 1,224 links and expect you to have this task completed ASAP.
This certainly isn't the only way to get them connected to the category. It's super easy to link to a message--I assume the [[message:1234~]~] link now works from the wiki. So create a wiki page that links to the messages, and categorize the wiki page. I guess it's maybe not as convenient as directly editing the post, but probably no less useful to the end user looking for information. And easy enough for anyone to do.
Matt
But why not have everyone do this? Why have special support for categorizing forum messages directly at all, for anyone, then? What's the whole point? That's just a workaround for incomplete functionality, not a real solution.
(I admit that coming up with a real solution is not trivial.)
21. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by jimcbrown (admin) Nov 01, 2010
- 1166 views
Maybe you can make a feature request to allow users to add categories to a message? I can see if the user is Authenticated then allow them to Categorize a message by entering in a text box the categories they wish to add. For example:
+---------------------------------------------------+ | Subject: New version of Win32Lib released | | Body: Hello, I've released a new version of | +---------------------------------------------------+ | Reply, Reply with Quote, Categorize: ______ [add] | +---------------------------------------------------+
I can also see where it might be nice to recognize a category link and provide a little superscript (x) to it to remove the category.
All this should be discussed in whatever ticket would be written up.
Jeremy
Agreed. I'll go write up the ticket.
22. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by jeremy (admin) Nov 01, 2010
- 1131 views
But why not have everyone do this? Why have special support for categorizing forum messages directly at all, for anyone, then? What's the whole point? That's just a workaround for incomplete functionality, not a real solution.
(I admit that coming up with a real solution is not trivial.)
Here's a thought that may help. A wiki page is "public" property. My message post is my property (in a limited sense). Now categorizing a message is not taking away from what I said in my message or someone else assuming ownership but, that's just another way to look at it.
However... please see my previous message about creating a ticket. Also, just because it's not perfect you think it should be thrown out? A Yugo is not a Ferrari but if I have to go to the grocery store and it's what I have, I'll take it!
Jeremy
23. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by mattlewis (admin) Nov 01, 2010
- 1192 views
But why not have everyone do this? Why have special support for categorizing forum messages directly at all, for anyone, then? What's the whole point? That's just a workaround for incomplete functionality, not a real solution.
(I admit that coming up with a real solution is not trivial.)
I don't know...I just like to come up with quick workarounds. I haven't fully wrapped my head around the post categorization. But Jeremy's idea about a limited, structured way to tag posts with categories makes sense to me. It's really metadata, and it makes sense to allow the community to edit that, as opposed to editing the actual post.
Matt
24. Re: Categories work for messages as well
- Posted by DerekParnell (admin) Nov 01, 2010
- 1283 views
... Maybe you can make a feature request to allow users to add categories to a message? I can see if ...
All this should be discussed in whatever ticket would be written up.
It's nice that this is all written in Euphoria (and webclay etc ...) . Makes it easy to continually improve the system.
