I'm suprised to read what a co-founder of stackexchange thinks about the tagging sytem. From meta.discourse.org :

we saw on Stack Exchange that

1. Users don't understand how to navigate via tags
2. Average users tend to tag incorrectly, when they do tag
3. Even advanced users have strong disagreements about tagging
4. Get enough tags and you start needing a tag "hierarchy" and it's hellishly complicated to understand
5. Tag synonyms must exist, or things get ugly fast
6. The more tags you allow per (item) the worse all the above problems get

Tagging is not a system I am particularly fond of, based on four years eating, sleeping, living, and breathing a tagging system in Stack Exchange as the co-founder. YMMV.

and also:

My main observation is that if I were to do Stack Exchange over again, I would allow a maximum of three tags, not five. Because most people can agree:

• This thing is definitely CATEGORY1.

And there is general consensus around

• This thing is also very likely CATEGORY2

But once you get to that third thing..

• This thing is maybe perhaps also CATEGORY3???

.. It's really sketchy.

Well, I just wanted to react on this, that I almost never see any problem with the tagging system at MSE. But I'm not sure if this is true. At least when I browse the meta here, I don't see much people complaining. I'm intrested about what the "community" at MSE thing about the tag sytstem. The 2 main reasons tags are usefull is I think:

1. People that find a tag intresting, can easily search for question with that tag.
2. It gives a short description of what the question is about, if you are browsing questions.

Out of that I can't conclude that it would be better to have maximum 3 tags, instead of 5 tags. The only problems I have with the tag system is that is not intuitive how to hide specific tags, and that the search box doesn't autocomplete if you search for tags. But that is a different topic.

I'm intrested if users here also disagree, or agree with with what Jeff Atwood thinks about the tagging system at stackexchange.

I'm surprised to read what a co-founder of Stack Exchange thinks about the tagging system. From meta.discourse.org :

we saw on Stack Exchange that

1. Users don't understand how to navigate via tags
2. Average users tend to tag incorrectly, when they do tag
3. Even advanced users have strong disagreements about tagging
4. Get enough tags and you start needing a tag "hierarchy" and it's hellishly complicated to understand
5. Tag synonyms must exist, or things get ugly fast
6. The more tags you allow per (item) the worse all the above problems get

Tagging is not a system I am particularly fond of, based on four years eating, sleeping, living, and breathing a tagging system in Stack Exchange as the co-founder. YMMV.

and also:

My main observation is that if I were to do Stack Exchange over again, I would allow a maximum of three tags, not five. Because most people can agree:

• This thing is definitely CATEGORY1.

And there is general consensus around

• This thing is also very likely CATEGORY2

But once you get to that third thing..

• This thing is maybe perhaps also CATEGORY3???

.. It's really sketchy.

Well, I just wanted to react on this, that I almost never see any problem with the tagging system at MSE. But I'm not sure if this is true. At least when I browse the meta here, I don't see much people complaining. I'm interested about what the "community" at MSE thinks about the tag system. The 2 main reasons tags are useful is I think:

1. People that find a tag interesting, can easily search for question with that tag.
2. It gives a short description of what the question is about, if you are browsing questions.

Out of that I can't conclude that it would be better to have maximum 3 tags, instead of 5 tags. The only problems I have with the tag system is that is not intuitive how to hide specific tags, and that the search box doesn't autocomplete if you search for tags. But that is a different topic.

I'm interested if users here also disagree, or agree with with what Jeff Atwood thinks about the tagging system at Stack Exchange.

I'm suprised to read what a co-founder of stackexchange thinks about the tagging sytem. From meta.discourse.org :

we saw on Stack Exchange that

1. Users don't understand how to navigate via tags
2. Average users tend to tag incorrectly, when they do tag
3. Even advanced users have strong disagreements about tagging
4. Get enough tags and you start needing a tag "hierarchy" and it's hellishly complicated to understand
5. Tag synonyms must exist, or things get ugly fast
6. The more tags you allow per (item) the worse all the above problems get

 

Tagging is not a system I am particularly fond of, based on four years eating, sleeping, living, and breathing a tagging system in Stack Exchange as the co-founder. YMMV.

and also:

My main observation is that if I were to do Stack Exchange over again, I would allow a maximum of three tags, not five. Because most people can agree:

• This thing is definitely CATEGORY1.

 

And there is general consensus around

• This thing is also very likely CATEGORY2

But once you get to that third thing..

• This thing is maybe perhaps also CATEGORY3???

.. It's really sketchy.

Well, I just wanted to react on this, that I almost never see any problem with the tagging system at MSE. But I'm not sure if this is true. At least when I browse the meta here, I don't see much people complaining. I'm intrested about what the "community" at MSE thing about the tag sytstem. The 2 main reasons tags are usefull is I think:

1. People that find a tag intresting, can easily search for question with that tag.
2. It gives a short description of what the question is about, if you are browsing questions.

Out of that I can't conclude that it would be better to have maximum 3 tags, instead of 5 tags. The only problems I have with the tag system is that is not intuitive how to hide specific tags, and that the search box doesn't autocomplete if you search for tags. But that is a different topic.

I'm intrested if users here also disagree, or agree with with what Jeff Atwood thinks about the tagging system at stackexchange.

I'm suprised to read what a co-founder of stackexchange thinks about the tagging sytem. From meta.discourse.org :

we saw on Stack Exchange that

1. Users don't understand how to navigate via tags
2. Average users tend to tag incorrectly, when they do tag
3. Even advanced users have strong disagreements about tagging
4. Get enough tags and you start needing a tag "hierarchy" and it's hellishly complicated to understand
5. Tag synonyms must exist, or things get ugly fast
6. The more tags you allow per (item) the worse all the above problems get

Tagging is not a system I am particularly fond of, based on four years eating, sleeping, living, and breathing a tagging system in Stack Exchange as the co-founder. YMMV.

and also:

My main observation is that if I were to do Stack Exchange over again, I would allow a maximum of three tags, not five. Because most people can agree:

• This thing is definitely CATEGORY1.

And there is general consensus around

• This thing is also very likely CATEGORY2

But once you get to that third thing..

• This thing is maybe perhaps also CATEGORY3???

.. It's really sketchy.

Well, I just wanted to react on this, that I almost never see any problem with the tagging system at MSE. But I'm not sure if this is true. At least when I browse the meta here, I don't see much people complaining. I'm intrested about what the "community" at MSE thing about the tag sytstem. The 2 main reasons tags are usefull is I think:

1. People that find a tag intresting, can easily search for question with that tag.
2. It gives a short description of what the question is about, if you are browsing questions.

Out of that I can't conclude that it would be better to have maximum 3 tags, instead of 5 tags. The only problems I have with the tag system is that is not intuitive how to hide specific tags, and that the search box doesn't autocomplete if you search for tags. But that is a different topic.

I'm intrested if users here also disagree, or agree with with what Jeff Atwood thinks about the tagging system at stackexchange.