what is the difference between these tags:
- mathematics, math and maths
- script and scripting
- interpreter and interpreters
- science and scientific
should they not be merged?
redundant tags
about 1 year ago
about 1 year ago
Yes, it would be awesome if the collective wisdom of Ohloh would come together and finally decide if we're going to go with "chart", "charts", "charting", "graph", or "graphing".
What ends up happening instead is that everyone adds as many synonyms as they can to their project, in a sort of "tag arms race".
Occasionally we go through and use some scripts to help prune the tags when things get out of control, but mostly we let people decide for themselves.
Given that our tag feature isn't really used for a whole lot besides searching (so far), it doesn't hurt much to allow a lot of tags (in fact, when it comes to searching, the extra tags might actually help).
I'm not sure what the best long-term solution is. Perhaps Ohloh will create a fixed list of tags/categories, and only those tags will be allowed. Perhaps Ohloh just needs additional UI hinting to encourage people not to use unusual or redundant tags.
Thoughts?
about 1 year ago
"the more the merrier" is an illusion. many tags obscure the view and confuse the searcher.
there should be a canonical name for each tag, with plenty of synonyms and a brief description. e.g. "interpreter - programs that run scripts". "interpreted - written in an interpreted language".
tag searches should match both tag names and synonyms - and, optionally, the description too.
adding a tag or a tag synonym should be semi-automatic: one requests a tag or a synonym by filling out a form, which then collects votes and comments, and if the vote passes and there are no conflicts with existing tags and synonyms, the tag is created.
about 1 year ago
ohloh tags are an example of a Folksonomy which has deep problems, but is participatory in the same way that open source is.
What you are describing is a Controlled vocabulary which also have deep issues, but require specific in-depth training.
Controlled vocabularies are formal systems and can be shown to be incomplete in the Turing sense. Folksonomies are interpretative systems.