Revolutionise the way forums are organised

[ph_bradley]

In this case though, you are the one selecting tags which mean something to you. Imagine all the email originators doing the tagging instead. I doubt you'll find the feature nearly as useful then. It's also like having a stranger come in and rearrange your computer's entire directory system to something meaningful to him. The tag idea may work okay with a fairly small group. As the number grows, the mess will grow.

per-user tags are probably too much bloat. In the case of someone adding a tag to a thread (and thus including it into a virtual folder you've seup for yourself, when you didn't think it should have that tag i.e. be in that virtual folder), I think that the benefit of having this huge new degree of organisation far outweighs that.

You can reduce the problem of bad tags by not applying a tag to a thread for all members until a certain number of people have added that tag for their own benefit. There are disadvantages of course - in particular, a thread not coming into a virtual folder of yours (i.e. being brought to your attention) as immediately as it would otherwise.

I'm not talking about data which expires but useful info that is quickly buried with time. You can see the phenomenon on the forums right here. Look how many times the same questions are asked and answered yet people continue to ask them.

it would be SO nice to allow moderators and admins to flag a thread with 'FAQ' to see those threads automatically included in a virtual folder for FAQs shown alongside the other normal forums, or automatically showing up in the newbie forum (whilst staying in the original forum).

IPB already has pointers to threads in other forums - what you leave behind when you move a topic and tick 'Leave a link to the new topic in the source forum?'; the setup i just described wouldn't be far removed from that, and could even be built on this existing feature

[Michael_C]

If anyone is willing there is an invitation to fork UseBB, http://pc-freak.blogspot.com/2005/08/tag-b...sion-board.html.

[Ipstenu]

-1 officially, and I did try and keep an open mind.

Imagine storing all the documents on your computer in one big folder. It'd be a nightmare! What the Windows team has done with Vista (the next XP) is to allow you to create virtual folders.

I look at this from the Mac OS X 10.4 + Spotlight angle and yes, you can do the same thing with smart folders (I'm not making a Mac vs Windows argument here, I'm just saying you can do the same thing in both OS). And you know what? I don't use smart folders. At all. And I've had 10.4 for 3+ months.

The time it takes me to tag things so they show up when I look in the right 'virtual' folder makes me lose productivity. If I can't drill down to my Documents -> Internet -> CSS Project -> Documentation folder, or I can't find the file, I do a quick search 'CSS + Documentation' and there it is.

I know you're not saying 'unstructured board'. In essence the SQL table we have for all the posts is an unstructured board ;) but that's not where we're going. What you're saying is 'You can organize a forum how YOU want to see it' and that's interesting.

Questions:
1) Who decides the initial look (i.e. structure) of the forum?
2) Are you thinking 'default tags' to provide this?
3) How many people will go beyond the default?

I'm not talking about data which expires but useful info that is quickly buried with time.

Pin it ;) If it's quickly buried, you're right, it does no good. But if it's that useful, it needs to be someplace static and permanent, not just another post. The FAQ maybe ... not that anyone reads that... And no, I'm not trying to be sarcastic, but I've seen that most 'useful data' expires or needs updates and if it scrolls by the wayside then a repost or a revamp is usually needed. Organic knowledge and all that. I think I'm wiki-ing too much.