A Del.icio.us Time of Year

What a wonderful time of year to be exploring del.icio.us as our assignment for Project Play,Week 8. As my pies were baking in the oven and rosette irons anxiously awaiting their dip into the hot oil (ahem...lard), I was able to create a handly little list of delectable diners, elegant eateries, and mouthwatering markets that I would like to someday visit.

I found del.icio.us quite easy to use for adding my links; however, compared to the other tools we have been assigned to try this term I think it is a bit lacking in aesthetics. Blue, black, mostly text, minimal to absent graphics...perhaps simple is the key with this one. I really don't think I'd use del.icio.us as one big storehouse for all of the links I use, although I do see use for it in my life for specific subject links I would like to share. I have different "favorites" links on the two library PCs and two personal PCs that I use. These are tied to the type of work I am doing on each PC, at each desk or at home, and there really isn't a whole lot of crossover. I don't want to have to login to another site to get to those links when clicking on the "favorites" button works just fine (and bah humbug, too!) On the other hand I can definitely see using del.icio.us for things like my restaurant list, a craft supply list, birthday wish list, etc. Basically for lists of web links that I would like to be able to easily share with others. Obviously, this use would also be great for a library to share web resources/pathfinders with patrons as is being done by the Menasha Public Library.

Now on to the "tags and tagging" portion of this post. I love tags. Love the idea of tags and people using regular, day-to-day language to organize and share information. I wonder how many people go back and add to or change their tag terms as time goes on. I especially love tag clouds. I think they are pretty, and fun, and an intriguing way to visually show what users of any given site are most interested in/posting about. The problem I have found with tags and tagging is that, depending on my mood/frame of mind/amount of caffeine, I may easily tag the same item in different ways. Then when reviewing my list of book titles, links, or blog posts later, I think of altogether different tags. Or notice I have added some fitting tags to some of my items that would also describe other of my items. Or I start looking at the way other people have tagged a book or photo and want to use some of their tags. Then I have to go back and add in more tags and also try to remember those tags when I add future posts so I can include them. I do think the tagging feature on some of the sites we are exploring this semester have progressed since I first used the sites...or perhaps I am becoming more comfortable with using the sites and notice things I did not at first explore. For example, I don't remember seeing the "show all" link next to "Labels for this post" (tags) in Blogger but I now find it handy each time I am posting to click on this and refresh my memory about tags I've used in the past.

My Week 8 Questions:
Why do some sites call tags "tags" while others call them "labels" or something else?
My guess - this would be the folksonomy of the site creator.
Why do some sites require you to use commas between tag terms while others only require spaces?
My guess - another example of the site creator's thought pattern.
Is there a general rule of thumb for multi-word tags? For example, should the tag "project play" be two words separated with a space, or one word with no space, or capitalized, or some other format, or all of these?