[Tagdb] Single and multi-word tags / swarming and spreading

[Chris Lott]

In my experience with students being exposed to tagging for the first
time, I would agree with the premise that they initially want multiple
word tags but as they get more experience they tend to use mostly
single word tags.

But there are some important caveats. First, most of their desire for
multiple word tags come from singular entities that are naturally
composed with two words (San Francisco, Getting Things Done, etc).
Second, most naive users don't really understand the use cases for
tags *even for themselves* so multi-word tags seem like a good idea
initially (the more description the better), but as they start to
"get" the idea of tagging and how they are really used for recall--
and as they understand the versatility of intersections (why tagging
items with individual tags: sports magazine/science magazine instead
of "sports magazine" and "science magazine")-- they don't seem to want
single tags anymore. Many go back and fix their initial efforts.

I've watched this trend again and again...

c