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

[Juan Cristian Vera]

Chris wrote:

Single-word tags are simply a subset of multi-word tags;

>
>I hate to open this back up, but this seems precisely wrong to me... unless you mean architecturally rather than significantly...
>
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LOL - I held my tongue as long as I could. I think it's fair to say that a tag can have n words, with n ranging from 0 to infinity, but the usefulness of the word as atomic concept cannot be denied. 


I think we pull in different directions on this topic because for single 
word taggers missing things tagged with "very hot" when looking for 
"hot" seems like a loss in the usefulness of tags, while for people who 
want multi-word tags it seems idiotic to have to write sanfrancisco when 
what you want is "san francisco".

The point I wanted to contribute in the beginning was that I started 
preferring single word tags as I let go of the suggestion that I needed 
multi-word tags, and that I found that letting go of multi-word tags 
made for a more positive experience with associations, much like I 
learned a long time ago that being generous with my netflix ratings 
produces more enjoyable recommendations in the collaborative filtering 
than does being overly critical, so now I always rate everything sort of 
high, and it has improved the quality of the recommendatons I get.

As for the structural implications, I don't think they are very deep. 
Mostly, each tag has a string associated with it which could have spaces 
in it - why not?

best,

JC