Couple of questions

[Nathalie Vaiser, RFC, FMM]

Hey guys

I've been using del.icio.us for a couple of weeks now and liking it a
lot.

Two things though I'm having an issue with...

One is when I tag a site... if I've already tagged that site before, it
adds it again (in duplicate). Is there no way for it to tell me that
the URL I'm bookmarking is already added?


Lastly, when I'm doing a search, is there a way to get it recognize a
partial match? For example, I have a bookmarked item that has the
word "Mindstorms" in it.   I didn't remember that the name was pleurel,
so when I searched I only typed "Mindstorm" and it didn't find anything.

Is there a way to allow partial matches or for it to make best guesses?



Thanks

[Matthew Weymar]

On 5/24/08, xpertanywhere <nat@...> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> Lastly, when I'm doing a search, is there a way to get it recognize a
> partial match? For example, I have a bookmarked item that has the
> word "Mindstorms" in it. I didn't remember that the name was pleurel,
> so when I searched I only typed "Mindstorm" and it didn't find anything.
>
> Is there a way to allow partial matches or for it to make best guesses?

For the record, an analogous "problem" / issue is: alternative
spellings - or even words for some things.

I was thinking "humor" v. "humour," but there's always the "eraser" v.
"rubber" conundrum. To wit: All those who come to del.icio.us looking
for hints as to the best new eraser / (ahem) rubber technology must be
confused as to whether to browse /tag/eraser or /tag/rubber, or would
appreciate not having to browse both to achieve completeness.

It would be helpful anyway to know del's policy on this. Presumably
nothing is done about this?...

Thanks,
Matthew

[Britta Gustafson]

Lets say you bookmarked http://www.yahoo.com/ a while ago. If you go to
that URL and tag it again today, the little box that pops up will have
your existing title/notes/tags already filled in. It'll also have a note
saying "originally posted on [date]". If you change the tags,
del.icio.us will just update that information on your original bookmark.

But if today you go to http://www.yahoo.com/index.html and tag it,
del.icio.us will think that's a new URL and will let you bookmark it
separately from http://www.yahoo.com/.

The search engine only has a little support for partial matches right now
- the basic advanced features are explained here:
http://del.icio.us/help/search (and there are a few more listed here -
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ydn-delicious/message/280).

Britta
Del.icio.us community manager intern

--- In ydn-delicious@..., "xpertanywhere" <nat@...> wrote:

>
> Hey guys
>
> I've been using del.icio.us for a couple of weeks now and liking it a
> lot.
>
> Two things though I'm having an issue with...
>
> One is when I tag a site... if I've already tagged that site before, it
> adds it again (in duplicate). Is there no way for it to tell me that
> the URL I'm bookmarking is already added?
>
>
> Lastly, when I'm doing a search, is there a way to get it recognize a
> partial match? For example, I have a bookmarked item that has the
> word "Mindstorms" in it.   I didn't remember that the name was pleurel,
> so when I searched I only typed "Mindstorm" and it didn't find anything.
>
> Is there a way to allow partial matches or for it to make best guesses?
>
>
>
> Thanks
>

[Britta Gustafson]

This has been a question since the earliest days of del.icio.us. :) We
don't have an official policy, but the general idea is that tags are
inherently messy - and that's a good thing. (In other words, we do
nothing special to "fix" tags.) People tag with synonyms, people search
for synonyms, and these issues tend to work themselves out organically.

Britta
Del.icio.us community manager intern

--- In ydn-delicious@..., "Matthew Weymar" <matthew.weymar@...>
wrote:

>
> On 5/24/08, xpertanywhere <nat@...> wrote:
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > Lastly, when I'm doing a search, is there a way to get it recognize a
> > partial match? For example, I have a bookmarked item that has the
> > word "Mindstorms" in it. I didn't remember that the name was pleurel,
> > so when I searched I only typed "Mindstorm" and it didn't find anything.
> >
> > Is there a way to allow partial matches or for it to make best guesses?
>
> For the record, an analogous "problem" / issue is: alternative
> spellings - or even words for some things.
>
> I was thinking "humor" v. "humour," but there's always the "eraser" v.
> "rubber" conundrum. To wit: All those who come to del.icio.us looking
> for hints as to the best new eraser / (ahem) rubber technology must be
> confused as to whether to browse /tag/eraser or /tag/rubber, or would
> appreciate not having to browse both to achieve completeness.
>
> It would be helpful anyway to know del's policy on this. Presumably
> nothing is done about this?...
>
> Thanks,
> Matthew
>

[Nathalie Vaiser, RFC, FMM]

Hi

Thanks, yes I agree that you shouldn't 'fix' tags as we each have our
own style and way of tagging things.

But, I think the search itself should be improved to perhaps give an
option of the default 'exact match' with a partial match option.  As in
my example, if I tagged something as pleural and didn't remember I did
that  (ie -  Robots)  and then I search for 'Robot' with no 's' at the
end, I would like an easy way to find this tag (partial match)


Nathalie


Britta Gustafson wrote:

>
> This has been a question since the earliest days of del.icio.us. :) We
> don't have an official policy, but the general idea is that tags are
> inherently messy - and that's a good thing. (In other words, we do
> nothing special to "fix" tags.) People tag with synonyms, people search
> for synonyms, and these issues tend to work themselves out organically.
>
> Britta
> Del.icio.us community manager intern
>
> --- In ydn-delicious@...
> <mailto:ydn-delicious%40yahoogroups.com>, "Matthew Weymar"
> <matthew.weymar@...>
> wrote:
> >
> > On 5/24/08, xpertanywhere <nat@...> wrote:
> > >
> > > <snip>
> > >
> > > Lastly, when I'm doing a search, is there a way to get it recognize a
> > > partial match? For example, I have a bookmarked item that has the
> > > word "Mindstorms" in it. I didn't remember that the name was pleurel,
> > > so when I searched I only typed "Mindstorm" and it didn't find
> anything.
> > >
> > > Is there a way to allow partial matches or for it to make best
> guesses?
> >
> > For the record, an analogous "problem" / issue is: alternative
> > spellings - or even words for some things.
> >
> > I was thinking "humor" v. "humour," but there's always the "eraser" v.
> > "rubber" conundrum. To wit: All those who come to del.icio.us looking
> > for hints as to the best new eraser / (ahem) rubber technology must be
> > confused as to whether to browse /tag/eraser or /tag/rubber, or would
> > appreciate not having to browse both to achieve completeness.
> >
> > It would be helpful anyway to know del's policy on this. Presumably
> > nothing is done about this?...
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Matthew
> >
>
>  

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Matthew Weymar]

You may be able to work around this by using your favorite search engine to
search on "site:del.icio.us X"

This may solve the "X" v. "Xs" issue - at least.

And actually, this might (ultimately) provide the motivation for the del
team to think a little more creatively about this issue. In time, people
might not use del.icio.us/tag/X; they might just use a search engine.

While I appreciate that tags shouldn't be "fixed" *per se* -- as in altered
-- I am not convinced that users shouldn't be given an option to have
/tag/Robot return the union of /tag/Robot & /tag/Robots, as Nathalie
suggests -- or even /tag/humor => /tag/humor + /tag/humour. This doesn't
have anything to do with "fixing" tags.

Matthew

On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 3:31 PM, Nathalie Vaiser <nat@...>
wrote:

>   Hi
>
> Thanks, yes I agree that you shouldn't 'fix' tags as we each have our
> own style and way of tagging things.
>
> But, I think the search itself should be improved to perhaps give an
> option of the default 'exact match' with a partial match option. As in
> my example, if I tagged something as pleural and didn't remember I did
> that (ie - Robots) and then I search for 'Robot' with no 's' at the
> end, I would like an easy way to find this tag (partial match)
>
> Nathalie
>
>
> Britta Gustafson wrote:
> >
> > This has been a question since the earliest days of del.icio.us. :) We
> > don't have an official policy, but the general idea is that tags are
> > inherently messy - and that's a good thing. (In other words, we do
> > nothing special to "fix" tags.) People tag with synonyms, people search
> > for synonyms, and these issues tend to work themselves out organically.
> >
> > Britta
> > Del.icio.us community manager intern
> >
> > --- In ydn-delicious@... <ydn-delicious%40yahoogroups.com>
> > <mailto:ydn-delicious%40yahoogroups.com<ydn-delicious%2540yahoogroups.com>>,
> "Matthew Weymar"
> > <matthew.weymar@...>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > On 5/24/08, xpertanywhere <nat@...> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > <snip>
> > > >
> > > > Lastly, when I'm doing a search, is there a way to get it recognize a
> > > > partial match? For example, I have a bookmarked item that has the
> > > > word "Mindstorms" in it. I didn't remember that the name was pleurel,
> > > > so when I searched I only typed "Mindstorm" and it didn't find
> > anything.
> > > >
> > > > Is there a way to allow partial matches or for it to make best
> > guesses?
> > >
> > > For the record, an analogous "problem" / issue is: alternative
> > > spellings - or even words for some things.
> > >
> > > I was thinking "humor" v. "humour," but there's always the "eraser" v.
> > > "rubber" conundrum. To wit: All those who come to del.icio.us looking
> > > for hints as to the best new eraser / (ahem) rubber technology must be
> > > confused as to whether to browse /tag/eraser or /tag/rubber, or would
> > > appreciate not having to browse both to achieve completeness.
> > >
> > > It would be helpful anyway to know del's policy on this. Presumably
> > > nothing is done about this?...
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Matthew
> > >
> >
> >
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>  
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Stephane Bortzmeyer]

On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 06:31:09PM -0400,
 Nathalie Vaiser <nat@...> wrote
 a message of 491 lines which said:

> As in my example, if I tagged something as pleural and didn't
> remember I did that (ie - Robots) and then I search for 'Robot' with
> no 's' at the end, I would like an easy way to find this tag
> (partial match)

That's a very bad idea. Since del.icio.us users use different
languages, with different rules for the plural (not always the simple
rule to add a letter at the end), this would not work (same thing for
ortographic fixes like humor/humour).

I agree with the way del.icio.us currently works: do not be too
clever, do not mess with my tags.

[Dado Feigenblatt-2]

Regarding previously bookmarked sites, it would be great if there
could be some sort of status indicator. Lets say gray for not
bookmarked at all, yellow for bookmarked domain (or some partial match
of the url that would include at least the domain), and green for
exact url.
I found myself bookmarking different pages of an article for which I
already had the front page. (yeah, bad memory)

Regarding the search, grouping and boolean operators are handy, but it
would be really nice if I could use regular expressions or at least
glob patterns.

Thanks,
dado


--- In ydn-delicious@..., "Britta Gustafson" <brittag@...>
wrote:

>
> Lets say you bookmarked http://www.yahoo.com/ a while ago. If you go to
> that URL and tag it again today, the little box that pops up will have
> your existing title/notes/tags already filled in. It'll also have a note
> saying "originally posted on [date]". If you change the tags,
> del.icio.us will just update that information on your original bookmark.
>
> But if today you go to http://www.yahoo.com/index.html and tag it,
> del.icio.us will think that's a new URL and will let you bookmark it
> separately from http://www.yahoo.com/.
>
> The search engine only has a little support for partial matches

right now

> - the basic advanced features are explained here:
> http://del.icio.us/help/search (and there are a few more listed here -
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ydn-delicious/message/280).
>
> Britta
> Del.icio.us community manager intern
>
> --- In ydn-delicious@..., "xpertanywhere" <nat@> wrote:
> >
> > Hey guys
> >
> > I've been using del.icio.us for a couple of weeks now and liking it a
> > lot.
> >
> > Two things though I'm having an issue with...
> >
> > One is when I tag a site... if I've already tagged that site

before, it
> > adds it again (in duplicate). Is there no way for it to tell me that
> > the URL I'm bookmarking is already added?
> >
> >
> > Lastly, when I'm doing a search, is there a way to get it recognize a
> > partial match? For example, I have a bookmarked item that has the
> > word "Mindstorms" in it.   I didn't remember that the name was
pleurel,
> > so when I searched I only typed "Mindstorm" and it didn't find
anything.
> >
> > Is there a way to allow partial matches or for it to make best
guesses?
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks
> >
>

[telarson]

Nathalie Vaiser <> wrote:
> But, I think the search itself should be improved to perhaps give an
> option of the default 'exact match' with a partial match option. As in
> my example, if I tagged something as pleural and didn't remember I did
> that (ie - Robots) and then I search for 'Robot' with no 's' at the
> end, I would like an easy way to find this tag (partial match)    

A "fuzzy match" algorithm like this would be very cool.  But only if it were
optional, and/or results sorted so that higher confidence results came
first.

Tim
--
Tim Larson        AMT2 Unix Systems Administrator
    InterCall, a division of West Corporation

               Eschew obfuscation!


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]