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A critique of tagging
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Posted by Daly de Gagne
Nov 4, 2023 at 10:49 PM
Hi Steve -
This topic prompted me to check my electronic copy of Tiago Forte’s Building a Second Brain. I discovered something interesting that I had previously overlooked. At the book’s end there is a bonus chapter, entitled How to Create a Tagging System that works.
He writes, “Although not essential to get started, tags do provide an extra layer of organization that can be useful as your knowledge collection grows.”
There is a download link for the bonus chapter, and it took me to a page asking for my email address, and a button to press, “Yes, send me the Bonus Chapter!”
I find this rather ironic in light of what Forte wrote about tags in the Medium article.
I am curious to know why he would offer a bonus chapter on tagging in a book published in June 2022, and then seemingly do an about face on the merit of tagging so soon afterward.
Now I need to find my proof of purchase from Kindle so I can read the bonus chapter.
- Daly
Posted by Amontillado
Nov 5, 2023 at 03:44 AM
I’m out of free Medium articles, so I can’t check. Wasn’t that anti-tagging article written in something like 2017?
Seeing the value of tags is not as intuitive as it would seem. I didn’t use them at first, and as of a year or two ago the author of Taking Control of Devonthink didn’t use tags.
Many paths to enlightenment. If I had to choose between tags and groups, I could live without groups or folders. Seems weird, but look at the folks who use The Archive. No folders there, just links and searches.
Posted by Dellu
Nov 5, 2023 at 05:34 AM
I think Forte’s attitude about tags is expressed in the book:
>I don’t recommend using tags as your primary organizational system. It takes far too much energy to apply tags to every single note compared to the ease of searching with keywords or browsing your folders. >However, tags can come in handy in specific situations when the two previous retrieval methods aren’t up to the task, and you want to spontaneously gather, connect, and synthesize groups of notes on the fly
In other words (my understanding of Forte is):
- he opposes using tags as a general organization tool (replacing folders, or some other means).——I personally agree with this point
- But, he still thinks they can be used effectively for narrower cases: for the PARA system where you can use tags to collect documents that belong to a specific project——again, I agree with this one.
The problem with the medium article is he seems to mostly discourage people to use tags.
Posted by Paul Korm
Nov 5, 2023 at 09:27 AM
I think a number of the tools-for-thought / productivity gurus have been around long enough that their game of changing their advice, or repackaging it under new names and new courses, has gone well past the “best-by” date. They begin to step on their own tails and contradict in later books advice they gave in earlier books.
I’ve used tags for a long time—even in the olden days when tags were real pieces of paper stuck into pages on books or print articles. But always only as secondary organizing tools. Hierarchies work best for me. And I’m sure that tags work best for others. Horses for courses.
A downside of tags is the mess that operating systems such as OS X / macOS permit when apps, browsers, etc., create tags automatically. About once a year, I go to Finder and wipe out all the tag crap that has been auto-created behind the scenes.
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Nov 5, 2023 at 01:41 PM
Actually it was from 2015… something I hadn’t noticed at first, because Medium usually doesn’t show me articles that old.
Amontillado wrote:
I’m out of free Medium articles, so I can’t check.
>Wasn’t that anti-tagging article written in something like 2017?
>
>Seeing the value of tags is not as intuitive as it would seem. I
>didn’t use them at first, and as of a year or two ago the author
>of Taking Control of Devonthink didn’t use tags.
>
>Many paths to enlightenment. If I had to choose between tags and groups,
>I could live without groups or folders. Seems weird, but look at the
>folks who use The Archive. No folders there, just links and searches.