Question

I’ve done some research on using tags from social bookmarking sites for web search, but I’d like to learn more about other ways in which users might use tags for information retrieval.

Do you use the tags on sites like Stack Overflow for navigation? Do you think of them like filters (narrowing down a large list of questions), or as categories (showing how the site is organized), or something else?

Answer 1

I use them for searching for my stack (C#, ASP.NET, WinForms etc). I have them set up in Launchy as shortcuts.

I have posted some thoughts ideas on my StackOverflow blog post – feel free to comment on there if you like:

Search Support

The search functionality is improving. However, is it still limited (for example, no OR search). It also has limited filtering options. One major problem for me is that it displays searches the answers as well as questions. So, you can end up with a page of results that point to one question (which may not help you). Tag searching is also improving but still limited and even misunderstood by its creator (see the comments).

Finding Your Stack

I am a C# developer. I work on Windows and ASP.NET applications. I know nothing about Java, Python, Ruby and the many other languages out there. I can offer limited advice on architecture and design. Now, currently, it is bloody difficult for me to find questions with the appropriate tags so I can assist. I propose:

‘Smart Lists’ – these should be lists that each user can create that you can specify tags to search for. For example, I could create three ‘Windows’ (which searches for items tagged ‘C# WinForms’), ‘Web’ (tagged ‘ASP.NET’) and Architecture (tagged ‘architecture’). Now, a web developer who works on the LAMP stack may have a ‘Web’ tab, but entirely different tags.

I am currently getting around this by having Launchy shortcuts set up for my stacks.