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Usability and Human Factors tags

I am skeptical about this idea getting approved, and even then further skeptical of it actually being used, but I think that LtU could benefit from some extra tags. In particular, Usability/Human Factors would be a nice tag to have, perhaps breaking it into two tags: Human Factors (Real Usability) and Wadler's Law :)

In addition, I think forum old timers are complaining quite a bit lately about stuff being "off-topic". Rather than try to plaster the problem with a Rules&Regulations document, the best way to solve this problem is through some sort of "network of trust". Currently, a network of trust already exists. The old timers trust the moderators to make the right front page content choices. However, some stuff is "maybe off-topic" and others are "definitely off-topic". Moderators could tag things with such, and old-timers can have their newsreaders set-up to filter out definitely off-topic and maybe even maybe off-topics.

By Z-Bo at 2009-06-14 01:55 | Site Discussion | previous forum topic | next forum topic | other blogs | 4914 reads

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I don't think there is need

I don't think there is need for tags for off-topic posts, but the suggestions you make in the first paragraph may be a good idea. I'd be interested to hear what others think. Also: how about mentioning a few items that are LtU homepage-worthy and would fall under the new categories? Most importantly: Are contributing editors going to use these categories, or are there regular members who want to sign up as c-e's and plan on using the new department?

By Ehud Lamm at Mon, 2009-06-15 05:09 | login or register to post comments

If the Human Factors tag is

If the Human Factors tag is put into place and existing c/e's will use it, then I would be willing to retro-tag the nodes that should have it out of all previous 3450+ nodes.

The nice thing about tags is if used with discipline, I can avoid asking a question simply by reading up on a particular subject.

Metadata is important to me, but then again all I do all day is metaprogram w/ metadata.

Tangent: It would be nice if users could suggest tags for forum topics and have moderators approve it. Currently, many forum topics are just "LtU forum".

But...

Bottom line: "Human factors" is an idea, one you usually can't simply type into a search box and get results for. That is what metadata is all about.

By Z-Bo at Mon, 2009-06-15 05:39 | login or register to post comments