Re: [development] Early Drupal 6 review from Chris Messina
I think one simple change would make a world of difference without 'dumbing' anything down. As was mentioned before, the most confusing thing is the word 'vocabulary' since it's not obvious, even if you know figure out that taxonomy is way of categorizing things, what exactly a vocabulary is. So just change vocabulary to either 'category type' or 'category group', then we have a much more clear breakdown of: taxonomy -> categories vocabulary -> category type (or category group) term -> category (or term) Karen
I disagree with Chris Johnson regarding his fear that we would be dumbing down Drupal if we made the terminology we use easier. After all -- I don't believe anyone is suggesting an overhaul of taxonomy functionality in Drupal; there is simply a challenge (the latest from Chris Messina, but he certainly isn't the first) to name things in a simpler way. I'm not concerned that a simplification of the names we use for classification is going to have the affect of hiding the sophistication of how Drupal taxonomy works. I'm fine with having someone go to a help page because they've heard there is more to Drupal categorization than meets the eye and they desire to learn/do more. That scenario is way better than hordes of people running to the handbook just trying to figure out how to do the basics --but can't-- in part because the terminology has so confused them. This is my vote: taxonomy (the module name)--> categories vocabulary --> category term --> category_item (sometimes called a "tag") Shai On 11/11/07, Karen Stevenson <karen@elderweb.com> wrote:
I think one simple change would make a world of difference without 'dumbing' anything down. As was mentioned before, the most confusing thing is the word 'vocabulary' since it's not obvious, even if you know figure out that taxonomy is way of categorizing things, what exactly a vocabulary is. So just change vocabulary to either 'category type' or 'category group', then we have a much more clear breakdown of:
taxonomy -> categories vocabulary -> category type (or category group) term -> category (or term)
Karen
Quoting Shai Gluskin <shai@content2zero.com>:
I disagree with Chris Johnson regarding his fear that we would be dumbing down Drupal if we made the terminology we use easier.
You might not be dumbing down Drupal but you would have dumb down me. I didn't even know the work taxonomy before Drupal. I'm glad it was there for me to learn. Rather than a focus on changing the terms in Drupal why not focus on educating those who don't know what it is. Perhaps better help context in the taxonomy module might help those who don't know. What I find more disturbing is the multiple use of terms within the Drupal Schema; vid means what, vocabulary id, version id, etc. Earnie -- http://for-my-kids.com/ -- http://give-me-an-offer.com/
I think Hans Salvisberg has a decent suggestion in calling taxonomy, classification. But I worry about Shai Gluskin's suggestions, below. Is a forum or forum container a category_item? Is a permission a category_item? All of those things are terms, in the forum module and the taxonomy_access module, respectively. I'm all for making Drupal easier to use. But I'm not in favor of confusing Drupal's capabilities. On Nov 12, 2007 12:04 AM, Shai Gluskin wrote:
I disagree with Chris Johnson regarding his fear that we would be dumbing down Drupal if we made the terminology we use easier.
After all -- I don't believe anyone is suggesting an overhaul of taxonomy functionality in Drupal; there is simply a challenge (the latest from Chris Messina, but he certainly isn't the first) to name things in a simpler way.
I'm not concerned that a simplification of the names we use for classification is going to have the affect of hiding the sophistication of how Drupal taxonomy works.
I'm fine with having someone go to a help page because they've heard there is more to Drupal categorization than meets the eye and they desire to learn/do more. That scenario is way better than hordes of people running to the handbook just trying to figure out how to do the basics --but can't-- in part because the terminology has so confused them.
This is my vote:
taxonomy (the module name)--> categories vocabulary --> category term --> category_item (sometimes called a "tag")
Shai
On 11/11/07, Karen Stevenson <karen@elderweb.com> wrote:
I think one simple change would make a world of difference without
'dumbing' anything down. As was mentioned before, the most confusing thing is the word 'vocabulary' since it's not obvious, even if you know figure out that taxonomy is way of categorizing things, what exactly a vocabulary is. So just change vocabulary to either 'category type' or 'category group', then we have a much more clear breakdown of:
taxonomy -> categories vocabulary -> category type (or category group) term -> category (or term)
Karen
On 12 Nov 2007, at 00:04, Shai Gluskin wrote:
I'm not concerned that a simplification of the names we use for classification is going to have the affect of hiding the sophistication of how Drupal taxonomy works.
I'm not really concerned about this either. As long we maintain the functionality, we're not really dumbing down anything.
taxonomy (the module name)--> categories vocabulary --> category term --> category_item (sometimes called a "tag")
I'd say: taxonomy module -> classification module vocabulary -> category group term -> category or tag -- Dries Buytaert :: http://www.buytaert.net/
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Dries Buytaert schrieb:
On 12 Nov 2007, at 00:04, Shai Gluskin wrote:
I'm not concerned that a simplification of the names we use for classification is going to have the affect of hiding the sophistication of how Drupal taxonomy works.
I'm not really concerned about this either. As long we maintain the functionality, we're not really dumbing down anything.
taxonomy (the module name)--> categories vocabulary --> category term --> category_item (sometimes called a "tag")
I'd say:
taxonomy module -> classification module vocabulary -> category group term -> category or tag
While I disagree, I want to throw my hat into the ring for a taxonomy module in contrib. Cheers, Gerhard -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFHOXC6fg6TFvELooQRAvVhAKCUYIM+7tImVriVptYvgOBdLTYMSACaAgKr LuxAxYlL34Tp8OrFdd14xrQ= =uUj/ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Nov 13, 2007 9:33 AM, Dries Buytaert <dries.buytaert@gmail.com> wrote:
I'd say:
taxonomy module -> classification module vocabulary -> category group term -> category or tag
What's really important is that the usage be consistent and always mean the same thing when used in the Drupal context. For words which are easy to misinterpret (such as "category"), it's also important that they be clearly and well documented. ..chris
On Nov 13, 2007 3:33 AM, Dries Buytaert <dries.buytaert@gmail.com> wrote:
On 12 Nov 2007, at 00:04, Shai Gluskin wrote:
I'm not concerned that a simplification of the names we use for classification is going to have the affect of hiding the sophistication of how Drupal taxonomy works.
I'm not really concerned about this either. As long we maintain the functionality, we're not really dumbing down anything.
taxonomy (the module name)--> categories vocabulary --> category term --> category_item (sometimes called a "tag")
I'd say:
taxonomy module -> classification module
I am fine with that.
vocabulary -> category group
Two words would be confusing, especially if category is used for term. How about just "category" here.
term -> category or tag
We can keep it as a term. The issue is the "vocab", not so much "term". Tag is more specific to free tagging, and may be overloading the term.
-- Dries Buytaert :: http://www.buytaert.net/
-- Khalid M. Baheyeldin 2bits.com http://2bits.com Drupal optimization, development, customization and consulting.
to summarise:
taxonomy.module--> classification.module vocabulary --> category term --> term
+1 for this
Alex Cochrane
Agreed. I think this is more clear to the average person, without sacrificing anything for the technical types. Brad
Brad Bowman wrote:
taxonomy.module--> classification.module vocabulary --> category term --> term
+1 for this Alex Cochrane
Agreed. I think this is more clear to the average person, without sacrificing anything for the technical types.
I'm happy to see "taxonomy" and "vocabulary" bite the dust, but the average person would happily use "term" and "category" interchangeably to describe terms, though, so I think there's still potential for confusion there (especially considering what catch libcom has said about WordPress). Categorising something means assigning it terms, after all, not somehow assigning it weird nebulous term-containing objects. Although -1 for "container", which sounds too much like something I'd put round my lunch rather than my terms. I've asked my librarian chums, but does anyone here know what archivists and the like call all these things? That might point us in an unambiguous direction. J-P -- J-P Stacey +44 (0)1608 811870 http://torchbox.com
J-P Stacey wrote:
I've asked my librarian chums, but does anyone here know what archivists and the like call all these things? That might point us in an unambiguous direction.
J-P
Taxonomies, vocabularies and terms? :P
Alex Cochrane wrote:
J-P Stacey wrote:
I've asked my librarian chums, but does anyone here know what archivists and the like call all these things? That might point us in an unambiguous direction. Taxonomies, vocabularies and terms? :P
... That was my only worry, yes. J-P -- J-P Stacey +44 (0)1608 811870 http://torchbox.com
Brad Bowman wrote:
taxonomy.module--> classification.module vocabulary --> category term --> term
+1 for this Alex Cochrane
Agreed. I think this is more clear to the average person, without sacrificing anything for the technical types.
I'm happy to see "taxonomy" and "vocabulary" bite the dust, but the average person would happily use "term" and "category" interchangeably to describe terms,
Categorising something means assigning it terms, after all, not somehow assigning it weird nebulous term-containing objects.
-1 from me, too. Users coming from Joomla and the like would refer to: taxonomy -> categories vocabulary -> section term -> category The intro text on admin/content/taxonomy already provides a sufficient terminology: "The taxonomy module allows you to classify content into categories and subcategories; [...]" If I got all of you right, I think we could go with: taxonomy -> categories term -> category However, it seems like no one has a really good idea how the 'thing holding multiple categories' (vocabulary) might be called in a way all users can relate to immediately. sun
Hello all, this is (I think) my maiden post; etymology has dragged me from the woodwork. On Wed, 2007-11-14 at 16:06 +0000, J-P Stacey wrote:
Brad Bowman wrote:
taxonomy.module--> classification.module vocabulary --> category term --> term
+1 for this Alex Cochrane
Agreed. I think this is more clear to the average person, without sacrificing anything for the technical types.
I'm happy to see "taxonomy" and "vocabulary" bite the dust, but the average person would happily use "term" and "category" interchangeably to describe terms, though, so I think there's still potential for confusion there (especially considering what catch libcom has said about WordPress).
I agree that "category" is a very confusing replacement for "vocabulary" and that most people would think of it as a "term". I preferred "category group", though this still does not quite feel optimal.
Categorising something means assigning it terms, after all, not somehow assigning it weird nebulous term-containing objects. Although -1 for "container", which sounds too much like something I'd put round my lunch rather than my terms.
I don't like container either.
I've asked my librarian chums, but does anyone here know what archivists and the like call all these things? That might point us in an unambiguous direction.
A general term for these things seems to be "Classification scheme": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_scheme
From my wandering around wikipedia, and the OED, class and category have very similar meanings, viz:
Category: a class, or division [orig from Greek kategoria, statement, accusation] Categorization: the act or an act of placing something in a category, classification. Categorize: to place in a category. Class: A group of people or things having some attribute in common. [from Latin classis, an assembly or division of the Roman people] Classification: 1. The action of classifying. 2. the result of classifying. Classify: arrange in classes, assign to a class. I would suggest that whatever is decided, there should be a consistent root work (probably category, perhaps class) in all three terms, e.g.: taxonomy.module--> categorization.module vocabulary --> categorization OR categorization scheme OR category group OR category scheme term --> category OR: taxonomy.module--> classification.module vocabulary --> classification OR classification scheme term --> class To keep things as consistent with the current setup as possible, I'd suggest category and categorization over class and classification. One thought: how does this translate into other languages? All the best, David. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorization
J-P
[snipped long discussion of alternatives to "taxonomy", "vocabulary", "term"] I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm still not sure why there is a problem. Although I don't claim to be a master at using taxonomy.module, it was very obvious to me after the first two minutes of using Drupal what the terms meant. Why do we need to change them? The only thing I would change is the "categories" menu item back to "taxonomies". Is there any advantage to using less correct and more ambiguous terms to name things? The entire topic of categorization is going to require some learning in order to make use of it. If there are default profiles, as has recently been discussed, which have already set up a default vocabulary as a "tagging" vocabulary, then the needs of the beginning blogger has been taken care of. Anything complex, users are going to need to read a bit, or play around for a while, to figure out -- so what is the extra minute to realize that a vocabulary is a collection of terms? (If people can't stand the word "vocabulary", why not "dictionary", which is also a collection of terms?) Confused, Ricky The information transmitted in this electronic communication is intended only for the person or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of or taking of any action in reliance upon this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this information in error, please contact the Compliance HelpLine at 800-856-1983 and properly dispose of this information.
Richard Morse wrote:
The entire topic of categorization is going to require some learning in order to make use of it. If there are default profiles, as has recently been discussed, which have already set up a default vocabulary as a "tagging" vocabulary, then the needs of the beginning blogger has been taken care of. Anything complex, users are going to need to read a bit, or play around for a while, to figure out -- so what is the extra minute to realize that a vocabulary is a collection of terms?
(If people can't stand the word "vocabulary", why not "dictionary", which is also a collection of terms?)
When I explain taxonomy to a blogger, I say it's Drupal's term for tagging, and they light up with understanding. Coming from a blogger perspective, renaming everything to tagger.module might make the most sense. Dictionaries have definitions whereas what we're discussing here is just a list of terms.
David Sterratt wrote:
I agree that "category" is a very confusing replacement for "vocabulary" and that most people would think of it as a "term". I preferred "category group", though this still does not quite feel optimal.
After giving this some more thought I do agree.
taxonomy.module--> categorization.module vocabulary --> categorization OR categorization scheme OR category group OR category scheme term --> category
I would steer clear of 'categorization' due to the two different spelling possibilities. People who spell it the other way find that version quite unpleasing to the eye (and vice versa I'm sure). How about this proposal: taxonomy.module--> classification.module vocabulary --> GROUP term --> category Alex Cochrane
I often think 'group' as in organic groups... The fact it uses the same word 'group' as that used in OG, brings ambiguity and difficulty in translation. AFAIK, locale translation can't distinguish same word from different modules/context. Another example is 'view'. It's sort of a noun in views.module, but a verb in 'view node/comment/user'. They just can't be the exact same word(s) in some languages, in my case Chinese. Before we fix it, let's not introduce another generic word that could have other meanings at other places. On Nov 14, 2007 12:39 PM, Alex Cochrane <alex@spoon.com.au> wrote: leasing to the eye (and vice versa I'm sure).
How about this proposal:
taxonomy.module--> classification.module vocabulary --> GROUP term --> category
Alex Cochrane
Jim Li wrote:
I often think 'group' as in organic groups...
The fact it uses the same word 'group' as that used in OG, brings ambiguity and difficulty in translation. AFAIK, locale translation can't distinguish same word from different modules/context. Another example is 'view'. It's sort of a noun in views.module, but a verb in 'view node/comment/user'. They just can't be the exact same word(s) in some languages, in my case Chinese.
Before we fix it, let's not introduce another generic word that could have other meanings at other places.
On Nov 14, 2007 12:39 PM, Alex Cochrane <alex@spoon.com.au> wrote: leasing to the eye (and vice versa I'm sure).
How about this proposal:
taxonomy.module--> classification.module vocabulary --> GROUP term --> category
Alex Cochrane
Yep, all good points. Strike that idea :)
On Nov 14, 2007, at 12:39 PM, Alex Cochrane wrote:
term --> category
BTW, I also disagree with this idea very strongly. A term is not the same thing as a category. Bringing the dictionary into play, term: a word of phrase used to describe a thing or express a concept category: a class or division of people or things regarded as having particular shared characteristics Terms are much more generic than categories -- think of the glossary module, which uses a vocabulary to list the terms that have definitions. I have a module which currently implements its own hierarchical structure, which I'm planning to move over to taxonomy when I rewrite it Drupal 6. The items it structures are not "categories", but "entities". Then there are keywords, or related terms, where the term may not be categorical, but still be related to the post or be descriptive of it in some way. Ricky The information transmitted in this electronic communication is intended only for the person or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of or taking of any action in reliance upon this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this information in error, please contact the Compliance HelpLine at 800-856-1983 and properly dispose of this information.
Richard Morse wrote:
On Nov 14, 2007, at 12:39 PM, Alex Cochrane wrote:
term --> category
BTW, I also disagree with this idea very strongly. A term is not the same thing as a category.
Yep that was a cut and paste error.
Good point. I am one of the maintainers of Simplified Chinese translation, it's also very difficult for us to translate taxonomy/vocabulary/category etc. As for class/classification, in Chinese, it's basically the same/similar words as category/categorization. Here is what we did in translation, sort of translate it back to English... taxonomy -> category(or categorization system) vocabulary -> term list term -> term I hope we could come up with something better. It does bring up a lot of confusion/questions...
To keep things as consistent with the current setup as possible, I'd suggest category and categorization over class and classification.
One thought: how does this translate into other languages?
All the best,
David.
+1 I'd imagine there's lots of geek-speak like that in Drupal that could be cleaned up. Brad Bowman wrote:
to summarise:
taxonomy.module--> classification.module vocabulary --> category term --> term
+1 for this
Alex Cochrane
Agreed. I think this is more clear to the average person, without sacrificing anything for the technical types.
Brad
-- Sean Robertson Web Developer NGP Software, Inc. seanr@ngpsoftware.com (202) 686-9330 http://www.ngpsoftware.com
taxonomy module -> classification module
I am fine with that.
Classification is fine.
vocabulary -> category group
Two words would be confusing, especially if category is used for term.
How about just "category" here.
Category is a problem because other systems (WordPress) use category to mean "term", and in many cases don't have a concept of multiple vocabularies or hierarchies. There needs to be a clear distinction between the vocabulary and the highest level of a taxonomy term hierarchy - that, I think, is the main issue at the moment. I'd go for something neutral like "container".
term -> category or tag
We can keep it as a term. The issue is the "vocab", not so much "term". Tag is more specific to free tagging, and may be overloading the term.
I think term is fine. Terms can be tags, tags aren't always terms - that can be made clear in help texts etc.
vocabulary -> category group
Two words would be confusing, especially if category is used for term.
How about just "category" here.
Category is a problem because other systems (WordPress) use category to mean "term", and in many cases don't have a concept of multiple vocabularies or hierarchies.
Totally agree, users except terms to be categories. The real "new concept" in drupal compared to others systems is the Vocabulary. And after all, a vocabulary is a kind of 'classification root', so why not: taxonomy.module -> classification.module vocabulary -> classification term -> category My 2 cents :) -- Aymerick
More synonyms :P vocabulary: set, class, box term: category, bin
On 14-nov-2007, at 17:25, Aymerick Jéhanne wrote:
Category is a problem because other systems (WordPress) use category to mean "term", and in many cases don't have a concept of multiple vocabularies or hierarchies.
Totally agree, users except terms to be categories.
The real "new concept" in drupal compared to others systems is the Vocabulary. And after all, a vocabulary is a kind of 'classification root', so why not:
taxonomy.module -> classification.module vocabulary -> classification term -> category
taxonomy.module > classification.module vocabulary > class term > category Class is abstract enough to be any collection of categories. Catergory 1.150.000.000 google hits; Term 597.000.000 hits. I choose 'category' -- Erik Stielstra (Sutharsan)
On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 17:25:49 +0100, Aymerick Jéhanne <aymerick@jehanne.org> wrote:
Totally agree, users except terms to be categories.
The real "new concept" in drupal compared to others systems is the Vocabulary. And after all, a vocabulary is a kind of 'classification root', so why not:
taxonomy.module -> classification.module vocabulary -> classification term -> category
My 2 cents :) -- Aymerick
That's again coming back to a very blog-centric view of taxonomy. Half the things I use taxonomy module for are not really "categories". If you enable free tagging, you're then talking about "tags", not really "categories". Category carries a lot of mental weight that is very limiting. --Larry Garfield
On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 17:25:49 +0100, Aymerick Jéhanne <aymerick@jehanne.org> wrote:
Totally agree, users except terms to be categories.
The real "new concept" in drupal compared to others systems is the Vocabulary. And after all, a vocabulary is a kind of 'classification root', so why not:
taxonomy.module -> classification.module vocabulary -> classification term -> category
My 2 cents :) -- Aymerick
That's again coming back to a very blog-centric view of taxonomy. Half the things I use taxonomy module for are not really "categories". If you enable free tagging, you're then talking about "tags", not really "categories". Category carries a lot of mental weight that is very limiting.
--Larry Garfield
IMHO, we are not able to find an adequate wording that suits all possible use cases of taxonomy. I'd suggest to keep the current wording and improve the descriptions and documentation. sun
[Am I the only one who thinks it's worth forking this monster thread into appropriately named subthreads to cover the various parallel conversations going on?] On Nov 14, 2007, at 10:09 AM, Larry Garfield wrote:
That's again coming back to a very blog-centric view of taxonomy. Half the things I use taxonomy module for are not really "categories". If you enable free tagging, you're then talking about "tags", not really "categories". Category carries a lot of mental weight that is very limiting.
Right. -1 to renaming "term" to "category". -1 to renaming it to "tag", either, since that's just as limiting. I see nothing wrong with "term" -- it's simple enough for everyone to grasp, generic enough to be accurate for the various use cases, and is already burned into the consciousness of the existing Drupal community. Plus, there are a boatload of URLs, RSS feeds, etc that contain "term" in them -- changing it in the UI but not the URL or menu would be a huge step backwards, and there will be massive link rot to contend with if we change the URLs. On the other hand, even bigger -1 for renaming "vocabulary" to "category", since in many cases, each term is a _category_ of the nodes that have it. Look at the project node vocabulary on d.o: each term ("Images", "Mail", "Vies", etc) is a category of modules that are related to that term. Calling this whole vocabulary a "category" is totally misleading and confusing -- it's a set of categories. For a very non-"tag" and non-"category" usage of taxonomy, look at the "Drupal core compatibility" term on release nodes on d.o. "5.x" vs. "6.x" is *sort* of like a category, but not really. It's really part of the version string, it's a classification of releases based on core compatibility. I can't really wrap my head around thinking of this as a "category", and it's certainly not just a "tag"... Finally, I agree with the last few comments in this thread that the biggest usability problem was the (IMHO foolish) decision to say "taxonomy is too scary, let's inconsistently refer to it as 'categories' in some places in the UI". That right there is the root of most of our trouble. Renaming the menu item back to just "taxonomy" and removing places in the UI (other than help texts) that use this ambiguous terminology would be a big win. I'd say "step forward", but it'd be a correction to our current regression. ;) -Derek (dww) p.s. If we end up renaming "taxonomy" to "classification", it *must* be in D7, since it's totally evil to have the menu paths, UI elements, module name, and function names all disagree. It'll be a huge task to port everything to hook_classification_*, and that *needs* to be D7, not D6.
[2 cents] I think it's to late in the game to make a large naming change. It not only affects how long it will take us to get drupal 6 out the door and established naming conventions but also drupal.org logistics. There are over 90 contrib modules classified as taxonomy and it would take a lot of work to explain this change to anyone not following core, which is a lot of people. +1 to Dereks suggestion. [/2 cents] Quoting Derek Wright <drupal@dwwright.net>:
[Am I the only one who thinks it's worth forking this monster thread into appropriately named subthreads to cover the various parallel conversations going on?]
On Nov 14, 2007, at 10:09 AM, Larry Garfield wrote:
That's again coming back to a very blog-centric view of taxonomy. Half the things I use taxonomy module for are not really "categories". If you enable free tagging, you're then talking about "tags", not really "categories". Category carries a lot of mental weight that is very limiting.
Right. -1 to renaming "term" to "category". -1 to renaming it to "tag", either, since that's just as limiting. I see nothing wrong with "term" -- it's simple enough for everyone to grasp, generic enough to be accurate for the various use cases, and is already burned into the consciousness of the existing Drupal community. Plus, there are a boatload of URLs, RSS feeds, etc that contain "term" in them -- changing it in the UI but not the URL or menu would be a huge step backwards, and there will be massive link rot to contend with if we change the URLs.
On the other hand, even bigger -1 for renaming "vocabulary" to "category", since in many cases, each term is a _category_ of the nodes that have it. Look at the project node vocabulary on d.o: each term ("Images", "Mail", "Vies", etc) is a category of modules that are related to that term. Calling this whole vocabulary a "category" is totally misleading and confusing -- it's a set of categories.
For a very non-"tag" and non-"category" usage of taxonomy, look at the "Drupal core compatibility" term on release nodes on d.o. "5.x" vs. "6.x" is *sort* of like a category, but not really. It's really part of the version string, it's a classification of releases based on core compatibility. I can't really wrap my head around thinking of this as a "category", and it's certainly not just a "tag"...
Finally, I agree with the last few comments in this thread that the biggest usability problem was the (IMHO foolish) decision to say "taxonomy is too scary, let's inconsistently refer to it as 'categories' in some places in the UI". That right there is the root of most of our trouble. Renaming the menu item back to just "taxonomy" and removing places in the UI (other than help texts) that use this ambiguous terminology would be a big win. I'd say "step forward", but it'd be a correction to our current regression. ;)
-Derek (dww)
p.s. If we end up renaming "taxonomy" to "classification", it *must* be in D7, since it's totally evil to have the menu paths, UI elements, module name, and function names all disagree. It'll be a huge task to port everything to hook_classification_*, and that *needs* to be D7, not D6.
On Nov 14, 2007, at 12:32 PM, Derek Wright wrote:
Finally, I agree with the last few comments in this thread that the biggest usability problem was the (IMHO foolish) decision to say "taxonomy is too scary, let's inconsistently refer to it as 'categories' in some places in the UI". That right there is the root of most of our trouble. Renaming the menu item back to just "taxonomy" and removing places in the UI (other than help texts) that use this ambiguous terminology would be a big win. I'd say "step forward", but it'd be a correction to our current regression. ;)
Seconded. Drupal has a powerful taxonomy system. Embrace it, don't hide it. Teach people why it's great and useful and get them hooked on it. My sites wind up having about two or three vocabularies per node type and it helps a ton to organize things and make it accessible, and I'm sure I'm not alone. Pushing taxonomies as being more powerful than either tags or categories just shows up the other CMS solutions, IMO. Rather than hack up the product, someone (not it) needs to make a "Why Taxonomies are Powerful" page on d.o that sells the feature as it is rather than downplaying it and explaining how it can be made to be just like what every other product has with a little tweaking. Be bold. It's a differentiating feature and needs to be played as such on the site and in the product. Something like http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/taxonomy but a little less "This is how it works" and more "This is why it will change how you work with your site". I mean, guys, it's not even on the main features page: http://drupal.org/features That's an oversight! Solve the problem by being proud of it and educating people -- loudly and often.
p.s. If we end up renaming "taxonomy" to "classification", it *must* be in D7, since it's totally evil to have the menu paths, UI elements, module name, and function names all disagree. It'll be a huge task to port everything to hook_classification_*, and that *needs* to be D7, not D6.
It'd be a mistake to change it to "classification" in any case, but these are valid points despite that. The whole problem is consistency and changing it now would cause more of that. I'd suggest exactly what you said earlier, move it all back to taxonomy, vocabularies, and terms for a release and try the education/marketing/propaganda approach. It should work well. The reason it was confusing earlier (4.6?) was because people were so ready to _almost_ apologize for implementing organization as a full classical taxonomy system and they reassured potential users that it was just like categories, just a little more powerful and complicated. Change the selling point. It's more powerful than categories and tags combined and everyone else's solution is merely a subset of this. This is how the feature should have always been, across the board, and we're doing it so _you_ can have that power. Just want categories? Make a Categories vocabulary and move on. Tags? Same. But if you want something more, Drupal can _certainly_ do that as well. The solution's still just words, but different words in a different location and with a different purpose. Adam Knight "Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do." -- Voltaire
Good. The more I think about it, the more I realize 'taxonomy' is the word. And we should enforce it and keep it consistent, and complimented with good documentation. Though I still need to come up with a good set of translations in Chinese, or a better explanation of it..... On Nov 14, 2007 1:32 PM, Derek Wright <drupal@dwwright.net> wrote:
[Am I the only one who thinks it's worth forking this monster thread into appropriately named subthreads to cover the various parallel conversations going on?]
On Nov 14, 2007, at 10:09 AM, Larry Garfield wrote:
That's again coming back to a very blog-centric view of taxonomy. Half the things I use taxonomy module for are not really "categories". If you enable free tagging, you're then talking about "tags", not really "categories". Category carries a lot of mental weight that is very limiting.
Right. -1 to renaming "term" to "category". -1 to renaming it to "tag", either, since that's just as limiting. I see nothing wrong with "term" -- it's simple enough for everyone to grasp, generic enough to be accurate for the various use cases, and is already burned into the consciousness of the existing Drupal community. Plus, there are a boatload of URLs, RSS feeds, etc that contain "term" in them -- changing it in the UI but not the URL or menu would be a huge step backwards, and there will be massive link rot to contend with if we change the URLs.
On the other hand, even bigger -1 for renaming "vocabulary" to "category", since in many cases, each term is a _category_ of the nodes that have it. Look at the project node vocabulary on d.o: each term ("Images", "Mail", "Vies", etc) is a category of modules that are related to that term. Calling this whole vocabulary a "category" is totally misleading and confusing -- it's a set of categories.
For a very non-"tag" and non-"category" usage of taxonomy, look at the "Drupal core compatibility" term on release nodes on d.o. "5.x" vs. "6.x" is *sort* of like a category, but not really. It's really part of the version string, it's a classification of releases based on core compatibility. I can't really wrap my head around thinking of this as a "category", and it's certainly not just a "tag"...
Finally, I agree with the last few comments in this thread that the biggest usability problem was the (IMHO foolish) decision to say "taxonomy is too scary, let's inconsistently refer to it as 'categories' in some places in the UI". That right there is the root of most of our trouble. Renaming the menu item back to just "taxonomy" and removing places in the UI (other than help texts) that use this ambiguous terminology would be a big win. I'd say "step forward", but it'd be a correction to our current regression. ;)
-Derek (dww)
p.s. If we end up renaming "taxonomy" to "classification", it *must* be in D7, since it's totally evil to have the menu paths, UI elements, module name, and function names all disagree. It'll be a huge task to port everything to hook_classification_*, and that *needs* to be D7, not D6.
I agree with Derek on this one. The only real problem is the inconsistency. Introducing yet more terms into the mix just makes it worse. taxonomy.module -> taxonomy.module Categories -> Taxonomies (should just change in the menus and help text, right?) terms -> terms One small change and the inconsistency goes away. Taxonomy is already working it's way into the common vocabulary of the web. Derek Wright wrote:
[Am I the only one who thinks it's worth forking this monster thread into appropriately named subthreads to cover the various parallel conversations going on?]
On Nov 14, 2007, at 10:09 AM, Larry Garfield wrote:
That's again coming back to a very blog-centric view of taxonomy. Half the things I use taxonomy module for are not really "categories". If you enable free tagging, you're then talking about "tags", not really "categories". Category carries a lot of mental weight that is very limiting.
Right. -1 to renaming "term" to "category". -1 to renaming it to "tag", either, since that's just as limiting. I see nothing wrong with "term" -- it's simple enough for everyone to grasp, generic enough to be accurate for the various use cases, and is already burned into the consciousness of the existing Drupal community. Plus, there are a boatload of URLs, RSS feeds, etc that contain "term" in them -- changing it in the UI but not the URL or menu would be a huge step backwards, and there will be massive link rot to contend with if we change the URLs.
On the other hand, even bigger -1 for renaming "vocabulary" to "category", since in many cases, each term is a _category_ of the nodes that have it. Look at the project node vocabulary on d.o: each term ("Images", "Mail", "Vies", etc) is a category of modules that are related to that term. Calling this whole vocabulary a "category" is totally misleading and confusing -- it's a set of categories.
For a very non-"tag" and non-"category" usage of taxonomy, look at the "Drupal core compatibility" term on release nodes on d.o. "5.x" vs. "6.x" is *sort* of like a category, but not really. It's really part of the version string, it's a classification of releases based on core compatibility. I can't really wrap my head around thinking of this as a "category", and it's certainly not just a "tag"...
Finally, I agree with the last few comments in this thread that the biggest usability problem was the (IMHO foolish) decision to say "taxonomy is too scary, let's inconsistently refer to it as 'categories' in some places in the UI". That right there is the root of most of our trouble. Renaming the menu item back to just "taxonomy" and removing places in the UI (other than help texts) that use this ambiguous terminology would be a big win. I'd say "step forward", but it'd be a correction to our current regression. ;)
-Derek (dww)
p.s. If we end up renaming "taxonomy" to "classification", it *must* be in D7, since it's totally evil to have the menu paths, UI elements, module name, and function names all disagree. It'll be a huge task to port everything to hook_classification_*, and that *needs* to be D7, not D6.
I've totally changed my mind on this. I'm now fully in the Derek camp and support Taxonomy/Vocabulary/Term. I think the problem was in poor help texts. Changing the administration page label to "categories" was a total bust. I think consistency is important. The issues that Derek raises about the URLs is very important. I think really good help texts with lots of fully fleshed out examples is the way to go. I'd be willing to help out with the writing. Shai On 11/14/07, Derek Wright <drupal@dwwright.net> wrote:
[Am I the only one who thinks it's worth forking this monster thread into appropriately named subthreads to cover the various parallel conversations going on?]
On Nov 14, 2007, at 10:09 AM, Larry Garfield wrote:
That's again coming back to a very blog-centric view of taxonomy. Half the things I use taxonomy module for are not really "categories". If you enable free tagging, you're then talking about "tags", not really "categories". Category carries a lot of mental weight that is very limiting.
Right. -1 to renaming "term" to "category". -1 to renaming it to "tag", either, since that's just as limiting. I see nothing wrong with "term" -- it's simple enough for everyone to grasp, generic enough to be accurate for the various use cases, and is already burned into the consciousness of the existing Drupal community. Plus, there are a boatload of URLs, RSS feeds, etc that contain "term" in them -- changing it in the UI but not the URL or menu would be a huge step backwards, and there will be massive link rot to contend with if we change the URLs.
On the other hand, even bigger -1 for renaming "vocabulary" to "category", since in many cases, each term is a _category_ of the nodes that have it. Look at the project node vocabulary on d.o: each term ("Images", "Mail", "Vies", etc) is a category of modules that are related to that term. Calling this whole vocabulary a "category" is totally misleading and confusing -- it's a set of categories.
For a very non-"tag" and non-"category" usage of taxonomy, look at the "Drupal core compatibility" term on release nodes on d.o. "5.x" vs. "6.x" is *sort* of like a category, but not really. It's really part of the version string, it's a classification of releases based on core compatibility. I can't really wrap my head around thinking of this as a "category", and it's certainly not just a "tag"...
Finally, I agree with the last few comments in this thread that the biggest usability problem was the (IMHO foolish) decision to say "taxonomy is too scary, let's inconsistently refer to it as 'categories' in some places in the UI". That right there is the root of most of our trouble. Renaming the menu item back to just "taxonomy" and removing places in the UI (other than help texts) that use this ambiguous terminology would be a big win. I'd say "step forward", but it'd be a correction to our current regression. ;)
-Derek (dww)
p.s. If we end up renaming "taxonomy" to "classification", it *must* be in D7, since it's totally evil to have the menu paths, UI elements, module name, and function names all disagree. It'll be a huge task to port everything to hook_classification_*, and that *needs* to be D7, not D6.
Being one of a few new users of Drupal in my group (I've set up three Drupal sites with small customizations to the code in various modules), I can say that we were very confused with the distinction between categories and taxonomy and how they relate to other web2.0 software. It was the term "categories" that got us confused and lead us down the wrong path. Using Taxonomy/Vocabulary/Term and staying away from "categories" would have significantly simplified our first experiences. - John Shai Gluskin wrote:
I've totally changed my mind on this.
I'm now fully in the Derek camp and support Taxonomy/Vocabulary/Term. I think the problem was in poor help texts.
Changing the administration page label to "categories" was a total bust. I think consistency is important. The issues that Derek raises about the URLs is very important.
I think really good help texts with lots of fully fleshed out examples is the way to go. I'd be willing to help out with the writing.
Shai
On 11/14/07, * Derek Wright* <drupal@dwwright.net <mailto:drupal@dwwright.net>> wrote:
[Am I the only one who thinks it's worth forking this monster thread into appropriately named subthreads to cover the various parallel conversations going on?]
On Nov 14, 2007, at 10:09 AM, Larry Garfield wrote:
> That's again coming back to a very blog-centric view of taxonomy. > Half the things I use taxonomy module for are not really > "categories". If you enable free tagging, you're then talking > about "tags", not really "categories". Category carries a lot of > mental weight that is very limiting.
Right. -1 to renaming "term" to "category". -1 to renaming it to "tag", either, since that's just as limiting. I see nothing wrong with "term" -- it's simple enough for everyone to grasp, generic enough to be accurate for the various use cases, and is already burned into the consciousness of the existing Drupal community. Plus, there are a boatload of URLs, RSS feeds, etc that contain "term" in them -- changing it in the UI but not the URL or menu would be a huge step backwards, and there will be massive link rot to contend with if we change the URLs.
On the other hand, even bigger -1 for renaming "vocabulary" to "category", since in many cases, each term is a _category_ of the nodes that have it. Look at the project node vocabulary on d.o: each term ("Images", "Mail", "Vies", etc) is a category of modules that are related to that term. Calling this whole vocabulary a "category" is totally misleading and confusing -- it's a set of categories.
For a very non-"tag" and non-"category" usage of taxonomy, look at the "Drupal core compatibility" term on release nodes on d.o. "5.x" vs. "6.x" is *sort* of like a category, but not really. It's really part of the version string, it's a classification of releases based on core compatibility. I can't really wrap my head around thinking of this as a "category", and it's certainly not just a "tag"...
Finally, I agree with the last few comments in this thread that the biggest usability problem was the (IMHO foolish) decision to say "taxonomy is too scary, let's inconsistently refer to it as 'categories' in some places in the UI". That right there is the root of most of our trouble. Renaming the menu item back to just "taxonomy" and removing places in the UI (other than help texts) that use this ambiguous terminology would be a big win. I'd say "step forward", but it'd be a correction to our current regression. ;)
-Derek (dww)
p.s. If we end up renaming "taxonomy" to "classification", it *must* be in D7, since it's totally evil to have the menu paths, UI elements, module name, and function names all disagree. It'll be a huge task to port everything to hook_classification_*, and that *needs* to be D7, not D6.
Derek Wright wrote:
Finally, I agree with the last few comments in this thread that the biggest usability problem was the (IMHO foolish) decision to say "taxonomy is too scary, let's inconsistently refer to it as 'categories' in some places in the UI". That right there is the root of most of our trouble. Renaming the menu item back to just "taxonomy" and removing places in the UI (other than help texts) that use this ambiguous terminology would be a big win. I'd say "step forward", but it'd be a correction to our current regression. ;)
Here's an issue to do just that. http://drupal.org/node/192209
Thank you! I've never agreed with introducing the "category" pollution. It is not that hard to understand the words vocabulary and term. There are other interface problems with taxonomy.module that make the whole experience somewhat confusing and renaming these two components will never help that. Furthermore, it is not always clear what one *can* or *should* do with taxonomy.module (and this is largely a learning process that can't be avoided or replaced), and renaming vocabulary and term won't help with this either. My vote is for aligning on the words taxonomy and term and finding other targets (like the hierarchy terminology, which is awful) where simple semantics can make a difference. -Robert Derek Wright wrote:
On the other hand, even bigger -1 for renaming "vocabulary" to "category", since in many cases, each term is a _category_ of the nodes that have it. Look at the project node vocabulary on d.o: each term ("Images", "Mail", "Vies", etc) is a category of modules that are related to that term. Calling this whole vocabulary a "category" is totally misleading and confusing -- it's a set of categories. ...snip... Finally, I agree with the last few comments in this thread that the biggest usability problem was the (IMHO foolish) decision to say "taxonomy is too scary, let's inconsistently refer to it as 'categories' in some places in the UI". That right there is the root of most of our trouble. Renaming the menu item back to just "taxonomy" and removing places in the UI (other than help texts) that use this ambiguous terminology would be a big win. I'd say "step forward", but it'd be a correction to our current regression. ;)
I rarely read bikeshed (www.bikeshed.org) type threads, let alone weigh in on them. But I'll offer a suggestion here and hopefully wont regret it. It's undeniable there is class of users who is put off by and/or intimidated by and/or has trouble understanding words like "taxonomy," "category," "vocabulary" and presumably others with three+ syllables ;) . That's why these discussions come up from time to time. There have been a number of suggestions that might make things easier to grok for newbies and users who don't want to get more than ankle deep in Drupal. But every one I've seen uses some term that some people on this list really don't like. In fact there's only one term I've seen no objection to, and that is "term". Therefore I suggest: taxonomy.module -> term.module (or just leave it taxonomy.module) Vocabularies -> Term Sets Terms -> Terms Perhaps with this scheme new users and clients will not be confused when they first see them, and will eventually discover that term sets can be entire hierarchies with lots of features. By then they may know enough about Drupal that these features will be a pleasant surprise and not a source of confusion. Personally, I've never had a problem with the words taxonomy, vocabulary, etc. That's why I called this a bikeshed argument earlier. Because to me personally the names make little difference. The power of the features remains important to me. Thanks for reading my humble opinions, -Dave On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 10:32:02 -0800, "Derek Wright" <drupal@dwwright.net> said:
[Am I the only one who thinks it's worth forking this monster thread into appropriately named subthreads to cover the various parallel conversations going on?]
Definitely not.
Don't give me false hope that we can have taxonomy back and remove the complete confusion between the menu and module name mis-match and the contributed module named categories completely muddying the waters. I almost never +1 a thread, but getting rid of 'categories' and renaming it back to the original Taxonomy would be a good thing from my point of view. For those that thing it should be listed as a 'Feature', send me text/verbiage off list and I will add it. Steven Peck :: www.blkmtn.org On Nov 14, 2007 12:00 PM, David Cohen <drupal@dave-cohen.com> wrote:
I rarely read bikeshed (www.bikeshed.org) type threads, let alone weigh in on them. But I'll offer a suggestion here and hopefully wont regret it.
It's undeniable there is class of users who is put off by and/or intimidated by and/or has trouble understanding words like "taxonomy," "category," "vocabulary" and presumably others with three+ syllables ;) . That's why these discussions come up from time to time.
There have been a number of suggestions that might make things easier to grok for newbies and users who don't want to get more than ankle deep in Drupal. But every one I've seen uses some term that some people on this list really don't like. In fact there's only one term I've seen no objection to, and that is "term". Therefore I suggest:
taxonomy.module -> term.module (or just leave it taxonomy.module) Vocabularies -> Term Sets Terms -> Terms
Perhaps with this scheme new users and clients will not be confused when they first see them, and will eventually discover that term sets can be entire hierarchies with lots of features. By then they may know enough about Drupal that these features will be a pleasant surprise and not a source of confusion.
Personally, I've never had a problem with the words taxonomy, vocabulary, etc. That's why I called this a bikeshed argument earlier. Because to me personally the names make little difference. The power of the features remains important to me.
Thanks for reading my humble opinions,
-Dave
On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 10:32:02 -0800, "Derek Wright" <drupal@dwwright.net> said:
[Am I the only one who thinks it's worth forking this monster thread into appropriately named subthreads to cover the various parallel conversations going on?]
Definitely not.
On 15/11/2007, Derek Wright <drupal@dwwright.net> wrote:
[snipped good stuff]
Finally, I agree with the last few comments in this thread that the biggest usability problem was the (IMHO foolish) decision to say "taxonomy is too scary, let's inconsistently refer to it as 'categories' in some places in the UI".
Thank you Derek for exactly summing up my thoughts on the matter. The original change away from taxonomy was a reaction to a few belligerent forum posters at the time I seem to recall. These 'problems' aren't fixed by changing the terminology to more overloaded words - it just adds more confusion, especially when inconsistently applied throughout the community and legacy content. +1 for sticking with term. tags and categories are both synonyms, but elsewhere they possibly have different mental models and assumptions about how they work or what they do - eg a category is something you put things into (almost a parent container relationship) while a tag is a name you attach to something (lightweight metadata in a way). Drupal terms can handle both of those concepts (although tagging is possibly the better description of what happens under the hood), so renaming to one or the other will only confuse those whose mental models matched the other name. The main confusion I see around the concept of vocabs isn't to do with their naming at all (they are a collection of terms after all). It is more that some people expect them to be a concrete concept rather than an abstract one - ie they want their vocab to act like a top level term that they can do things with. That is just a matter of education in my opinion. Changing the UI reference back to taxonomy would make it more consistent and help the user make sense of the online help and info/modules on drupal.org. The word 'taxonomy' is as much a part of Drupals culture as 'node', and I think we should embrace it. Not only that, but changing it back to taxonomy in the UI would be the easiest option in any consistency and unification effort. I thing I have just noticed is that the online help for the taxonomy module doesn't seem as explanatory as it was in the 4.4 days when I last read it. But it does link to the handbooks and the handbooks are much better these days. -- Cheers Anton (styro@drupal.org)
On Nov 14, 2007 3:26 PM, Anton <anton.list@gmail.com> wrote:
On 15/11/2007, Derek Wright <drupal@dwwright.net> wrote:
[snipped good stuff]
Finally, I agree with the last few comments in this thread that the biggest usability problem was the (IMHO foolish) decision to say "taxonomy is too scary, let's inconsistently refer to it as 'categories' in some places in the UI".
The key here is "inconsistently" and "some places", not the decision to rename in and of itself. If this was to be consistent, there would not have been an issue. "Taxonomy" is fine if you audience are computer scientists, or botanists. Vocabulary is an overloaded term, and hence confusing. If all were renamed to unique, clear terms with proper help text all over the UI, there are no issues at all. -- Khalid M. Baheyeldin 2bits.com http://2bits.com Drupal optimization, development, customization and consulting.
Quoting Khalid Baheyeldin <kb@2bits.com>:
On Nov 14, 2007 3:26 PM, Anton <anton.list@gmail.com> wrote:
On 15/11/2007, Derek Wright <drupal@dwwright.net> wrote:
[snipped good stuff]
Finally, I agree with the last few comments in this thread that the biggest usability problem was the (IMHO foolish) decision to say "taxonomy is too scary, let's inconsistently refer to it as 'categories' in some places in the UI".
The key here is "inconsistently" and "some places", not the decision to rename in and of itself.
If this was to be consistent, there would not have been an issue.
"Taxonomy" is fine if you audience are computer scientists, or botanists.
This statement is no longer true. Within the Application section of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy we find: <quote> Originally the term taxonomy referred to the science of classifying living organisms (now known as alpha taxonomy); however, the term is now applied in a wider, more general sense and now may refer to a classification of things, as well as to the principles underlying such a classification. </quote> So taxonomy fits the "classification of things". I've found the word taxonomy used within the categorization of product items.
Vocabulary is an overloaded term, and hence confusing.
I agree that vocabulary is confusing and needs to be changed. There have been many suggestions but perhaps taxonomy class would be best.
If all were renamed to unique, clear terms with proper help text all over the UI, there are no issues at all.
No argument. Earnie -- http://for-my-kids.com/ -- http://give-me-an-offer.com/
On Saturday 17 November 2007, Earnie Boyd wrote:
So taxonomy fits the "classification of things". I've found the word taxonomy used within the categorization of product items.
Vocabulary is an overloaded term, and hence confusing.
I agree that vocabulary is confusing and needs to be changed. There have been many suggestions but perhaps taxonomy class would be best.
Renaming vocabulary would require a lot of API changes (renaming functions, renaming database columns, etc.), so let's not even consider that for Drupal 6. We can revisit renaming it to "taxonomy.module, taxonomies, terms" in a few months. :-) -- Larry Garfield AIM: LOLG42 larry@garfieldtech.com ICQ: 6817012 "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
On Nov 17, 2007 6:05 PM, Larry Garfield <larry@garfieldtech.com> wrote:
On Saturday 17 November 2007, Earnie Boyd wrote:
So taxonomy fits the "classification of things". I've found the word taxonomy used within the categorization of product items.
Vocabulary is an overloaded term, and hence confusing.
I agree that vocabulary is confusing and needs to be changed. There have been many suggestions but perhaps taxonomy class would be best.
Renaming vocabulary would require a lot of API changes (renaming functions, renaming database columns, etc.), so let's not even consider that for Drupal 6. We can revisit renaming it to "taxonomy.module, taxonomies, terms" in a few months. :-)
Renaming the user interface does not necessarily mean that the programmer's API be changed. As far as I am concerned, vid and tid should stay the way they are, just the "vocabulary" becomes something else that is a single word uncommon term. -- Khalid M. Baheyeldin 2bits.com http://2bits.com Drupal optimization, development, customization and consulting.
Derek Wright wrote:
Right. Indeed. +1 to everything Derek said.
I came to Drupal from a background in science, taxonomy was not a scary word at all - and yet I *still* had to play with taxonomy, to try to use it before I had that *ping!* lightbulb moment of how to use it and how great it was. I don't think the word 'taxonomy' is what confuses people, I think it's the underlying concepts. PS IIRC We switched to 'Categories' in the menu at the time Moveable Type became a paid-for service... -- Adrian Simmons (aka adrinux) <http://perlucida.com> e-mail <mailto:adrinux@perlucida.com>
We switched because mob rule claimed it would be 'less confusing'. I think it ended up being more confusing. On Nov 15, 2007 2:35 AM, Adrian Simmons <adrinux@perlucida.com> wrote:
Derek Wright wrote:
Right. Indeed. +1 to everything Derek said.
I came to Drupal from a background in science, taxonomy was not a scary word at all - and yet I *still* had to play with taxonomy, to try to use it before I had that *ping!* lightbulb moment of how to use it and how great it was.
I don't think the word 'taxonomy' is what confuses people, I think it's the underlying concepts.
PS IIRC We switched to 'Categories' in the menu at the time Moveable Type became a paid-for service...
-- Adrian Simmons (aka adrinux) <http://perlucida.com> e-mail <mailto:adrinux@perlucida.com>
participants (31)
-
Adam Knight -
Adrian Simmons -
Alex Cochrane -
Anton -
Aymerick Jéhanne -
Brad Bowman -
catch -
catch libcom -
Chris Johnson -
Daniel F. Kudwien -
David Cohen -
David Norman -
David Sterratt -
Derek Wright -
Dries Buytaert -
Earnie Boyd -
Erik Stielstra -
Gerhard Killesreiter -
J-P Stacey -
Jim Li -
John Callahan -
Karen Stevenson -
Khalid Baheyeldin -
Larry Garfield -
matt@mattfarina.com -
Richard Morse -
Robert Douglass -
Sean Robertson -
Shai Gluskin -
Steven Peck -
Tao Starbow