Mar 14 2007
a tag by any other name
Sometimes one word just isn’t enough to know what a tag really means. For example, when I was working as an IT administrator for a non-profit agency, I was scrambling to find a free or low-cost tracking system I could use to manage their IT issues in a sane fashion. I went into research mode and bookmarked a lot of sites under my “issuetracking” tag. Now, looking back, I wish I could comment a little on that tag about what I found and what I ultimately decided to do… but how? Enter our latest feature: tag descriptions.
For any of your tags, you can now add a public title and description to appear at the top of the page. It may just be to remind yourself of what it is or to tell others more about it. To get started, just visit one of your tags and click “create description” (at the top). As always, we don’t presume to know exactly how you’ll use this or what about it will be most valuable to you, so we welcome your feedback and suggestions!
Josh Whiting · jwhiting Tags: features bookmark this
59 Comments
Phil | Mar 14 2007 at 8:48 pm
Great idea! I have one question though: are the tag descriptions going to be saved in the HTML that’s generated from “export/backup?” It’d be nice to be able to keep that as well. Anyways, nice new feature! Thanks!
Wally Punsapy | Mar 14 2007 at 9:32 pm
Oh, golly, you guys are swell! Congrats!
James A. Arconati | Mar 14 2007 at 9:59 pm
Wow, a feature I didn’t even know that I needed!! I am about to go try it out, but I want to echo Phil’s comment/question above. Also, I wonder if the descriptions will be part of each page’s RSS feed. Good job and keep up the great work!
John Hritz | Mar 14 2007 at 10:01 pm
Very cool. This does a much better job than my glossary tag. Another cool thing would be to list all of your descriptions on one page in alphabetical order.
Nick | Mar 14 2007 at 11:25 pm
Hi Phil,
Currently the tag descriptions are not exposed in RSS feeds but we’re definitely open to any and all feedback on the feature. Like everything else, it will always be a work in progress as we aim to please.
Nick | Mar 14 2007 at 11:26 pm
Whoops, I think I answered the wrong question. They’re also not in the exports either, mainly because the standard bookmarks format we use doesn’t really support metadata on specific tags.
ani625 | Mar 15 2007 at 12:58 am
Bravo guyz.. cool feature u’ve pushed there.. A descr for a tag was definitely needed.. that is, when we see our links at a later stage and bang our heads as to why that it tagged that way ..LOL
keep up the good work guyz..
-Greatest fan of Del.icio.us
ani625
joshua | Mar 15 2007 at 2:15 am
Phil: One issue with that is that the export file looks like HTML, but is secretly Netscape bookmarks.html format; if we tuck extra stuff in there, I’m not sure if it will end up breaking importing that into other applications. But we’ll test.
joshua | Mar 15 2007 at 2:18 am
John, that’s on the list too.
l0b0 | Mar 15 2007 at 2:46 am
Great feature; could you please add it to the settings page? My >6000 bookmarks take minutes to load…
hAmid reZa | Mar 15 2007 at 6:10 am
Great feature! But I think it’s time for thinking seriously about size of pages for users for a lot of tags. My bookmarks page is not loaded fast enough on a computer I didn’t visit delicious on it recently. Could you for example not load all tags at first and use ajax technics to load every bundle sub-tags whenever user clicks on its title (=whenever needed not every time)?!
Danieru | Mar 15 2007 at 8:12 am
It would be great to have HTML enabled descriptions… This would open up a whole world of possibilities.
iptvSolutions | Mar 15 2007 at 9:20 am
iptvSolutions
mwiik | Mar 15 2007 at 12:44 pm
I’ve wanted this for a while. Thanks!
paulhue | Mar 15 2007 at 12:55 pm
I can’t figure out how to do this. The post, “A tag by any other name”, points us to a link “tag descriptions”: http://del.icio.us/help/tagdescriptions
That page instructs us, “To use Tag Descriptions simply go to your tag page.” How does a user go to his/her “tab page”?
paulhue | Mar 15 2007 at 1:09 pm
Can anybody explain to me how to “go to your tag page”?
l.m.orchard | Mar 15 2007 at 1:09 pm
paulhue: Good question - we might try offering a sample link in the help page drawn from your own set of tags. But, for the sake of example, I’ll assume that “paulhue” is your del.icio.us username.
So, here’s an example of one of your tag pages, for the tag coffeehouse:
http://del.icio.us/paulhue/coffeehouse
You should be able to use the new tag description features there.
paulhue | Mar 15 2007 at 2:03 pm
l.m.orcahrd: Yikes. The option was staring me right in my face. (Yes, you went to my own delicious page.) I suggest that the author of the author of the instructions modify his/her text, perhaps in the following way:
===============================
To use Tag Descriptions, from your delicious “Your Bookmarks” main page, click on the hyperlink name of any one of your tags. That will take you to a page devoted to that tag, listing all the webpages to which you have assigned that tag. If you have already created a Tag Description for this tag, you will now see here near the top of the page the Tag “Title” and “Description” that you previously input, along with options to “edit”, “delete”, and “hide” this info. If you did not already previously create such info (or deleted it), you will see the new option: “Create Tag Description”. The only time you will see your Tag “Title” and “Description” is when you go to that tag’s “home page”.
paulhue | Mar 15 2007 at 2:06 pm
l.m.: And thanks for taking the time to help me. I think that the official help page should, in addition to upgraded text, provide the extra screen capture, for example of my “coffeehouse” tag page.
erich_vn | Mar 15 2007 at 2:50 pm
Great feature. Is there any chance to display at least the titles of all tags, if more than one tag is selected?
chefnelone | Mar 15 2007 at 5:50 pm
hi
Is there a way to NOT include a tag in a bundle ?
sort of “-tagname” (wiht the “-” preceding it)
Nick | Mar 15 2007 at 6:00 pm
I’m not sure what you mean- you add tags to a bundle, if you don’t want the tag in the bundle you don’t have to add it… or maybe I’m misinterpreting your question?
Phil | Mar 15 2007 at 7:19 pm
Nick and joshua: Thanks for answering my question! And thanks for your hard work!
Kishore Balakrishnan | Mar 15 2007 at 7:32 pm
Where do i see the various descriptions for a tag? with frequency etc.
Jeffrey S Schulman Sr | Mar 15 2007 at 8:24 pm
Great Feature, I think I am starting to finally get a handle on all this! LOL-
You Guys Rock!!!!
Jeff Schulman
http://jssinfoempires.com
chefnelone | Mar 16 2007 at 4:25 am
hi nick thanks for answer
if you i create a bundle and add a links which has a tag (let say:icons) but this link has also another tag (let say: design). Then how do i do to include all the “icons” tabbed but not the “icons” tabbed which has the “design” tab too.
Problem is that I imported my bookmarks. So now, all my bundles (i had created before) are a mess. Since all my bookmarks has the tag “imported” I just want the “imported” tagged out of them.
kalla22 | Mar 16 2007 at 6:16 am
Why not to make your favorite ringtones ?
It is easy , I have using mp3 to ringtone gold to make my ringtones for a long time , it works pretty good , just download it at http://www.oursdownload.com/mp3-to-wav,wav-to-mp3,mp3-to-ringtone.html
chrys | Mar 16 2007 at 6:59 am
thanks for this guys. any plan to do the same with tag bundles?
sarchi | Mar 16 2007 at 8:18 am
thx that’s just great I maybe have wondered if it would make the grade but with html would a challenge
mario64 | Mar 16 2007 at 8:30 am
i just want to join the others and congratulate you guys for a good job done
bommel | Mar 16 2007 at 10:54 am
Sounds like a useful new feature. Thanks.
I hope some developers read my improvement ideas:
Usually I have del.icio.us open the entire day as I only store “temporary” bookmarks in my browser. What’s bothering me when I navigate through my del.icio.us bookmarks are the many site refreshes it takes. I’d like to see del.icio.us integrate more Ajax that navigating gets faster (like e.g. in Gmail). At the same time I like the visual design of del.icio.us a lot. Please don’t change that.
Each day I surf about half an hour on my mobile. While del.icio.us gets rendered better than many other sites, a mobile version of del.icio.us would be top.
Finally it would be handy if one could configure a homepage at del.icio.us with a selfrefreshing (!) feed reader.
Thanks for reading all this!
Dave | Mar 16 2007 at 12:00 pm
I like the site name. My blog is about current events and politics, but maybe I ought to write some delicious food articles too! LOL
Paula | Mar 16 2007 at 1:23 pm
Great feature, Thanks!
Nick | Mar 16 2007 at 1:27 pm
Hi Bommel,
Thanks for the feedback. Improving site performance and experience is definitely one of our priorities, and it’s good to know what our users want as we head towards the future.
David Evans | Mar 16 2007 at 2:02 pm
Good timing. I am replacing a hand-coded list of urls with the Linkroll feature. I hope we can use the Description in the Linkroll soon.
Is there a way to display a bundle of tags in the linkroll? That would be perfect for my situation but I don’t see that as an option.
cherryvamp | Mar 17 2007 at 7:31 am
I only started using del.icio.us less than a month ago and i’m addicted! Esp. since I lost lots of bookmarks in WL Favorites (which was always temporarily unavailable!) so am more than impressed.
I think this new tag descriptions adds to it even more, as some pages bookmark without much information, so I just copy & paste a brief bit into this section which is much easier.
Nice one!
Mike | Mar 17 2007 at 4:41 pm
I haven’t seen anything to suggest that comments are searchable. That would make them more powerful.
While I have the floor, as I a newbie (very enthusiastic), I wonder if it is possible to reorganize tags. For example, I a “meetings” tag in my unbundled tags, I inadvertently added a meeting tag to the tags in a bundle. Is there a way to copy the contents of the unbundled tag into the bundled tag other than going to the web page and retagging the URL? And, then, of course, deleting the original tag. Gee, sometimes a subdirectory would be nice.
Forgive me if I haven’t read the manual closely enough. This a terrific application!
stylizedfact | Mar 17 2007 at 6:52 pm
Any chance of adding a del.icio.us discussion forum? The blog format is a little dictatorial. What I’m really after is some more info about the api. Is there a call that given a bookmark URL, will return a list of associated users? Thanks.
Also, are there any other “friendlier” urls that redirect to del.icio.us? I mean, what a disastrous choice of URL, no?
britta | Mar 17 2007 at 11:08 pm
stylizedfact: delicious.com :)
joshua | Mar 17 2007 at 11:09 pm
Yes, there is going to be a forum at some point.
There are a variety of ways to edit tags and bundles under settings.
We plan to have a way to make the delicious collections searchable.
stylizedfact | Mar 17 2007 at 11:45 pm
britta: thank you!
It will be rich to have a forum. Thanks!
stylizedfact | Mar 17 2007 at 11:48 pm
anything out there better than http://similicio.us?
macdet | Mar 18 2007 at 4:15 am
i speak from link-blogging :) is an relay good thing for quick site in ma wiki.
See http://wiki.mobbing-gegner.de/PayPal-wir-man-bargeldlos-bestochen-werden-kann-Sex-Betrug-Korruption
there is an quic overview how i use it! thx
ArchStanton | Mar 18 2007 at 11:06 am
Since one of the uses of tag descriptions will be to remember why you used a particular tag, it would be nice if they were accessible through the full screen post page. A tooltip when hovering over a tag would be the least invasive and most usable, IMHO. To reduce page size, it might be good to do this in an AJAX-y way.
Keep up the good work!
Jay Dugger | Mar 18 2007 at 1:13 pm
I’ll echo the calls for HTML in the tag descriptions, export of tag descriptions, and tag description feeds.
Jay Dugger | Mar 18 2007 at 1:42 pm
Now that I’ve played with this new feature a little bit, I find that I use it for tag metadata. For example, on http://del.icio.us/jay.dugger/kenhite, I described a tag I use as an adjective for bookmarks involving the author Ken Hite. I noted the tag belonged to my bundles “people” and “artists,” the six most common related tags, and I listed the del.icio.us accounts that used the tag. I also added the HTML so that the del.icio.us/jay.dugger “kenhite” tag page appears in the “kenhite” Technorati tag page.
Manually adding metadata takes care and time, and it would help if del.icio.us would automatically make at least some of these. In particular, identifying the most commonly used related tags by frequency, tag bundles to which the tag belongs, and listing other del.icio.us accounts using the tag would allow users to spend their descriptions’ character budgets on metadata uniquely valuable to them. Flickr did something similar to this when it added geotags and a map as a default metadata type.
If you do this, and please do, perhaps you might wait a little while (six months or so) to see what metadata people most commonly use in their tag descriptions.
James | Mar 18 2007 at 4:29 pm
When will you become yahoolicious for real?
santosh | Mar 18 2007 at 10:30 pm
Hi,
Can anyone explain me in detail the solution of the vulnerability posted in the link.
Thanks,
Santosh
Ratanaphon Nokthaban | Mar 19 2007 at 9:14 am
Dear Webmaster,
We try to register us, but it is imposible. Can you help us please ?
best regards
Mrs. Ratanaphon Nokthaban
Thai-versand24.de
Bernhard | Mar 19 2007 at 4:40 pm
Great Idea!!
bernie - http://www.mein-aquarium.com
Ann-Marie Cunniff | Mar 19 2007 at 7:34 pm
Just trying to figure this into everything else????
desimo | Mar 20 2007 at 1:35 pm
It is these kinds of developments that keep del.icio.us leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the web more time on del.icio.us than any other site online ;)
Michael Massing | Mar 20 2007 at 5:59 pm
Very useful:
• As you suggested, I can now jog my memory on why and how I distinguish between and bundle the “protector” and “protection” tags, and some dozen such tagsonomic distinctions.
• I can in the case of the delicious page that replaces and extends my WordPress blog ( http://del.icio.us/Michael.Massing/outbasket ) add a title and brief description for visitors.
It would be great if you could extend this feature to our “home” page (no tag specified).
All the best,
M.
p.s. - Thanks for cleaning up the bulk of your blog spam. Unfortunately, looks as if this will be an ongoing and usually thankless cost of doing business for you.
Chuck | Mar 20 2007 at 10:26 pm
I’ll try it out and see what happens.
otilie | Mar 22 2007 at 7:41 am
Great informations. Thanks for the interesting article. I´ll try it.
peacay | Mar 22 2007 at 10:19 am
I’m having a little trouble wrapping my head around why this might be useful. It almost seems like another layer of redundancy. (I’m I suppose, just thinking out loud here). I’ll have to think about it more. But these days I prefer to have decent tags plus a description which makes things easier both to tag search or site search. It seems to me that if the original tag isn’t selfevident as to its purpose then it was a stupid tag to use. For me anyways.
jerry | Mar 23 2007 at 2:19 am
very cool, you can find out the appointed website bookmarked by enter a tag. The tags are act important in bookmary your favorite site. http://www.digitalcamerabattery.org
friend9 | Mar 26 2007 at 7:13 am
Sounds like a useful new feature. Thanks. http://forexclub.blogsome.com
Michael Massing | Mar 31 2007 at 1:35 pm
Reviewing this thread, I see beneath the spam (any chance Yahoo could give you guys some admin support on sweeping that stuff out?) several references to bundles, including making them “describable”. I’m wondering, and excuse me if I’ve missed the earlier discussion, if bundles will ever be usable as search terms in the URL and/or in the tag-page header-search field. As little as I know about this stuff, it would seem to me you wouldn’t have to change the nature of bundles, but since your system already maps bundles to a list of tags, couldn’t a bundle in the tag position of an URL be parsed to that list? Transparent to user, and I would hope easy for you, if perhaps with some slight (?) traffic overhead. Thanks for considering this.