What is the guidance regarding categories vs. tags? For example, I would like to be able to identify posts related to web development in Racket. I’m not picky, but I don’t have a clear idea of whether a Category or Tag would be more appropriate for this purpose.
Brian
Well, something can be in only one category, right? So whatever your categories are, they shoudn’t overlap.
I’m thinking of something like
“Posts whose first letter is A”,
“Posts whose first letter is B”,
and so forth.
more seriously, is there any advantage to categories? Why not just make everything a tag?
Hmm… it looks like an admin needs to allow tag creation.
That should now be possible for everyone.
If at some point the amount of traffic gets too large, then it will make sense to introduce categories
to break of the traffic in more manageable pieces. Until then I agree that tags are the best option for now.
As an example of a Discourse that uses categories one can look at the Processing forum.
They gave distinct categories for the Java, Python and JavaScript implementations.
You can give categories a higher profile in the UI and a description makes them easier for everyone/beginners to use.
Clojureverse categories have helpful descriptions.
an even better example is https://discourse.julialang.org
I feel categories are good for broad categories or domains, that you want to have a high profile. I feel RacketScript is strategically important for Racket so I requested a category.
Tags are much more freeform and you might choose to make a tag a category at some point. I think they are sometimes called folksonomies, and come with advantages and disadvantages. The main one being they don't scale.
Other PL Discourse sites listed here:
I think going slow with categories is a good idea. If we notice a high volume for certain tags, then maybe it makes sense to promote the tag to a category.
However, I really like the idea of a “Questions and Help” category, and I think it makes sense to add something like that now. I personally don’t like using “Beginners” or “New to Racket” for this because someone may be experienced with Racket, but delving into a new area, etc.
only one tag - homework
Yes, “Questions and Help” does sound like an important category.
Don’t take this list as a request - it is just poorly thought ideas
Questions and Help: as above
Show and Tell: let people show what they are building. (Libraries and applications)
DrRacket: plug-ins / Quickscript / Sauron
Internals: internals of racket / contributing to racket development
Community: Events, meet-ups, competitions, hackathons, gamejams, #lang-jams, hatches, quilting bees and barn raisins. etc.(I rewatched state-of-the-racket)
General: A catch all
Obviously I am showing my biases.
What have I forgotten ?
To consider
Typed Racket: it is already using GitHub forums - I’ve not checked it out - is it Typed Racket internals , building things with typed racket, or both. If it is working well would duplicating it be beneficial or counter productive?
Oops sorry - I agree going slow is a good idea.
But I think Questions & Help and General are probably needed to start with.
‘Uncategorised’ doesn’t look good to me.
