del.icio.us tags
Practical suggestions for making useful tags
The value of tags is enhanced by using them consistently and extensively. Here’s three rules of thumb I use for tags on del.icio.us:
Redundancy
use redundant tags
For example, for a link to an online computer manual I might include the tags “book”, “manual”, and “reference”. There’s no penalty for over describing things and when I come back later I don’t have to worry about which specific word I used.
Singular, not plural
don’t use plurals for tags
It can be confusing to remember whether I put something down under “book” or “books” and these are separate tags that won’t match for each other. It is far easier to use the singular form for all tags. For pages that include more than one book, I might use an extra tag like “list” or “collection” to indicate that.
There is an exception to this rule - where a tag is a proper noun that is usually in the plural form; for example, it makes no sense at all to put “window” when I mean “windows”.
Whatever makes sense to you
use tags that make sense to you
My list of links is primarily for my use - sure others will also see my links as I add them, but as far as my list is concerned that’s just a side-effect. So I use whatever tags make sense to me.