Feb 3 2007

Tagging : Commas or Spaces

It looks like Joshua (who built del.icio.us ) is also asking about the question of entering tags with commas or spaces.

My strong opinion is that spaces ALREADY have a role to play as a delimiter. To separate words. So, if we want to list ‘words as data’ (ie: tags) then we surely must use another character as a delimiter. This also means multiple words can be used easily too. It’s the way we already use commas when we write. So use them ;)

USUALLY a load of words separated with spaces is a sentence. Words separated with commas are lists. So it makes sense, you see?

I also commented on Josh’s post to say:

The use of comma delimited categories has been in use in XML for longer. Databases too. Basically using *any* ‘character’ is MUCH better to use as a delimiter, because a space ‘needs space’ – know what I mean?Also spaces can be whitespace. Which is often ignored in places. Commas make sense. We are used to using to spaces list thing: cats, dogs, mice, bears. It even makes more sense grammatically, let alone programmatically. ;)


Jan 31 2007

A Question Of Tagging

OK. So I have recently built a new tagging system for podcast.com (which is inches away from a big overhaul) and a few other sites I build, and I wanted to ask you a question:

Which would be the preferable ‘delimeter’ to post multiple tags?

Spaces (with quotes to enclose multiple words)? Eg: cat furry “my pet” “eats mice” – As seen in flickr

or

Commas : Eg: cat, furry, my pet, eats miceĀ  – As seen in WordPress?

I personally think commas is easier, but how about you?