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 mice  – As seen in WordPress?

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

3 comments

  • spaces,for,me,please,commas,are,more,work,plus,delicious,uses,spaces,and,they ,are,the,granddaddy,of,tagging,in,my,mind,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

  • HI there John! You think? The problem I see with spaces – AND using “quotes for multiple words” can be a pain, and people forget to use them (the quotes) quite often leading to many unintended tags.

    Commas are not more work, in fact less, as you simply use once to delimit one word or more than one word.

    city, USA, New York

    not

    city USA “New York”

    hmmmm jury’s still out

  • Heh Kosso, I agree, there’s always trouble in my mind when it comes to how to describe something with more than one word. But then I think that a side effect of tagging is to encourage one-word descriptions over phrases. Similiarly, when one is searching for a particular tag, doesn’t one usually search based on one word?

    Just for devils advocate, how about allowing both! or making it a user setting?

    Cheers