Social Ch@nge

You might have noticed we’ve prettied ourselves up this week at Social Ch@nge – we’ve been listening to you and changing the site to work even better for you. There’s a share button, an option to subscribe via email, reader’s comments up front where you can see ‘em, and there’s a kinder, gentler 404 page. But we need some more help.

You see, Word Press offers you and me the option to categorize posts on the basis of either tags or categories.  The benefits of one versus the other are actually pretty complex – in fact, when we asked our technical support, his exact description of the debate ended: 
“I am not an expert.  And experts debate endlessly archival and retrieval techniques…occasionally come to blows at conferences, knocking off one another’s panama hats…duels are fought by candlelight in the returns rooms of tenured collections, the survivors winning the right to catalogue as they see fit…”

Well, you get the idea. Sometimes it’s easier to simplify the difference between tags and categories, and which one will work better for you. So here is the simplified version, panama hats not included.

You’ve seen tag clouds before – groups of key words that tell you what a website is about. If we add a tag cloud, you’ll be able to tap on “fundraising”, “tools” or “Youtube” and come up with all the posts we’ve tagged on the issue. In general, tags are great when you’re handling large amounts of information – so it makes sense that places where you’ve seen tags in use would be Youtube, Flickr and Technorati.

But tags aren’t the only way to organise a website’s topics. Categories allow you to file posts into different groups of topics, assigning parent categories and subcategories to your heart’s content. This hierarchical arrangement makes it easier to find related topics – although, tag fans might tell you this just means you’re not being broad enough with your tags. Ask yourself:  is hierarchy important to you? How do you like to search?

And then please write us, because we need to choose fast. Up till now, we’ve used both tags and categories, and it’s screwing up our search engine. Before we reset it, we want to hear from you.

Which one do you think works better and why? Tell us your tips, and your wish will be our demand.