Labels or tags: what's better?

[RobertoBozzolo]

I just realized that I can give a message both a tag and a lable, which results in separate boxes in the board view:

I would thank anybody explaining the difference between labels and tags, which looks very similar to me with the only exception that labels are set by the poster while writing a post and tags can be added by the same poster or anybody else even at a later time.

But while you can see tags in messages, there is no evidence of labels associated to them!

As a side note, the tags cloud could be formatted as the labels one, separating the counter from the tag name as already requested.

*Edit* It seems that Labels can be assigned only by the thread author while opening it: they cannot be assigned to replies

[RobertoBozzolo]

As another side note, the Labels box disappears for very small screens (below ~780 pixels width on PC or on the phone).

If that means that labels are less important than tags, then please move the tags box upright and leave the labels one to the bottom of the page!

[Matt_McLaughlin]

Hi Roberto,

You're correct that Labels and Tags are very similar. The question isn't so much which is the better option, but what the purpose of each is.

Labels will generally be a pre-defined list of categories meant to provide further structure and organization within an area of the Discussion Forums. (For example, the LabVIEW Idea Exchange uses labels to categorize labview ideas related to differenct pieces of functionality.) Some of our boards have many many labels and have not been used for some time. We are working to clean these out to ensure labels provide as much structure and definition as possible.

Tags are more organic and user-driven. They can be applied both by the original poster and other Community members to group posts with similar intent or content that might not fit as a high-level category. For example, the LabVIEW Nuggets that users have tagged over the years.

They're very similar and there's certainly some overlap, but I hope that distinction makes sense!

Thanks,

[RobertoBozzolo]

Yes, "which is better" may not be the best title 

I understand your ideas but I wonder how you succeeded in keeping the idea exchange labels cloud so small since they can be freely input by posters.

As a comparison, terms like "are", "a", "C" (in CVI board!) or even "Hello"  can be found in forum boards! As it is evident, the tags cloud tends to be unusable due to this large amount of garbage in it.

Unless you perform a constant review of labels substituting the meaningless ones. Such a process, though, while can be performed easily on idea exchange boards which are low-traffic, is notably more demanding in boards like LabVIEW one (where you have at present not less than 24 pages of labels! I wonder how many users take the time to review the complete list and find the most appropriate...)

That is to say, labels and tags as they are today seems to me an unnecessary duplication of references. Not to mention that you are not able to perform a search among label and/or tags, and it's my impression that the search engine looks only in message title and body to locate results.

[Matt_McLaughlin]

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RobertoBozzolo wrote:

Unless you perform a constant review of labels substituting the meaningless ones. Such a process, though, while can be performed easily on idea exchange boards which are low-traffic, is notably more demanding in boards like LabVIEW one (where you have at present not less than 24 pages of labels! I wonder how many users take the time to review the complete list and find the most appropriate...)

That is to say, labels and tags as they are today seems to me an unnecessary duplication of references. Not to mention that you are not able to perform a search among label and/or tags, and it's my impression that the search engine looks only in message title and body to locate results.

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Very valid points! It is our intention to increase the helpfulness of Labels by reviewing and consolidating the existing labels, and in areas where labels are enabled, only allowing posts to be assigned from a set of pre-defined labels. This will help us get past some of the clutter you're seeing today and allow Labels to be a useful way to further sort through posts. Please stay tuned as we work on this!

Thanks,

[RobertoBozzolo]

Ok, I'll keep waiting 

[RobertoBozzolo]

Hello Matt,

I tried to post a message today in the CVI board adding some label (specifically "CVI", "CVI2015", "Compiler warnings") but always received the following message: "The following labels are not available here: (label)" 

Does it means that labels cannot be freely set? Where can I find the list of available labels per board?

[Matt_McLaughlin]

Hi Roberto,

Apologies for the confusion here. As I mentioned, we're working to limit labels to certain boards and allow users to choose from a set of pre-defined labels and what you're seeing is the result of this being "in-work".

Tying back in to your original question, I would recommend that you use tags to sort/group posts for your organization.

Let us know if any questions come up!

Thanks,

[RobertoBozzolo]

Wow! I posted here no later than 2 days ago adding no less than 2 labels!

Ok, let's se what you'll pull out from your hat.