Is tagging really that bad?
So that's what happens when a site decides to join the tagging fever:
Tags: php, dd, tutorial, shiflet, shiflett, zend, framework, web, site, anirudha, fdffffffffffffff, hello world, httpwwwgooglecom, kjkljlkj, asasas, vinod, chilli, shiflettasshat, mama, papa, chuckoo, sathishan, nithyan, ashokan, unni, divya, pradeep, abcphp, zde, jayesh jose, harro, ronnie, sample, oui, lebicheur, controller, error, d, kontrola, omg lol, 5, 46457, dfsdfdsf, sdfsdf, asd, crazy, booga, should tags be allowed to be added like this, no i dont think so the tags should be extracted from content, dont allow users to add tags or youll see the results, tags are the root of all evil, thi is, cvcxv, ioncube, zend framework, you already see the results, has not printable version, user created tags how lame, pet the monkey, shoutmouthcom, maybe only registered users should be able to add tags, adding another worthless tag to hammer in the points made earlier, this is only way to add new tag, didip is a complete bonehead, rapdwordpresscom, trke olmayan dkman, turkce olmayan dokumanlar, prova
I have mixed feelings about tags, but in this case, tags seem pretty much useless.
Two years ago I was an absolute tagging enthusiast, but I have slowly moved towards a more cautious opinion. It's like wikis: if there's not someone exercising some quality control, the content gets easily polluted when the number of users grows.
Even though, I still believe that their flexibility is also their advantage over other ways of organising information. But unless you use these methodologies in a closed, controlled environment, things will screw up pretty soon, I guess.
You just need to take a look at del.icio.us or flickr, two of the most famous tagging-enabled sites. There can be several tags in different languages for tagging the same thing. Or maybe somebody will prefer to separate multi-word tags with underscores, whereas other prefer points. Or hyphens.
The syntactic problem is slightly irrelevant, but the semantic one is not. And I'm not even going to enter the issue about mechanical tags, vandalized content tagged with really wrong tags and all that crazy stuff!
Oh and if you feel curious, this is where I found those absurd tags.