Oleg, Devon,
In order for the keyword scheme to work it must be extremely simple, so
that anybody can add keywords, without having to read directions, write
scripts, or know how to create a wiki page. Keep in mind, users looking
for answers are not interested in building wikis, only finding the
answers to their problems. The keyword-add process should be so easy,
that even casual wiki or forum browsers would have no problem dropping
in a couple of keywords, if they felt it would help someone else have an
easier time finding their discovery.
The basic rules that need to be in place to really make the keyword
scheme work, are as follows:
1. Every forum post, wiki page, or reference book chapter, or article on
J, should have two things at the bottom of that post or page:
a. An active link which says "Add a new keyword" that, when clicked,
will bring up a dialog box that enables the user to enter a list of
keywords. Any keywords entered in the box will be added to the keyword
list for that page or post.
b. The list of all keywords that have been added to that page or
post should be displayed at the bottom of the page. Perhaps the list
could be hidden by default, with a view/hide button/link to allow
viewing or hiding the list. We may have to convert some of the reference
docs to html to make this keyword-add scheme ubiquitous across all of
the J documentation, but I believe that it would be worth the effort.
2a. There should be one single search engine that encompasses all of the
forum posts, wiki pages, reference books, discussions, and articles on
J. That search engine should be prominently displayed on the home page,
wiki home, reference book home, etc., and anywhere else that a user
might go to find information about J. Actually, this has already been
done pretty well by the J software folks. The engine just doesn't find
the appropriate item often enough, which isn't the fault of the search
engine. The information is usually out there. The users just don't enter
in the right search terms. The keyword scheme can help fix this.
2b. A very brief explanation of the keyword scheme should be displayed
along with every search engine box, and also perhaps with every "add a
new keyword" link, so users will understand how they can help others
find the things that they discover, by adding their own keywords.
Devon's #pragma scheme is fine for experienced wiki builders to add
keywords to wiki pages. IMHO, simple as it is, the average wiki-browsing
user won't take the time to learn how to add keywords to the wiki that
way. Also, it does nothing for the forum posts or reference docs, which
have much great info hidden in them. The keyword plan must be structured
simply enough so that as soon as someone finds the information they
need, they could add a keyword or two which would have helped them find
their information quicker.
A little incentive could go a long way to help the cause. JSoftware
could have a raffle so that registered keyword "taggers" would get an
entry to the raffle every time that the added a keyword to the doc. The
taggers could be tracked using cookies. The prize shouldn't be too big,
to discourage inappropriate tagging, but big enough to encourage typing
in a couple of keywords that could help others find that useful post or
page.
There are many "user-graded" posting schemes out there, (Digg, Slashdot,
etc) where users grade the importance or usefulness of an article or
blog, so this keyword concept is not too far out. However, the J
keyword mechanism is about adding information to a post, to improve its
chance of being found, instead of a grading scheme. Both schemes rely on
people's altruistic natures. Actually, the keyword mechanism is a
simple-minded way to back into Tim Berners-Lee's "semantic web" dream,
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web) without all of the
technical complexities Tim throws in.
When you think about it, if every document, post or wiki page had a
unique keyword in it, such as jlanguage, or jay language, or jsoftware,
or Iverson, etc., then general searches on Google which included one of
those keywords, would find the same set of information that the
specialized J search engine would find...
This discussion may be moot, as I am not sure that there is any easy way
to add the described mechanisms to the forum postings or reference docs.
If it could be done, it would be an interesting experiment that could
potentially revolutionize how web information is categorized and
discovered.
Skip
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