I like this approach!

Let's just start using these tags!

I have made a better overview over the existing tags in table format (two
tables: widely used and free to be used tags) at the beginning of
	http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/1962
. For bookmarking it...

Greetings,

Stephan


Hannes Hirzel wrote:

<snipped>  

>  4. Additional Squeak Mailing List Conventions to aid filtering
>  --------------------------------------------------------------
>  
>  This list uses some conventions at the moment
>  (See also 'Reporting Bugs and Fixes'
>  http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/398 )
>  
>  In the title string tags are used in a operative sense:
>  [Bug]        Bug report
>  [Fix]        Fix for a bug
>  [ENH]        Enhancement
>  [GOODIE]     Little addition which can be little application or some
>               change of Squeak like changing the appearance
>  [ANN]        Announcement of a major addition
>  [Q]          Question
>  [Newbie]     Question by a newbie or somebody how thinks he is one.
>  
>  I propose that there would be a considerable benefit in this system if
>  some more generally accepted tags would be used.
>  There should't be too many of them as they have to be known by heart for
>  ease of use.
>  
>  The following is a proposal for additional content oriented tags:
>  (alphabetical order)
>  
>  [Deployment] Deployment related topics like "majorShrink" issues,
>               release number questions, configuration questions and
>               the like.
>  [Dynabook]   Conceptual issues regarding the dynabook vision and
>               it's implementation.
>  [EToys]      EToys related things
>  [HW]         Topics related to a specific Hardware (for example iPaq
>               implementation)
>  [IDE]        Integrated Development Environment; topics regarding
>               browser variants, inspectors explorers and the debugger.
>  [Idea]       Tag for discussing new ideas what to do with Squeak
>  [IO]         Input / Output related things like driving a lego RCX, serial
>               connection
>  [Morphic]    General Morphic related topics (Design patterns, usage,
>               missing things)
>  [Multimedia] Multimedia issues like how to use squeak for presentations
>               and font, sound,  graphic and movie related issues.
>  [Reln.n]     Issues specifically in connection with a specific official
>               release n.n like 3.0 (the last one)
>  [SqApp]      Squeak applications like Celeste, Scamper, PDAMorph, Nebraska
>  [ST]         General Smalltalk related issues
>  [Teach]      Discussion on how to teach Squeak or how to use Squeak in
>               teaching.
>  [Tutorial]   Squeak tutorials (for example Dan Shafer and John
>               Hinsley asking questions when they are developing
>               tutorials just to mention two recent authors, or users
>               of tutorials who want them to have updated.)
>  [VM]         Virtual Machine related topics (VM Maker, code generator,
>               porting efforts)
>  [XP]         Recently people have been beginning to use this list as
>               a very moderate kind of Extreme Programming (XP) style
>               through email by posting unfinished things (e.g.
>               change sets) and asking other to participate. This hasn't
>               been the case in the past and I think this is very
>               valuable.
>               However not everybody want's to join in and even shouldn't
>               therefore by having a mailfilter directing the messages
>               marked with [XP] to a subfolder everything would be fine.
>  
>  Why use this tags?
>  
>  The tags should serve the sole purpose of dividing up the chunk of a 1000
>  or so mails per month into more managable chunks.
>  
>  They should be understandable without having to consult this list.
>  This list has the purpose of coming up with a proposal for a
>  commonly agreed set.
>  
>  The other purpose of these tags is that derived services are still easy to
>  implement.
>  
>  Several of the tags can be used in the same message title if necessary.
>  
>  Tag application examples
>  
>  For example there are VM implementors which do a excellent job for the
>  community. However that's not in everybodys focus. So a tag discussing
>  VM issues would allow easy filtering and archiving. A swiki like the
>  German User's Groups bug tracking swiki could collect VM-related things.
>  
>  Another example: Some people are interested in EToy others are not. This
>  tag helps to separate mail.
>  
>  The [Teach] tag could be used to set up a swiki with copies of the mails
>  where people could further add things for tutorials and instructions.
>  
>  Implementation of these additional tags
>  
>  Additional tags can be introduced gradually as we need them. And they can
>  as well be used without to much consultation as long as we don't have too
>  many of them (say less then 20).
>  
>  5. Summary
>  ----------
>  
>  I consider it important to organize the discussion around concepts.
>  For this purpose the mailing list is a valuable tool.
>  
>  However to facilitate automatic processing / filtering it helps to
>  have a common more or less agreed set of general tags.
>  Somewhat overlapping tags are OK as as long as there are not too many.
>  
>  So I propose to use semantic tags like the ones listed under Point 4
>  consistenly in the title string of the mails.
>  Implementation: 'As we go along, just use them'.
>  *Nobody* will complain having some more tags in the title string.
>  
>  The costs of implementing other solutions are considerable for the
>  community.
>  This solution costs very little (time and cognitive effort) but brings a
>  big additional value with existing tools and setups.
>  
>  6. Further steps
>  ----------------
>  
>  I put this mail unchanged (besides some formatting) as well on the Swiki:
>  
>  http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/1962
>  
>  Just edit it and change it or add things. You may reedit it completely.
>  I don't mind or if I do, I will change things again. ;-)
>  
>  I would like to see a more or less commonly agreed tagset ("controlled
>  thesaurus").
>  
>  This does not contradict the the fact that we can already *start now*
>  using
>  these additional tags. We'll see what works and what doesn't.
>  It will be no big issue if for some time there is some inconsistency.
>  In fact it will be better not worse. It was actually the same thing with
>  the already existing tags.
>  
>  A typical very simple application scenario will then be to set up a mail
>  filter which puts mails within one group of tags (a personal selection) in
>  one folder and the rest in another folder.
>  
>  Hannes Hirzel

-- 
Stephan Rudlof (sr@evolgo.de)
   "Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis.
    You can't simply say, 'Today I will be brilliant.'"
    -- Kirk, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3