I’m going to perform one of the drastic incisions of the Invader redesign; the removal of categories as we know them. The procedure consists of more steps than this; they will come in time.
Basically I’m going to collapse all the traditional categories into one single category, which for the moment will be called ‘Entries’. It will coexist for a while with only Clippings—which is my asides category—to keep it company.
In a short while they will be accompanied by some new categories, and hopefully I get to increment the percentile Invader completion counter.
In the place of traditional categories (taxonomy) will be tags (folksonomy). Categories will then be used to only to mark what kind of an post we’re dealing with, not its content. That role will instead be handed over to Ultimate Tagging Warrior, which seems like the best bet for a folksonomy solution for WordPress.
Ease your mind, things will be good.
Wow! This sounds like something I had thought about for a while. For my blog, I changed all of my Categories to match the best Technorati tags for them, then consolidated all of my posts into the appropriate “Tag-ories”. Then I have UTW use the category names as tags, eliminating my need to manually add the tags in later.
Sounds like you’re going to make it easier and better, tho. Can’t wait to see it!
A very interesting approach. It would definately make posting easier – not having to force a post into a category.
I did that a while ago on my blog – never looked back.
I like this comment box dealy, by the way. The “top / comments / bottom” links are a useful addition. It fucks the scrolling up in Firefox though.
That’s the way I’ve been doing it for a good while now. I just have some pretty generic categories (Entertainment, Tech, Internet and such), while the tags say what the specific content is.
I think using tags rather than categories is an excellent idea. I know when I write an entry on my blog I always have a tough time figuring out which category the entry should belong under but not with tags; all that hassle is eliminated and it makes finding an entry a whole lot easier.
Brilliant idea! Will this feature be included in K2?
That sounds like a great idea. I’ll watch it happen for now. :)
Did this one awhile ago, general (general > photos) and quickposts are the only cats I have right now, any organization is via tags. That said a lot of the older posts aren’t tagged, so they don’t get reflected. It seems to make more sense, at least once you get used to the idea of a folksonomy over a category taxonomy.
You’ll be happy with it, it’s kind of like Movable Type’s idea of multiple weblogs for content. Allows you to have some fun with how you treat different chunks of content in your templates.
And as the 0.10beta2 of Extended Live Archive will include a support for UTW, everything is all good :D
I, for one, support this move. I’d do it as well if WordPress.com allowed hint. (Hint hint, PhotoMatt).
Michael,
I did this WordPress 1.6 UI Mockup to aide in doing just what you are proposing.
Only there seems to be no interest in it.
Anyway, I look forward to seeing your efforts!
I made this same move a month or two ago. It works for me.
Sounds like nigh on exactly the way I’ve been planning on organising my blog as well, if only I had the time!
Isn’t that the point of categories anyhow? I’ve always felt people have tried to over-apply categories.. leading to the problem you describe.