Introduction –
Categories are probably the most powerful feature that we are adding to the Fall blog. If we use categories properly we’ll be able to instantaneously retrieve any old posts of interest. That will also make the entire blog much more accessible and much more interesting for the casual reader. Because categorization is so important I’m writing up this detailed page to provide information on how I visualize our usage of categories in the Legends Blog.
What is are categories?
A category is simply a tag that can be placed on a post to flag the post for future retrieval. These categories or tags are also user defined, or at least they can be defined by users that have the proper authority (in the case of our Blog, Gary and I have that authority). A post can be tagged multiple times so it can be placed in multiple categories.
Hierarchical Structure –
Also categories are organized so that they follow a hierarchical structure with a parent, child, grandchild, etc format. If a post is tagged with a child category, then it automatically falls into the parent category too. As an example, if I were running a Sports and Entertainment Blog, I might set up a category structure that has Sports as a parent category with basketball and baseball as child categories, and Yankees and White Sox as children of the baseball category and thus grandchildren of the sport category. Then if I were to make a post about the Yankees and tag it as a Yankee post, later on whenever I searched for posts relating to sports or baseball, my Yankee post would automatically appear. It would also not appear in any searches I did just for basketball or White Sox.
The Philosophy of the Legends Categories –
I created a category structure for the Legends of the Falls blog that is primarily based on the subject(s) of the post. When we go looking for a post we are usually interested in what the post is about so that was key in my mind as I developed the structure. The easiest way to describe the principle behind the scheme is to think of the four W’s – who, what, when and where (in fact, you can think of each of the four W’s as kind of a supercategory). I have developed a series of about 60 categories for what I feel are the most common answers when we ask those questions about the 250 or so blog entries that have already been made to date (and I’ve actually gone through and tagged all the posts that were previously entered).
Here’s a little more detail on that categorization.
Who?
Not too surprisingly, the preponderance of posts on the blog are about someone in our family. Within the Who supercategory, I broke down a group for each adult family including children within our extended family. I’ve made a decision that you are emancipated and worthy of your own family group once you are finished with school and go off on your own. Thus Shannon, Brian, and Dawn are considered to have their own families and are not part of the Marilyn and Steve Bergquist family for categorization sake while Chris and Nick are still considered part of the Steve and Mary Fall family. Mom and Dad have their own family group and, since we often post about our relatives, I have created a catchall family group called Relatives where posts on Harry, Linda, Richie etc would logically be tagged.
Remember, what’s important is the subject. Don’t tag your post with your name unless you are writing about yourself.
What?
The next most common subject of our posts fell into the what supercategory. These are posts that are about something rather than someone. Not too surprisingly, since Gary and I made the bulk of the posts that something often was a sport. So sports was a logical category to create. Other common themes were health (at least my health), music, schools (especially Penn State), reminiscences (talking about the old days), and a catchall that I called ministrivia for occasions where Gary and I start posting about our toasters or something. Both the Sports and Schools categories have logical children categories. The others stand on their own.
When?
Now here’s where things start to get a little dicey when it comes to categorization. I’m not looking for a month and date when I ask the when question. I’m looking for special occasions. Most posts won’t have a when tag but when the post revolves around a special occassion like a birthday or holiday then a when tag is appropriate.
The when tags that I have created so far are birthdays, weddings, vacations, reunions (defined as when one family member meets up with another out-of-town family member), and the aforementioned holidays which so far have child categories of Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween.
Where?
This question gets even more dicey than the when question. What I’m looking for is when the subject of the post actually has something to do with a location. So when I posted the photograph of my toaster, I didn’t feel a need to put it in the State College location category. But when Gary and Shannon went to a baseball game at Yankee Stadium, that was worthy of a New York tag (as well as a baseball and reunion tag). This one will undoubtedly be the most difficult one to decide – I’m sure some of decisions that I made on the existing posts would have been made differently by someone else – it’s no big deal.
The when categories that I created were basically state categories (all our resident states plus Florida and New York) with some city/towns as children. Again, remember that most posts will not have a where tag because the location of the post is more often than not just not relevant.
Also keep in mind that the categorization is expandable at any point in time. If you feel a category is needed, just let me know and I’ll add it.
Tagging a Post –
It’s simple and it’s just a mouse click away. Normally you will want to tag a post when you initially write it. Just to the right of the input box on the Write Post screen is a hierarchical list where you can simply check the box that you want with a mouse click (click here to see that screen). If you make a post but forget to tag it with a category – no problem. Simply click on the edit function at the bottom of your post in the main blog and you will be taken back to the Write Post screen where you can fill in or change the category tags.
I hope this gives you a feel for the power of categories. To get even more of a feel, just look to the right and click on some of the categories to see how quick and easily the posts get retrieved. I think exploring the blog and reminiscing will be much more fun now.