Tag descriptions

[J.V. 4]

Don't know if this already was requested (haven't found anything with search)

So, strangely, Evernote doesn't have a very useful feature that I think must be very easy to impement - ability to add individual description to each tag.
While deloping elaborated tag system, it would be very handy to have some kind of description so you could remember the exact purpose of the given tag and why it was introduced.
This will help much with consistent tagging (you can read tag description and decide whether you want it or not for the note).
 

[CalS 5,311]

9 hours ago, J.V. said:

Don't know if this already was requested (haven't found anything with search)

So, strangely, Evernote doesn't have a very useful feature that I think must be very easy to impement - ability to add individual description to each tag.
While deloping elaborated tag system, it would be very handy to have some kind of description so you could remember the exact purpose of the given tag and why it was introduced.
This will help much with consistent tagging (you can read tag description and decide whether you want it or not for the note).

Horses for courses of course, but I'm of the opinion tags should be as simple and as self explanatory as possible.  Also, one should use the minimum amount possible, a function of use case for sure.  Tags work great for culling searches to a manageable number of notes, with some text added to the search if need be.  Too many tags will eventually lead to confusion, vis a vis, needing a description to remember the purpose of the tag.  Not against the enhancement for those that might want it, just a different view on tag usage.

[DTLow 5,749]

10 hours ago, J.V. said:

This will help much with consistent tagging (you can read tag description and decide whether you want it or not for the note).

I added my vote; however I rely on the hierarchy to add detail to my tags
There's an actual hierarchy feature, which I replicate in my tag name;
for example Budget-EntertainmentMusic
In this way, I'm not wondering the purpose of a Music tag

[jbenson2 2,149]

I started Evernote 12 years ago. I've been using it daily so my total note count (in 2 separate accounts) is hitting 60,000. 

I have approximately 1,600 tags, which use a specific system to avoid confusion. 

I have found  the following works best for me:

1. lots of specific tag names 
2. a consistent title structure for each note and 
3. just a few notebooks with general broad categories

Many of my tags start with the 3-4 character prefix. A misfiled tag shows up like a sore thumb.

Here are some examples of my prefix tags (Com- has the most number of tags):

• Com- for Company (tag:Com-WalMart)
• Fam- for close Family members (tag:Fam-JLB)
• Iss- for Political issues (tag:Iss-Election-2020)
• News- for Media (tag:News-FOX)
• Per- for Personal (tag:Per-Yard)
• Govt- for Government (tag:Govt-Federal)
• Ins- for Insurance (tag:Ins-Dental)
• Job- for Jobs (tag:Job-ITT)
• Tech- for Tech (tag:Tech-Android)
• Trav- for Travel (tag:Trav-Maine)
   

p.s. 20,000 of my notes are for politics - local, state, country, and international. This group consumes a large variety of tags.

 

[J.V. 4]

On 26.01.2020 at 22:47, CalS said:

Horses for courses of course, but I'm of the opinion tags should be as simple and as self explanatory as possible.  Also, one should use the minimum amount possible, a function of use case for sure.  Tags work great for culling searches to a manageable number of notes, with some text added to the search if need be.  Too many tags will eventually lead to confusion, vis a vis, needing a description to remember the purpose of the tag.  Not against the enhancement for those that might want it, just a different view on tag usage.

Approaches may differ. Until you settle on your own system of tags that suits you well,  it takes a road of trial and error. Especially for novices, that are not used to tags and know where to start from.
Self-descriptive tags are the best, if you already have a working tag system, that you know good, you probably won't need descriptions... but until then it's a good idea to provide each tag with a description to remind yourself what purpose you used this tag for, and kind of summarize your experience to decide if you need it at all.

On 26.01.2020 at 23:05, DTLow said:

I added my vote; however I rely on the hierarchy to add detail to my tags
There's an actual hierarchy feature, which I replicate in my tag name;
for example Budget-EntertainmentMusic
In this way, I'm not wondering the purpose of a Music tag

Thanks. Hierarchy is a must (in fact it is a killer feature that very little of Evernote 'alternatives' have).
Indeed I have a several namespaced root categories, such as *theme, =type, -action, #todo, .projects etc, that have several nested levels each.
But I'm still improving it, some tags can even change names and meaning over time. For example, from @temp to #todo - #delete (temporary notes and bookmarks that should be deleted when assocciated project is finished)
Each project tag itself could use a description with project details.

 

On 26.01.2020 at 23:37, jbenson2 said:

I started Evernote 12 years ago. I've been using it daily so my total note count (in 2 separate accounts) is hitting 60,000. 

I have approximately 1,600 tags, which use a specific system to avoid confusion. 

I have found  the following works best for me:

1. lots of specific tag names 
2. a consistent title structure for each note and 
3. just a few notebooks with general broad categories

Many of my tags start with the 3-4 character prefix. A misfiled tag shows up like a sore thumb.

Here are some examples of my prefix tags (Com- has the most number of tags):

• Com- for Company (tag:Com-WalMart)
• Fam- for close Family members (tag:Fam-JLB)
• Iss- for Political issues (tag:Iss-Election-2020)
• News- for Media (tag:News-FOX)
• Per- for Personal (tag:Per-Yard)
• Govt- for Government (tag:Govt-Federal)
• Ins- for Insurance (tag:Ins-Dental)
• Job- for Jobs (tag:Job-ITT)
• Tech- for Tech (tag:Tech-Android)
• Trav- for Travel (tag:Trav-Maine)
   

p.s. 20,000 of my notes are for politics - local, state, country, and international. This group consumes a large variety of tags.

 

I think that 3 notebook categories is enough: Incoming, Library and Archive (each has 'local' and 'syncronized' notebooks in it). They serve just for "high-level" filtering of everything.
 

[CalS 5,311]

1 hour ago, J.V. said:

Each project tag itself could use a description with project details.

Some folks create a note for the description of the project details and tag it with the project name.  Preceding project tags with a period (.) or the like helps find project tags, tag:.*.  Add a tag like Proj.Desc to those notes and you can easily find all project description notes.  FWIW.

[jefito 5,598]

2 hours ago, J.V. said:

Hierarchy is a must (in fact it is a killer feature that very little of Evernote 'alternatives' have).

For some, maybe. After 11+ years of Evernote, I really don't use the hierarchy aspect of tags. My method is to use rags that are mostly real & simple words, that I use to simply describe a note as I would anything in my mental namespace, usually with 1-3 tags. My semi-exceptions are work project names, which are tend to be short with version numbers, and match what we call the projects at work. Because tags map my mental map of my world -- or at least the sorts of things I collect in Evernote -- there's no need for hierarchy or further description.

I might make use of hierarchy if search supported it , but it doesn't really, at least without more effort on my part that I want to spend.

Seems to work for me; I know that other folks have different systems, but my aim is spend my time organizing notes (with tags mainly, and to some extent notebooks and stacks), rather than organizing my tags. In fact, mostly I keep my tag list closed.

Horses for courses, as Cal says, though.

[PinkElephant 8,996]

Everybody needs to find his own way to organize stuff.

IMHO a need to describe tags is an indicator of over-organizing. Tags are like a multidimensional folder, which is instead of pushing copies of a note into a folder each, the one and same note is tagged to make it easier to find it, or even more to group it together with otherwise in the same context.

If I need a description of individual tags, I likely have too many, which is contrary to the idea of grouping notes together. I will likely have to few notes per tag than to make this work.

If I want to describe my tagging system as a reminder, I can easily create a note with a description for reference.

Personally I use the tagging assisted by the tag proposals when I enter the first letters „free style“. My hierarchy is one level deep, the second level does not carry a reference to the first one. Maybe I would use hierarchy more structured if it would be supported by the iOS app as well. Every several month or so I go to the tag view on my Mac, check for tags with only a few uses and decide whether to keep it or to join it with another tag.

Notebooks are important to very superficially cluster notes, but even more important is the possibility to use them to control information flow, like sharing to other people or selecting offline notes for a mobile app.

[J.V. 4]

18 hours ago, CalS said:

Some folks create a note for the description of the project details and tag it with the project name. Preceding project tags with a period (.) or the like helps find project tags, tag:.*.  Add a tag like Proj.Desc to those notes and you can easily find all project description notes.  FWIW.

Yes, this is the way.
 

[DTLow 5,749]

On 1/31/2020 at 2:02 PM, CalS said:

Preceding project tags with a period (.) or the like helps find project tags, tag:.*.  Add a tag like Proj.Desc to those notes and you can easily find all project description notes.  FWIW.

Regarding tag descriptions, I vote for preceding tags with Project as in Project-Sample   
"." seems cryptic

>>I'm not much for verbose tags

I recall a comment from my French colleague when we were laying out text in a bilingual form. She said, "We're not verbose, we're ..... precise"   
   
I confess, my tag names are verbose   
What really hurts is Evernote truncates the tag name in various displays

>>! for action

My tag name is Actionable.  
I also have  child tags

[CalS 5,311]

8 hours ago, DTLow said:

"." seems cryptic

Not if it is the standard you set for yourself.  = for people, _ for years,  ! for action.  I'm not much for verbose tags.  Horses for courses.