Filter the list down by tags, search via the search bar, and click on topics to see the first post – all without leaving the context of the knowledge explorer.
Really? I got close to infinitive amount of structure variations with tags.
But the real issue with vertical structures of categories are that things almost never fall in just one context. So, even sub-categories, but specially when there is multilevels, it makes finding information harder, not easier.
We see that in every e-commerces. Admins wants multilevelling, not customer. They have to rely on search because categoty structure is close to impossible to use.
1.Everything needs a balance.
2. All communities are different. If the knowledge base consists of many small things that can be competently structured, so why not do it instead of putting all the eggs in one basket?
It is clear that if the community is about iPhone 14, then tags may not be needed there
Actually most forums — communities are unrelevant — are same. There is different type conversations and there is need to classified topics some way. And the way should choose what is the easiest solution to find what one is reaching.
Admins want multilevel categories. And quite soon same admins want ability to use more than one category on same topic. Poor users don’t know what to do and quite soon they stop using even search and start using only /latest and New topic.
And that happends no matter what is the niche of community. Or forum.
Sure. The ground rule is an user knows best and, kind of, admins are users too. So — should there be an option to customize a forum every possible way to keep all admins happy? Well, that would be nice. To develop/code such amount of varieties… good luck.
I’m doing direct bounces every day and there is two main reasons:
I can’t find information I’m looking for because the structure is mess. I could show some discourses where /docs is useless because of so many categories. My forum is one example, unfortunately.
that site/forum/community is impossible use with mobile — that happends mostly because an admin (and too often developer too) uses two 21” wide screens
And again, it just doesn’t matter what is the purpose of community because all of those work on same platform and admins are using same solution. Plus there is maximum amount of categories in use and way too few tags
(This is drifting to meta-topic categories vs. tags; should this branch move somewhere else?)
I have minimal tag usage and four levels of category nesting. Due to the fact that the categories are hierarchically structured, everything is easy to find. For some reason, in discourse, tags are elevated to the rank of a magic pill, on other forum engines, tags are of secondary importance. I know forums with millions of visits with no tags at all.
But we digress from the topic. My suggestion is to add subcategories to the knowledge base, rather than discussing which is better, tags or categories
— are same. There is different type conversations and there is need to classified topics some way. And the way should choose what is the easiest solution to find what one is reaching.