The taxonomy help page text is not quite as good as it could be. Please help rewrite it. This is a wiki page. Discuss changes in comments and weave them back into the main text. I'll include the text twice. The first text is the reference and the second instance of the text is the revised text that we'll try to put into Drupal 6.
Here it is - the current text as a reference:
The taxonomy module is one of the most popular features because users often want to create categories to organize content by type. A simple example would be organizing a list of music reviews by musical genre.
Taxonomy is the study of classification. The taxonomy module allows you to define vocabularies (sets of categories) which are used to classify content. The module supports hierarchical classification and association between terms, allowing for truly flexible information retrieval and classification. The taxonomy module allows multiple lists of categories for classification (controlled vocabularies) and offers the possibility of creating thesauri (controlled vocabularies that indicate the relationship of terms) and taxonomies (controlled vocabularies where relationships are indicated hierarchically). To view and manage the terms of each vocabulary, click on the associated list terms link. To delete a vocabulary and all its terms, choose edit vocabulary.
A controlled vocabulary is a set of terms to use for describing content (known as descriptors in indexing lingo). Drupal allows you to describe each piece of content (blog, story, etc.) using one or many of these terms. For simple implementations, you might create a set of categories without subcategories, similar to Slashdot's sections. For more complex implementations, you might create a hierarchical list of categories.
For more information please read the configuration and customization handbook Taxonomy page.
Here is the version that you should improve and edit:
The taxonomy module allows users to tag and categorize content. For example, when creating a recipe site, you might want users to classify posts by both the preparation time and the cuisine using two vocabularies:
- Preparation time
- 0-30mins, 30-60mins, 1-2 hrs, 2hrs+
- Cuisine
- American, British, Cambodian, Chinese, Eithiopian, Indian (South), Indian (North), Mexian, Thai, …
In controlled vocabularies like Preparation time the administrator (or a user with administer taxonomy permission) creates a hierarchical list of terms. On the other hand, in a free-tagging vocabulary like Cuisine, users can choose from the existing terms in the vocabulary or enter new terms of their own. As the administrator, you can assign multiple vocabularies to each content type to create powerful and flexible methods of tagging and categorizing content.
You can construct URLs to view posts and generate RSS feeds for content by taxonomy term, for example:
- recipes that are 30-60 minutes
- recipies that are Thai or Cambodian
- recipes that are 2hrs+ and Eithiopian
See the Handbook page for more information about the taxonomy module. Read about contributed modules that extend the way the taxonomy module displays and organizes terms.
Read more about tagging at Wikipedia.
There are also two short help texts on the admin pages themselves
Existing text:
/admin/content/taxonomy
The taxonomy module allows content to be classified into categories and subcategories, or vocabularies and terms. Terms may be organized in controlled vocabularies (vocabularies with multiple lists of categories), in thesauri (controlled vocabularies that indicate the relationship of terms), in taxonomies (controlled vocabularies where relationships are indicated hierarchically), or in free vocabularies (vocabularies where tags are defined during content creation). To view and manage the terms of each vocabulary, click on the associated list terms link. To delete a vocabulary and all its terms, choose "edit vocabulary".admin/content/taxonomy/add/vocabulary
When you create a controlled vocabulary you are creating a set of terms to use for describing content (known as descriptors in indexing lingo). Drupal allows you to describe each piece of content (blog, story, etc.) using one or many of these terms. For simple implementations, you might create a set of categories without subcategories. For more complex implementations, you might create a hierarchical list of categories.Proposed changes:
The taxonomy module allows you to categorize your content using anything from tags (free-tagging vocabularies) to advanced classification systems with terms controlled by the administrator.Free-tagging vocabularies allow tags to be created by users on the fly when posting content. If this option is not checked, terms can only be created by users with the "administer taxonomy" permission. This is useful where you need more control over vocabularies, for example short lists of terms, or more complex implementations using hierarchy and relationships. Vocabularies can be assigned to one or more content types, and one content type can have several vocabularies for additional flexibility.
Comments
The issue in the issue queue to get this settled
http://drupal.org/node/190497
How about this?
The taxonomy module allows you to create taxonomies that define or describe content.
At the most simple, a taxonomy can be used to create a free-tag vocabulary, or lists of descriptive terms created by users as they post content. These free-tag vocabularies are most commonly used in blogs and social bookmarking applications.
Taxonomy can also be used to create a controlled vocabulary. A controlled vocabulary consists of a list of terms entered by a site administrator. Controlled vocabularies can be used to create a site structure, or to prevent user error. An example use of a controlled vocabulary would be on a recipe site: A recipe could be defined by two taxonomies: Type of Meal and Preparation Time.
Type of Meal could contain the following terms: Appetizer, Main Course, Salad, Dessert
Preparation Time could contain the following terms: less than 1 hour; 1-2 hrs; 2-3 hrs; 3 plus
At its most complex, Drupal's taxonomy can support complex hierarchies with different relationships between terms. These complex structures are generally not required for most sites, but this functionality helps distinguish Drupal from other content management systems as it creates the potential for complex metadata structures around content within a Drupal site.
For more information on taxonomy, see the handbook page. To extend the core taxonomy functionality, see the Taxonomy section of the Modules download page.
FunnyMonkey
Tools for Teachers
FunnyMonkey
Great examples. The
Great examples. The paragraph that starts with "At its most complex" is still vague, though. Could you come up with an example there too?
Great rewrite
billfitzgerald, that's a good write up that covers every type of use. You've summarized definition of bottom up (free-tag), top down (controlled vocab), and facets (use of multiple vocabularies), and provided excellent examples of their use. You might mention synonyms, but I haven't seen them implemented in Drupal browsing UIs, so not sure if that matters in terms of the help page at all.
didn't realise comments were
didn't realise comments were enabled - so reposting my changes from the wiki page itself so we can compare wildly different versions:
The taxonomy module allows you to categorize content using various systems of classification. These can be as simple as free-tagging vocabularies, created by users on the fly when they post content. They can be short lists of terms defined by the administrator. Or they can be complex hierarchies, allowing for multiple relationships between different terms. These different approaches can be applied to different content types and combined together to create a powerful and flexible method of classifying and displaying your content.
Each taxonomy term (in other systems often called a 'category' or 'tag') generates a corresponding listing page (found at taxonomy/term/n).
Term ids can also be combined to combine results from each term. The page taxonomy/term/1,2 will show all posts categorized by your first or second terms. The page taxonomy/term/1+2 will show all posts categorized with both of these terms. If you use a hierarchy in your vocabulary, appending /all (taxonomy/term/n/all) will show posts tagged with this term, and any posts tagged with one of its children as well.
Besides this built in functionality there are numerous contributed modules which extend the display and administration of the taxonomy module.
For more information please read the configuration and customization handbook Taxonomy page.
also:
admin/content/taxonomy
The taxonomy module allows you to categorize your content using everything from tags (free-tagging vocabularies) to advanced classification systems with terms controlled by the administrator.admin/content/taxonomy/add/vocabulary
Free-tagging vocabularies allow tags to be created by users on the fly when posting content. If this option is not checked terms can only be created by users with the "administer taxonomy" permission. This is useful where you need more control over vocabularies, for example short lists of terms, or more complex implementations using hierarchy and relationships. Vocabularies can be assigned to one or more content types, and one content type can have several vocabularies for additional flexibility.pathauto doesn't like combining like "term/1,2" "term/1+2"
seems not to work for pathauto :(
http://dooblet.com -- find alternatives to anything
Less emphasis on listing page location
I propose that the first line of the second paragraph read:
Each taxonomy term (in other systems often called a 'category' or 'tag') generates a corresponding listing page (found at taxonomy/term/n).
instead of [...] generates a corresponding taxonomy/term/n page.
The important information for understanding how taxonomy works is that a page is generated for the term, and secondarily where to access that page.
[ Quilted, Stitching Together Technology and Social Change ]
Thanks, I've edited that in.
Thanks, I've edited that in.
Taxonomy vs Categories
Perhaps it's off-topic, but I'm in the camp of those who think renaming Taxonomy to Categories in the admin was a bad move.
It makes newcomers think categories are just that, it doesn't help them grok the whole concept.
And they can also understand categories as a way to structure their website, confuse them with what Book or Outline module does. I mean, in most blog apps, you have links to "categories" by default in a sidebar so it's a kind of navigation tool. But in Drupal adding terms won't do that, you have to create menu items or links or use a contrib module.
Elv - the issue for changing
Elv - the issue for changing it back to taxonomy is here, and needs review! http://drupal.org/node/192209
I've also now posted a combination of mine and Bill Fitzgerald's changes as a patch to the taxonomy/help issue.
This is now fixed:
This is now fixed: http://drupal.org/cvs?commit=88546
A refactor and rewrite
(incorporated above)
Need a better example
This strikes me as anglocentric. Does anyone have another simple example of free tagging?
Re: Need a better example
Let's say my site is about animals and my user writes a story about her pet dog. She might want to free tag the story as . Let's say my site is about food and my user writes a story about his experience with eating in Mexican restaurants; he might want to free tag the story as .