[wp-hackers] Achieving faceted navigation

[Haluk Karamete]

Mike, Yes, the approach 2 looks/feels/seems better. but... let's put a
little twist to the matter and re-look at it.

When we stick to approach 2, we are using thee custom taxonomies for
our needs for post classifications for "Media", "Audience",
"Proficiency level"

but what about step 4? are u fine with that?

step 4 was this;

step 4- After a few hundreds of posts (or when things start to get clear),
do a tag cloud and see whereabouts your stuff really is accumulating
and then come up with the proper **CATEGORIZATION** ( and subs ) to
replace the "uncategorized" top level category with.

....

What's the alternative to compare with?

here it is;

step 4- After a few hundreds of posts (or when things start to get clear),
do a tag cloud and see whereabouts your stuff really is accumulating
and then come up with the proper ***CLASSIFICATION*** ( and subs ) to
*****start building a new taxonomy called Topics.****. With this
approach,  you will still end up keeping the things as "uncategorized"
as far category taxonomy is concerned but use custom taxonomies all
the way to pull your site off nothing but custom taxes.

...

Basically, what we are doing here is to completely ignore category
taxonomy from the get go and to the launch and use a custom taxonomy
called topics as a replacement.

Now I'm sure that most maybe all of you ask, why would I want to do that?
After all, category is just another taxonomy (which happens to be
built in and there is nothing wrong with it ) AND we are using our
replacement custom taxonomy "topics" exactly the same way that we
would with category>topics approach.

yes, it is true, but knowing that does not help me understand the key
differences in between the two.

I'm trying to understand the consequential differences of using one
versus the other, and this particular example ( granted it seems odd)
just serves me very well in seeing the difference (if there are any -
really).

As far as I know, with cats, you get a whole lot of function set to do
the certain things... for example, your posts have the ability to do
next/prev stuff within a cat.. and maybe URL wise you get some
tructures, may be SEO wise category urls are more favored?? plus, with
using cats, I'm not ending up wasting a utility that WP already is
coming with. perhaps these are the benefits of taking the category
taxonomy for the purpose. ( if there are more benefits, please add
here ---> )

but, on the other hand, if we abandon the cats all the way (and leave
things in the uncategorized ALWAYS), and instead, we work with custom
taxonomy called "topics", we may be looking at WP a whole different
way when we want to use WP   as a CMS.

basically, what i am saying, when going with this approach, from a
coding and/or mind set point of view, are there any benefits at all?








On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 3:59 PM, Mike Schinkel
<mikeschinkel at newclarity.net> wrote:
> On Dec 7, 2010, at 6:05 PM, Haluk Karamete wrote:
>> But, since categorization of content is a very subjective task and
>> humans have so many different angles to see things from, the
>> categorization challenge usually becomes a mind-boggling task. I
>> realize & accept that there are many right ways of achieving great
>> categorizations but I also do know there are definitely the wrong ways
>> to go at it. Usually, either the lack of knowledge or pressuring
>> deadlines may be the culprit.
>
> You've hit the nail on the head.  Of the top 3 things I've spent my professional career on categorization has been one of them and you are definitely seeing the complexity clearly.
>
>> =====================================
>> Approach 1
>> =====================================
>>
>> 1- Screw the topical categories...
>> 2- come up with 3-4 semantic top level cats such as...
>> 3- Tag your posts like hell.
>> 4- After a few hundreds of posts ...
>> 5- And if you want to create bigger sections,...
>>
>> =====================================
>> Approach 2
>> =====================================
>>
>> Do the same, but use Custom Taxonomies for step 2 instead.
>
> What you've described here with Approach 2 was what I was thinking about writing as I started to read your email, so IMO I think you've nailed it.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> -Mike
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