I am in the process of a literature review and quickly suffered from a convoluted tag structure. I started using tags for p-PROJECT; tp-TYPE (information, zettel, literature note, report, monography…); s-STATUS(active, waiting, draft…); trm-TERM. However, the list – especially the trm-TAGS – introduced lots of clutter. There are some threads on the difference between tags and keywords and I assume from the discussions that keywords are an outdated concept (?) yet I was wondering wether it might be sensible to move the topic-related trm-TAGS to the keywords field, as I am already redundantly using that field in the header for markdown files. I am worried to add yet another layer of unnecessary complexity.
Did anyone try a similar approach? And what were your reasons to do it or vice versa abandon it?
But to me ‘keywords’ strictly related to photos, where this is used as term, and where there is in effect a separate metadata system attached to photos, and available in all photo managers etc.
Afaia, DT is using the keywords field to map this system within DT (– but granted, the real mapping of underlying metadata-mappings is not officially documented, afaik; see here as well).
Then, often keywords and tags are simply mixed up in different context-/app-specific contexts, or even used interchangeably. so, that a) often sows confusion; b) makes it harder to discuss the issue.
So, given all that, I think it´s good to
first clarify on your side, in which way you are taking up ‘keywords’ as parallel system of use her
spell out what you want to achieve, or what you thinking around this is/implies.
Generally, I´d always say, any duplication and multiplication of such meta-systems should be considered w/ care, and multiplication of (personal) sorting/ordering systems should at best kept to minimum. Otherwise you are just confusing yourself, or inserting a lot of ‘cognitive cost’ down the line… jmo.
Keywords are a specific type of metadata and are not outdated. They are however specifially applied to certain formats for certain purposes, e.g., on PDF documents. Tags are more ecumenical and can be applied to any item in your databases.
By the way, if you’re working within the DEVONthink ecosystem, your tags for Project, Type, etc. could be accomplished with custom metadata and a Set data type.
