Michael Heilemann removed categories from his latest WordPress project.
In the place of traditional categories (taxonomy) will be tags (folksonomy). Categories will then be used to only to mark what kind of an post we’re dealing with, not its content. That role will instead be handed over to Ultimate Tagging Warrior, which seems like the best bet for a folksonomy solution for WordPress.
Ease your mind, things will be good.
Normally, I wouldn’t pay much attention to such pronouncements. Although it’d be cool to say I am an early adopter, the reality is that I typically wait until I’m dodging innovations on the technological highway — so to speak — before I adopt anything new.
My early adopter spirit is always willing, but my grey matter always messes everything up.
Still, Michael is the father of the WordPress default theme “Kubric.” People seem to pay attention to what he has to say, smart people, people who don’t have to Google their CSS thingies before they make stylesheet changes.
So maybe I should pay attention, too. Maybe I should figure out tags now and be ready for a category-less world, even though it took me forever to wrestle my categories into submission.
And hey, as long as Michael uses short words and talks real slow, maybe I’ll even be able to follow along.
I’m not so sure about this latest maneuver. I tried to use Ultimate Tag Warrior a month or so ago, but in the end, I realized that I have always regarded my categories as tags. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see a difference between “what kind of an post we’re dealing with” and “its content”.
I would suggest that you get into tags, they’re very important. But, don’t add a plugin to your setup to handle tags, just use your categories as tags. If you’re looking for inspiration, Tom has a great category-as-tag setup on his blog, and he also published an article on the importance of tags.
That’s my homework tonight, James! Tags!