Suggestions needed for list of links

In article <f9t54q$al5$1@aioe.org>,
Bernhard Sturm <sturmnixspam.RemoveThis@datacomm.ch> wrote:

> If you really want the company, that is after the bucks, then check this
> tag-cloud (yes, the one company, that also people in the US know about):
>
> http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Tags-Cloud.aspx

In this case there are just a few links. Many tidier link lists
would be as good. Where there are a real lot, it looks messy and
hard to find things. Honestly, what is the argument for them
besides that some big companies use them?

--
dorayme

In article
<gvnwi.35733$ax1.24125@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>,
"Beauregard T. Shagnasty" <a.nony.mous.DeleteThis@example.invalid> wrote:

> Animesh K wrote:
>
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_cloud
>
> "A tag cloud is a set of related tags with corresponding weights.
> Typical tag clouds have between 30 and 150 tags."
>
> Yesss ... I can see myself looking through a mess such as the pictured
> sample on that page, looking for "Purchase" ...
>

Indeed, it looked like an awful mess!

--
dorayme

In article <Ktcwi.206826$1_7.131574@reader1.news.saunalahti.fi>,
"Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorpela.DeleteThis@cs.tut.fi> wrote:

> (I don't expect a person claiming "Corn Flakes" to be his or her full name
> to be _able_ to argue.)

This is an interesting thought. Do arguments need an authority
behind them to add to their force? I would say a good argument
stands on its merits, just as a good picture does. If you have to
look behind an argument to see who said it, it usually means you
are not impressed with the argument itself.

--
dorayme

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Tue, 14 Aug 2007 22:55:08
GMT Animesh K scribed:

>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_cloud
>>
>> Thanks, Animesh. I'm afraid I have to say that my reaction is rather
>> like Beauregard's (-peeked ahead), though. Now I'll read the rest of
>> the opinions.
>>
>
> That was just to tell whether tag-cloud is a known "category
> presentation" trick. Their examples aren't the best and Wiki has a
> "brush icon" to denote that the article needs to be improved.
>
> Look into some examples that Bernhard gave.

Well, I suppose a good design man can come with something useful on
occasion. It's not worth arguing about, though. I don't like to argue,
you know.

--
Neredbojias
Half lies are worth twice as much as whole lies.

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Tue, 14 Aug 2007 23:07:08
GMT Animesh K scribed:

> Neredbojias wrote:
>> Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Tue, 14 Aug 2007
>> 19:18:01 GMT
> <snip>
>>> That lad is me. I was toying with google groups a few month ago and
>>> took that as a handle. I forgot to change it. I changed it as soon
>>> as I noticed it.
>>
>> There's nothing wrong with Corn Flakes unless they're overmilked.
>>
>
> Just wondering if you ever said that to a woman!

....Not if I wanted to get laid.

--
Neredbojias
Half lies are worth twice as much as whole lies.

dorayme wrote:
> In article <f9t54q$al5$1@aioe.org>,
> Bernhard Sturm <sturmnixspam.RemoveThis@datacomm.ch> wrote:
>
>> If you really want the company, that is after the bucks, then check this
>> tag-cloud (yes, the one company, that also people in the US know about):
>>
>> http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Tags-Cloud.aspx
>
> In this case there are just a few links. Many tidier link lists
> would be as good. Where there are a real lot, it looks messy and
> hard to find things. Honestly, what is the argument for them
> besides that some big companies use them?
>

Compactness, certainly. The text size tells their popularity. They are
alphabetically organized and hence easy to find (if you know what you
are looking for).

dorayme wrote:
> In article <f9t54q$al5$1@aioe.org>,
> Bernhard Sturm <sturmnixspam.TakeThisOut@datacomm.ch> wrote:
>
>> If you really want the company, that is after the bucks, then check this
>> tag-cloud (yes, the one company, that also people in the US know about):
>>
>> http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Tags-Cloud.aspx
>
> In this case there are just a few links. Many tidier link lists
> would be as good. Where there are a real lot, it looks messy and
> hard to find things. Honestly, what is the argument for them
> besides that some big companies use them?
>

And in my case, there is one more use. Because I am publishing Sanskrit
poems on my website, the words don't have a well-defined spelling in
English. So I can't make a search box easily -- for example, Adi, Aadhi,
Adhi, Aadi, AaDhi all mean the same word depending on which part of
India you are from. These tag pages simplify the search-feature
significantly (both for the user and for me).

dorayme wrote:
>
> In this case there are just a few links. Many tidier link lists
> would be as good. Where there are a real lot, it looks messy and
> hard to find things. Honestly, what is the argument for them
> besides that some big companies use them?
>
humm.. I see tag clouds as another metanavigational aid. Usually tag
clouds represent a semantic-map over a specific topic. They are indeed
messy as this is the keypoint in a tag cloud: you have a lot of various
words that are related with each other. The strength of the relationship
is usally marked by the position, weight or size of the words. They can
help you to get the most related topics out of a search criteria, and
showing you all loosely related information at the same time, and they
do help you by widdening your search through a special topic of
interest. Tag clouds are not only restricted to words only, but can also
be represented by images.
Libraries and encyclopedia are using tag clouds in order to provide a
different and probably more efficient overview over a certain topic.

bernhard

--
www.daszeichen.ch
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In article <f9tahg$bgd$2@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Animesh K <animesh1978 RemoveThis @gmail.com> wrote:

> dorayme wrote:
> > In article <f9t54q$al5$1@aioe.org>,
> > Bernhard Sturm <sturmnixspam RemoveThis @datacomm.ch> wrote:
> >
> >> If you really want the company, that is after the bucks, then check this
> >> tag-cloud (yes, the one company, that also people in the US know about):
> >>
> >> http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Tags-Cloud.aspx
> >
> > In this case there are just a few links. Many tidier link lists
> > would be as good. Where there are a real lot, it looks messy and
> > hard to find things. Honestly, what is the argument for them
> > besides that some big companies use them?
> >
>
> Compactness, certainly. The text size tells their popularity. They are
> alphabetically organized and hence easy to find (if you know what you
> are looking for).

Yes, I see. I like that it wraps with browser size but I think it
gets harder to use on bigger text sizes aside from being uglier
then. Anyway, an interesting way of ordering things.

Perhaps we should object that here essentially is a list or table
(alpha in one col and popularity index in another col) being
formatted for visual users only.

--
dorayme

Bernhard Sturm wrote:
> Animesh K wrote:
>
>> I haven't seen a site selling stuff with a tag-cloud yet.
>
> for sunglasses see: http://www.sugos.de/tags/alltags.php/sugos

I think this is a good example of how terrible a tag-cloud can be. A
long horizontal list is soooooooo hard to read. If they had used list
markup, it might be tolerable with CSS disabled, but as is it's awful.

I can't say you've convinced me of their good points yet.

--
Berg

Bergamot wrote:
> Bernhard Sturm wrote:
>> Animesh K wrote:
>>
>>> I haven't seen a site selling stuff with a tag-cloud yet.
>> for sunglasses see: http://www.sugos.de/tags/alltags.php/sugos
>
> I think this is a good example of how terrible a tag-cloud can be. A
> long horizontal list is soooooooo hard to read. If they had used list
> markup, it might be tolerable with CSS disabled, but as is it's awful.
>
> I can't say you've convinced me of their good points yet.
>

you don't need to be convinced. Some people are not using sitemaps
others find search-boxes awful. I was just pointing out, that tag clouds
are being used by a lot of 'big' websites as a navigational-aid.

--
www.daszeichen.ch
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Bergamot wrote:
> Bernhard Sturm wrote:
>> Animesh K wrote:
>>
>>> I haven't seen a site selling stuff with a tag-cloud yet.
>> for sunglasses see: http://www.sugos.de/tags/alltags.php/sugos
>
> I think this is a good example of how terrible a tag-cloud can be. A
> long horizontal list is soooooooo hard to read. If they had used list
> markup, it might be tolerable with CSS disabled, but as is it's awful.

just out of curiosity what were you looking for in the tag cloud that
you found it awful?

bernhard

--
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Bernhard Sturm wrote:
> Bergamot wrote:
>> Bernhard Sturm wrote:
>>> for sunglasses see: http://www.sugos.de/tags/alltags.php/sugos
>>
>> it might be tolerable with CSS disabled, but as is it's awful.
>
> just out of curiosity what were you looking for in the tag cloud that
> you found it awful?

My brain can't parse anything on that page. It's just a big jumble of
letters.

--
Berg