My experience parallels yours almost exactly, particularly switching from bookmark folders to one big folder with tags. However, there's one more step in my progression, which is that I all but stopped using my browser's bookmarks, and moved to pinboard (with the painful interim step of delicious, on which pinboard is based).
After my comment, I started thinking about tags again, and how I might clean up my pinboard tags. I decided the easiest way to start would be to delete all my tags. Before I did that, I did some simple tests.
In pinboard, you can:
- search all your bookmarks.
- full text search all your bookmarks.
- click on a tag and get everything it tags.
- click on multiple tags and get everything they tag.
Here's my unanalyzed results, searching for "python":
text box: 700
tag: 556
check "search full text"
text box: 707
After eliminating all tags:
text box: 700
check "search full text"
text box: 707
I'm betting that the 700 and 707 are the same before and after I deleted all my tags (yes, I actually did that). Don't know what the intersection is between the 556, 700 and 707.
But I look at that and I wonder, do I really need my tags? What are they doing for me. Similar question to what made me, and possibly you, to eliminate folders in your browser's bookmarks.
And I really am wondering now, do I want to bother at all rebuilding a smaller tag set? Of course that's a question for me, and it's anecdotal, everyone has different needs and solutions that work for them, according to some definition of "work."
For privacy reasons, I don't want to share my bookmarks with the owners of any website or corporation.
I've been meaning to import all of my bookmarks in to an emacs org-mode file, and just use its more sophisticated tag management, and possibly build on that to write other features that I may need.
> For privacy reasons, I don't want to share my bookmarks with the owners of any website or corporation.
Fair enough.
If I had stayed on "bookmarks in my browser in a single folder with tags," I might be asking myself the same questions I've been asking myself about tags on and off all day. It's interesting, sometimes surprising, when I question assumptions that I didn't realize I was making.
After my comment, I started thinking about tags again, and how I might clean up my pinboard tags. I decided the easiest way to start would be to delete all my tags. Before I did that, I did some simple tests.
In pinboard, you can:
Here's my unanalyzed results, searching for "python": I'm betting that the 700 and 707 are the same before and after I deleted all my tags (yes, I actually did that). Don't know what the intersection is between the 556, 700 and 707.But I look at that and I wonder, do I really need my tags? What are they doing for me. Similar question to what made me, and possibly you, to eliminate folders in your browser's bookmarks.
And I really am wondering now, do I want to bother at all rebuilding a smaller tag set? Of course that's a question for me, and it's anecdotal, everyone has different needs and solutions that work for them, according to some definition of "work."