Question about object tags

FernandoNobel · January 6

Happy New Year!

I follow Sascha's advice to use object tags: https://zettelkasten.de/posts/object-tags-vs-topic-tags/

In the following note, I have used the object tags: "#good-technician #mediocre-boss #human-capital".

I often encounter this situation where I want to refer to a specific entity (e.g. a good technician), so I use adjectives to be specific about it. But I don't know if this is good practice. The other options I could use are:

use two tags: "#good #technician".
use only the core of the idea: "#technician".

What do you recommend me to do?

Because in this note, I just want to refer to good technicians (I don't want to talk about technicians in general). Therefore, I think that's the object to define with the tag. But I could be wrong :^)

# 202401060957 Turning a good technician into a mediocre boss destroys human capital
#good-technician #mediocre-boss #human-capital

In companies (public or private), one way to progress economically is to
acquire responsibility for the work of others: to move from being a technician
to being a boss.

However, the skills that define a good technician are different from those of
a good boss.

This causes many good technicians (motivated by economic incentives) to become
mediocre bosses: they do not have the skills needed to be good bosses.

For the company, this situation destroys human capital value: we have turned
a good technician into a mediocre boss.

GeoEng51 · January 6

I like the multi-level tags, progressively becoming more specific, rather than using simple tags. That way, you don’t end up with the same tag on too many zettels (which is not very helpful). Your list of tags also doubles as a useful index.

JasperMcFly · January 6

Maybe the level higher (more general) than "good technician destroys human capital" is "human-capital-destruction".

It can be a challenge to find the sweet spot of indexing and tagging. You want to find what you are looking for, but you also want it just a little bit "fuzzy" (higher level/more general/less granular) to get exposed to less-related ideas that have the potential to surprise you.

Searching for "good technician" brings you to this one note or two, searching for "human capital" takes you to 100 notes, searching for "human-capital-destruction" takes you to 10 notes which contain observations of other things that cause destruction of human capital such as pandemics, warfare, erosion of educational institutions.

FernandoNobel · January 7

@GeoEng51 Could you show us an example of the multi-level tags you use?

What I understood is using tags like: "#human-capital", "#human-capital-destruction", "#reversible-human-capital-destruction", etc

@JasperMcFly said:
Maybe the level higher (more general) than "good technician destroys human capital" is "human-capital-destruction".

It can be a challenge to find the sweet spot of indexing and tagging. You want to find what you are looking for, but you also want it just a little bit "fuzzy" (higher level/more general/less granular) to get exposed to less-related ideas that have the potential to surprise you.

Searching for "good technician" brings you to this one note or two, searching for "human capital" takes you to 100 notes, searching for "human-capital-destruction" takes you to 10 notes which contain observations of other things that cause destruction of human capital such as pandemics, warfare, erosion of educational institutions.

Thank you for pointing out the tag: "#human-capital-destruction".

One of the objects of the note is "human capital", but you might consider that I am not thinking of "human capital" in a broad sense. In this note, I am talking about its destruction, the object is then "human-capital-destruction".

The decision of which tag to use depends on what previous tags I have used (or how much I foresee myself discussing that idea). If I already have 100 notes on "#human-capital" (or if my goal is to get to that point), it makes more sense to use "#human-capital-destruction" (or "#good-technician" in the case of technicians).

Thank you for your time and ideas :-)

JasperMcFly · January 7

Sure, good luck. Everyone will have unique tags depending on what they are thinking about or reading.

Keep in mind that organizing notes by topic, theme, or project can happen at any time along the way. As new projects or ideas come up, you can also organize by hub notes or project notes or new very-specific tags to generate a subset of a broader tag.

I do my Zettels on paper index cards, but have a searchable text file "card list" where I list the titles all of my "entry point" Zettels- over 400 now; often adding a keyword or hashtag next to the card title. I am also working on finding that sweet spot of just enough search returns to be helpful. Cheers!

GeoEng51 · January 8

@FernandoNobel said:
@GeoEng51 Could you show us an example of the multi-level tags you use?

What I understood is using tags like: "#human-capital", "#human-capital-destruction", "#reversible-human-capital-destruction", etc

For sure. One aspect of my Zettelkasten is capturing hints and tips for my engineering work, which includes work on dams, canals and reservoirs (I'm a geotechnical engineer).

So, in the early days, I had a simple tag: "#Dams", which was maybe used on 5 or 6 zettels.

As time went on, and the count for this tag got higher, this was split into:

"#Dams-Design"
"#Dams-Performance"
"#Dams-Maintenance"

Later, as the number of zettels with the first of the three tags above became excessive, I split that first tag into:

"#Dams-Design-Stability"
"#Dams-Design-Seepage"
"#Dams-Design-Consequences"

I haven't done it yet, but I can see the first of the above three tags becoming even more specific, such as:

"#Dams-Design-Stability-Seismic"
"#Dams-Design-Stability-Rapid_drawdown"
"#Dams-Design-Stability-Weak_foundation"
"#Dams-Design-Stability-Construction_defects"

etc.

I don't push for multi-level tags at the beginning; I create them when it becomes clear that I need them. If I only have 1 or 2 or 3 zettels using the tag "#Dams", then I hardly need ten different 3-level tags. One simple one will do. But as the number of zettels using a particular tag grows, (in my experience, more than about 5 to 10), I find it makes sense to split that tag into several tags with one more level of specificity.

If you follow this process, you will find your list of tags makes a wonderful index to all of your zettels.

Note that I am also a supporter of the idea of using Structure notes, but I prefer to create top-down structure using tags, which grow organically as described above. In my Zettelkasten, I have a few structure notes and a lot of (single and multi-level) tags. But sometimes it makes sense to have structure notes. One shouldn't be too "stiff" about his or her approach on this.

Hope that helps.

daviddelven · January 8

@FernandoNobel Check this thread, where I discussed with Cratermoon about it https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/10g5irl/comment/j5w3lp9/

FernandoNobel · January 15

Thanks @GeoEng51 for your example. Now it is totally clear ;-)

So, the algorithm for using object tags is as follows:

Write a note.
Identify the objects that appear in the note. (The easiest way to do this is to look for the objects in the title or one-sentence summary of the note.)
For each identified object, look at the number of notes that already have that object as a tag.
If the number of notes is less than 10, use that object as the tag for the current note.
If the number of notes is more than or equal to 10, consider using a multi-level object tag to ensure that the tag is useful in the future. (Another option could be to refactor the previous notes to use a more specific object tag to free up the use of that tag).

@FernandoNobel said:

What do you recommend me to do?

I will now answer my self :^)

If you have few notes on an object, you can choose the level of specificity you prefer. This is an arbitrary decision that depends on your knowledge.

If you have many notes on an object, the level of specificity has to be high enough to ensure that the object tag is useful (avoid having 100 notes on the same tag).

So, in my particular case, both "#good-technician" and "#technician" are good object tags to start writing about that idea.

Sascha · January 16

I'd think about the concepts you are core to the idea. My tags would be:

Career
PeterPrinciple
Technician
Boss

Career and PeterPrinciple are implicit, Technician and Boss are explicitly mentioned.

Career and PeterPrinciple would refer to the mental models used in the background and are implied to be understood.

I wanted to write more, but my daughter decided that the night would be the best time to do a bout of high intensity intervals...

ctietze · January 16

I'm also immediately thinking of #manager #career, because in my field (programming/IT) it's a very typical (Peter Principle-ridden) path to discontent These tags are a level removed from the verbatim content, unlike #good-technician, so I suspect they add more value in a search for management career paths. I wouldn't find anything in my notes about #good-technician. I would find something about good technician as a literal phrase search for some rough content, maybe, and in that case the tag wouldn't add much on top for me.

FernandoNobel · January 16

Wow, I didn't know that Peter Principle existed. At least I am not the only one suffering it :^)

I like the idea of implicit objects, like #career and #peter-principle. I will look for them from now on. Thank you @Sascha !

I also agree with @ctietze that tags closer to verbatim content are more useful (as they are easier to remember to look them up).

So, my question is: Do you care how many times a tag is used? If you have 100 notes with the tag #technician, would you still use that tag for a new note related to technicians? Or would you go down the path of using multi-level tags as @GeoEng51 pointed out?

Sascha · January 16

Do you care how many times a tag is used? If you have 100 notes with the tag #technician, would you still use that tag for a new note related to technicians?

Yes, because I want certainty which means consistency. If I had 100 notes, most likely I'd have a structure note and the tag would be used for filtering only and not to access notes.

So, no. I don't care for a certain reason: I almost never control the amount of notes per tag. If I do, I check if a structure note is needed.

FernandoNobel · January 22

@Sascha said:

Yes, because I want certainty which means consistency. If I had 100 notes, most likely I'd have a structure note and the tag would be used for filtering only and not to access notes.

So, no. I don't care for a certain reason: I almost never control the amount of notes per tag. If I do, I check if a structure note is needed.

This simplifies the use of object tags because then there is no problem with overusing a tag (100 notes with the same tag). In this situation, the tag will be useful for filtering the search, and the tag will indicate that a structure note may be needed to handle those notes.

I think you explained this "natural evolution" of tags in the workshop, but I forgot it, I'll go back to check the material :^) .

So, what do you think of the idea of generating a set of notes (with their respective object tags) collaboratively to serve as training for other people?

The idea is to hide the identified object tags so that the person who wants to train can guess them and then check the solution.

Do you think this is a good idea or too naïve?

Sascha · January 23

If it's too naive, I am too naive myself. This is exactly what I thought about to add to the upcoming member's area.

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