### Folders are _natural_ I saved something from the Obsidian Discord the other day. I'll quote it here without attribution as the point isn't to dunk on the author. In the context of a _tags vs. folders_ discussion, they wrote: > _I don't see any advantage to folders other than that they are universally intuitive and quick to implement, and that they are the default way of organizing things in operating systems._ My response was that 'this is quite the advantage though, no?'. But it speaks directly to the Foundational Principle of the Tag People: that folders are bad, because we have computers that are capable of virtually 'storing' things in multiple places (as represented by tags), so why limit ourselves to just one place (the humble folder)?[^inode] [^inode]: I know that your computer virtually 'stores' files as inode references and that tags might be, in this regard, conceptually more pure than folders. You don't need to email me about that either. The fundamental error is that _this simply isn't how people conceptualise information_. How many places can your drivers licence be? One. And if you were to try to find it, how do you go about that, mentally? You start at the top and you filter down. House → hallway → that little table that holds your keys and other daily junk → wallet → licence. If at any point in this no-doubt frustrating journey of discovery (_**I'm late already I know it "should be" in the hallway please can you just help me find my licence**_) the thing isn't where you expect, it is entirely natural to step back up the hiearchy, choose another branch, and so it goes until you realise that, inexplicably, you left your wallet in the bathroom this morning. _**But Johnny, you're wilfully conflating issues here; the Tag People are talking about tagging things like photographs and book metadata, and you're talking about finding your physical licence.**_ Kinda, but not really. There are Tag People who really do advocate for storing all of your information using tags and not folders. But I think this is beside the point: I don't think it matters what you're using them for. They're still broken for all of the reasons outlined above. This does speak to the defining feature of tags, which we should address. ## 3. You must be able to assign multiple tags to an item This is stating the obvious, but let's make our requirements comprehensive. The entire point of tags is that many things do in fact have multiple properties, and that it can be helpful to be able to filter and group based on these properties. Let's think about a blog. And let's expand the concept of a blog, which I'm going to do. (Working title: megablog.) Any given '(mega)blog post' might be long- or short-form. It might be a video or not. It might have a certain tone: serious, or snarky? (Like this post, it might be both.) It might be personal or work related; might relate to one or more Johnny.Decimal concepts; it might be one in a series. And so on. You can extend this concept (which I will) to all of our written and recorded work, public or paid, and to forum posts, Discord threads, and anything else. ## 4. There must still be a single, canonical list of All The Things I'm acutely aware of the fact that organising your stuff is a boring chore. If it was heaps fun I'd be a rich man, amirite? This is a fundamental problem with tags: now you have to tag everything! If you forget to tag that important finance spreadsheet with either `important` or `finance`, then now what? _Where is it?_[^spreadsheet] [^spreadsheet]: This reveals another interesting fact. I didn't say that you should tag the spreadsheet with `spreadsheet`, because it already is, by virtue of its `.xlsx` file extension. This feels natural and shouldn't be a surprise. But how many of you know that you can trivially search your filesystem for specific file extensions, revealing all spreadsheets at a glance? Or group the view in your file explorer by type of file? Or create saved 'search folders' that show all spreadsheets by last updated date? And how many of you actually use these features on any given day? (I'll show you how, it's on my to-do list.) And who thinks to go back and re-tag stuff, or to add helpful tags to already-tagged data, or to consolidate tags? It's just never going to happen. Whereas at least the catastrophe that is your work's `g:\finance` folder is _browsable_. Every finance spreadsheet is in there _somewhere_. So I suggest – this is a soft requirement, as yet unexplored – that every system that uses tags must _also_ have some sort of canonical list by which every item can be referenced. I'm starting with my blog, and expanding to all other content, so in my case it's easy to see how a simple linear ID, or a Johnny.Decimal ID, can accommodate this requirement.[^date] [^date]: This linearity serving to anchor the item in time and space, aiding discoverability. Humans naturally place things in a temporal context. _I know I created this after I wrote that_, or _I remember where I was when I wrote that, and it must have been around September 2025_. This feature comes free with your brain; you might as well use it. The point is that tags are _additive_. They do not _replace_ existing methods of organisation. ### Note: this does not replace your filesystem Just so it's clear: I do not intend to replace my filesystem with tags. I am developing this as an idea, for a very specific use-case: published multi-media content. I already know where to look for my licence. It's in my wallet, and the electronic artefacts are at `10-19 Life admin / 11 Me & other living things / 11.14 Licences`. No part of me seeks to add tags to this system. --- # How? Johnny.Decimal Conveniently enough, I have a system that meets these requirements. I believe that the solution is as simple as tags, organised per the basic rules: hierarchically, in groups of no more than 10 and 10 again, and then assigned a unique ID. We will lean heavily on a core Johnny.Decimal principle: _fewer is better_ and _close enough is good enough_.[^good_enough] Only create a new tag when absolutely necessary; if an existing tag is good enough, use it. [^good_enough]: The only time when 'good enough' is an acceptable standard. That's it. I don't know if it'll work, but I can't see why not. And could it possibly be worse than what we have now? Let's find out. ## Next: 'dynamic discovery' We already have a hierarchy that describes all books. Why invent the nonsense that is `British – France – Paris – Fiction` when we already have `823 English fiction`, `942 English history`, and `944 French history`?[^dashes] Just use those as your tags! [^dashes]: Technically, the reason for this nonsense is that the authors have tried to shoehorn a tag hierarchy in to a string. This is because most tag systems are implemented as a flat list, precluding any built-in representation of hierarchy. But this reveals _yet another_ footnote-relegated insight: tags must only be used where they are a fully supported, first-class citizen. I'll be building custom tag support for the megablog. But my megablog isn't books, so I need my own system of tags. Assuming you're not the city librarian, you'll also need your own. Coming up with one sounds onerous, but I think I have another idea: dynamic discovery. That's the next post.Here follows a comprehensive list of things worse at presenting information than the alphabet:
1. A tag cloud
Thus ends the list.