Directory Basics

A Theologika directory is a set of resources (generally webpages but also other items like image, PowerPoint and PDF files that have a public URL) on the Web selected by you, searchable for you and all your friends. Note that resources saved by you also appear in All Directories searches, available to all members, and in the watchlist of other members who add you to his or her list.

Tags

What are tags? They're simply topics or labels chosen by you--and other Theologika members--for any webpages (or PDF, PowerPoint or MP3 files), which can help you find those pages again later on. There is no limit on how many you can use so you can assign as many to each page as you think will be helpful. Each tag can be one word or several so there's no need to push words together as you may have seen on other services. Tags also group related URLs together so creating them as a hierarchy enables Theologika to gather related URLs to enhance their searchability.

There is no fixed set of categories or officially approved Theologika choices; in fact, that would defeat the basic value of our service. You can use words, phrases, acronyms, numbers, whatever makes sense to you, without regard for anyone else's needs, interests, or requirements

What are the rules for tag names?

A tag can be numeric or alphanumeric. It can also contain any special character except underscore and hyphen.

Note: Tag names are always converted to all lowercase so Tag1, TAG1 and tag1 are the same. Also, even though you can put more than one space character in a tag name only one space is save: sp   ace is the same as sp ace.

What makes a good tag?

A good tag expresses one, and only one, concept or attribute and is meaningful for you and your community or work group. Beyond tags that capture basic categorization, like location or type of business or activity, quality or other arbitrary value and quantity can be very helpful. A favorite bike trail in Marin County might have tags bike trail (what is it) and Marin County (where is it) but adding favorite as well can be very helpful when planning a ride with friends who're using Theologika before talking with you.

• One idea: The most important ingredient in a good tag is that it captures one, and only one, concept or attribute. For instance, looking at a restaurant webpage such as Nemo Restaurant you might consider creating a tag 'restaurants Miami' but this would fuse two ideas together and so instead we recommend you use two tags, restaurants and Miami. Since Nemo describes its cuisine as New American you can add that as a third tag and down the road you can find it through any one of the three.
• Your words: The second major quality of a good tag is that it's meaningful for you and your community or work group. For example when discussing the latest hot restaurants or clubs some people use the word trendy while others say hip; in your directory use the one that best fits your style.
• Quality: Further, good tags are useful in helping you remember what you thought about a restaurant, CD or biking trail. So tags like good and bad, long and short, fancy and simple are often appropriate. Two or three years from now, if someone asks you for a fancy restaurant in Miami, just search your directory and see how Nemo Restaurant shows up!
• Quantity: In this same sense, consider using descriptive words as tags rather than quantities. For example, instead of making a set of tags to describe the length of hiking trails such as "< 2 miles, 2-5 miles, 6-10 miles and > 10 miles" you might want to use "short, medium and long." This is particularly useful when the range of values is really big, such as prices of TVs, PCs and digital cameras but don't hesitate to be as specific as needed for your purpose.

What doesn't make a good tag?

In addition to capturing the concepts you think of when looking at a web page, you may think of adding tags that would be selected by other people. For example, the words movie, film and cinema have very similar meanings yet on close examination have somewhat different connotations and so are used by different groups of people. Trying to force these words to have exactly the same meaning in Theologika instead collapses the different groups into one and lowers the actual information value of the tags.

Spending too much time puzzling out the perfect tags for a set of pages doesn't really help either. Using Theologika is a way to make your time on the web more productive and if a particular word or phrase was what you thought of when considering how to include the page in your directory, odds are that you'll have the same words come to mind when you search for it later.

Watchlists

The watchlist lets you subscribe to directories made by other Theologika members who you feel publish useful and interesting material, to which you want quick and easy access. A Watchlist is a list of users you find having interesting lists (and that's why you decided to put them in your watchlist). You can add a person to your Watchlist in the following ways:

i. You can click the (+) sign beside every username in the content. If you are logged in there will be a pop-up message that will ask you whether you want to add this user to your Watchlist. Click Yes. If you are yet to login, on clicking the (+) sign the login pop-up will appear where you can login and then add the user to your Watchlist.

ii. Go to My Account>My Watchlist Settings. In this page add the user id of the person whom you want to be in your Watchlist.

To search only in directories maintained by members on your list, rather than any single directory or in all of them, just click the My Watchlist link at the top of each page and search as normal. Additionally, you can limit access to some or all of your content by selecting My Watchlist for visibility when saving a page to your directory.

To add a subscription, go to that member's directory. At the top of the list of the saved URLs are one or two actions: Send an email to [member], which is not visible if the member turned off this option, and 'Like [member's] links? subscribe to them. add [member] as your contact.' Click this action link and the directory is added to your list. You can also add someone as a contact by sending him or her an invitation; if the person accepts the invitation and registers with Theologika, they'll automatically be added to your list. To remove someone from your Watchlist go to My Accounts > Contacts and click the Remove link beneath the member's name.

You can also browse and search other members' Watchlists. You can get to them by clicking the link labeled 'MEMBERNAME'S Watchlist' just to the right of the 'Add to Watchlist' in the directory action bar at the top of the directory page, or go direct with the URL of http://search.theologika.net/watchlist/MEMBER-NAME. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed of a watchlist at the URL http://search.theologika.net/rss/watchlist/MEMBER-NAME.

Contacting other members

You can contact many Theologika members by visiting their directory and clicking the link labeled 'Send an email to [member]' unless they've turned this option off. Please note that your email address is not exposed to public view when this option is turned on for your directory, nor is it shown to the person sending you email, though you will see the sender's address.

Theologika's Blog

To communicate in a very direct and informal way with our members and other interested observers, we have a WordPress-powered blog at http://blog.search.theologika.net/blog/ and we encourage you to leave use comments or to write them in your own blog and send a trackback.