When I first started blogging 16 months ago, I was hung up on what categories I should have. I kept adding and removing them until the settled into the list I’ve kept for some time. That set of catagories is, in essence, my own folksonomy, except I’m the only one doing the tagging.

Very useful in understanding myself, back when I wrote primarily for my own understanding. However, I’m starting to project my energy outwards to see what happens, and I have realized that the old categorization system is not well suited for that. I need to revamp the categorization system so people other than myself can browse the content more easily. That means fewer categories and broader keywords.

However, since the old category list is an excellent snapshot of my interests, I’m writing it down so I don’t forget.

The Categories

As of January 1, 2006

Davidocracy (personal section)

• Artsy — Graphical things I made
• Blogging — About blogging, the activity
• Booty — Stuff I want to buy
• Cats — My cats, and friends cats
• Editorial — Opinons
• Encounters — Interesting people I meet randomly
• Food — Pictures of food, recipes
• Gawking — Odd things I see that I have to comment on
• Geeky — Topics of interest to my fellow geeks
• Introspection — Personal things on my mind
• Making Stuff — Tools, processes about creating things
• Regional — Events or places in New England
• Retail — Retail store experiences
• Suckage — Stuff that ticks me off
• This Rocks! — Cool, surprising, inspiring things!

IdeaBox (observations, insights) * Ideas — Concepts, “wouldn’t it be neat if…” * Patterns — “Have you ever noticed…”, patterns of all kinds observed and quantified * PickleJar — ideas that I want to get back to later * Productivity — on being more productive, or not. “What makes work work?” * Questions — Why are things like this? * Tools — Useful software, processes, or machines for idea generation that get the job done

Working It (business related)

• 10games — The failed “make 10 games in 2005” resolution
• Flash — Macromedia Flash related stories
• Graphics — Computer Graphics
• Gweeping — Non-programming Tech Noodling
• Inspiration — Inspiration design work, writing from around the net
• Portfolio — My dusty archive of work
• Programming — Topics of interest to programmers
• Trends — Patterns in business
• Tricks — Cheats, Twists, and Illusions
• WorkPractice — Experiences running freelance business (or not)

Ooops

One downside of reorganizing your tags is that it breaks existing search engine links, if they’ve found your content through a category tag. So beware!!!