TagTeam basics

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Preface

Here we describe how to use TagTeam. First we introduce some TagTeam terminology, and then we describe the essential tasks that you can perform with TagTeam, such a creating a hub, creating and modifying tags, subscribing to feeds, and searching.

TagTeam terms

  • A TagTeam project is a hub. The person who creates the hub is the hub owner. The hub owner can add others to the project and give them various roles or rights. Hub members with the right privileges can tag web pages for the hub, modify the tags used by any project taggers, have the hub subscribe to feeds published elsewhere, modify the feeds to which the hub subscribes, and create hub feeds based on combinations of tag feeds and input feeds.
    • Hub inputs take three forms: (1) tags applied to external web pages, (2) feeds to which the hub subscribes, and (3) tag records imported from other tagging platforms such as Connotea. Hubs store their inputs from all three sources for deduping, back-up, export, modification, and searching.
    • Hub outputs take three forms: (1) an output feed for each hub tag, (2) an output feed for each input feed, without modification, and (3) output feeds modifying input feeds, (4) output feeds combining any tag feeds and/or input feeds, with or without modifications.
  • An item is the unit of TagTeam information. If you tag an article for a TagTeam hub, the item contains the URL of the article, all the tags you applied to the article, the "description" of the article you may have added at the time of tagging, the fact that you were the one (or one of the ones) who tagged it for the hub, and similar information. (Hence, we sometimes call items "tag records".) The item does not include the text of the article itself. When a hub subscribes to feeds from elsewhere, those feeds deliver streams of items to the hub. When a hub publishes its own feeds, those feeds deliver streams of items to feed subscribers.
  • The bookmarklet is the button on your browser bar that lets you tag web pages. If you have permission to tag for a hub, then you can find the bookmarklet in the "Bookmarks" tab. Near the top of that page is an underlined phrase "Add to TagTeam". Just drag that phrase to your browser bar. If you don't have permission to tag for a given hub, you will not see that phrase on the hub's Bookmarks tab.
  • A filter is a rule for modifying tags. Hub members with suitable privileges can create filters, for example, to replace deprecated tags with approved tags, to replace misspelled tags with correctly spelled tags, and so on. TagTeam can apply filters to individual items, to individual input feeds, or to the entire hub. Feeds can be prospective (modifying all tags made in the future) and retroactive (modifying all tags already stored in the hub). Hub owners can use filters to tidy up a chaotic collection of tags, and to manage the evolution of a folksonomy of user-defined tags into an ontology or standard vocabulary of project-approved tags.
    • If a hub owner adds no other members and runs the hub solo, the power is much like the power provided by other tagging platforms to modify one's own tags. What makes filters special first appears when the hub has other members. Members with suitable privileges can modify the tags of all members, not just the tags their own tags.
  • A remix feed is a feed published by TagTeam consisting of some combination of other feeds. If your project has many tags, for example, A, B, C, D, and E, then a remix feed could contain just the items with tags A, B, and C, or just the items with A and B but not C. Hub owners can carefully create certain remix feeds and offer them to users. Or users with the right hub privileges can create their own.

Getting started

To start:

  1. Go to TagTeam and click the Log in link on the upper right side of the screen.
  2. When the Sign in screen appears, take one of the following actions:
    • If you already have an account, fill in the Username or email and Password fields and click Sign in.
    • If you do not have an account, click the Sign up link.

Once you have an account, you can create your own hubs, tag for your own hubs, add members to your hubs, and give members different rights or permissions.

Requesting permission to tag for someone else's hub

If you want to tag for a hub owned by someone else, you need the owner's permission. Likewise, if others want to tag for one of your hubs, they need your permission.

To request permission to tag for a certain hub:

  1. Log in to TagTeam and navigate to the desired hub.
  2. Click the Contact tab.

    TagTeam displays the Contact the owners of this hub screen.

  3. On the Contact the owners of this hub screen, do the following:
    1. Fill in the Name and Email fields. The Name field is optional, but we recommend filling it in.
    2. Select Request to Collaborate from the Reason drop-down list. When Ways you'd like to collaborate list appears, check any desired selections.
    3. Fill in the Message field to explain your request.
    4. When done, click Submit.

You receive an email message when the hub owner has updated your permissions for this hub.

What you can do without signing up or signing in

You can access the TagTeam application without signing up for an account or signing in. In this mode, you can view all hubs. You can also select the available tabs and view information in read-only mode. However, to add a new hub or make any changes to an existing hub from the TagTeams tabs, you must log in.

You can also request permission to tag for someone else's hub without signing in or signing up for an account as described in the previous section.

Creating a new hub

To create a new hub:

  1. Log in to TagTeam.

    The main TagTeam screen appears.

  2. Click the New Hub link.

    The New Hub screen appears.

  3. Fill in the required Description field and the the following optional fields: Title, Nickname, Description, and Tags.
  4. Click Create Hub.

    The Filter Tags screen for the newly created hub appears.

You can continue by using any of the available tab selections to make changes to the hub.

Tagging

There are two ways to tag for a given hub:

  • From within TagTeam itself
  • From another tagging service

Using TagTeam as your tagging platform

To use TagTeam as your tagging platform, create a account as described in the section #Getting started.

After you create an account, you can create TagTeam hubs and tag items for your own hubs.

Requesting permission to tag items for OATP

To request permission to tag items for OATP, navigate the to OATP hub and follow the directions in the section #Requesting permission to tag for someone else's hub. Make sure to include your Name as well as your Email. In the Reason field, ask to participate in a OATP as a tagger.

The OATP policy is to approve all tagging requests. We only withdraw approval when someone generates spam or persistently tags off-topic items.

Approval requires a human action, and sometimes the relevant people are traveling or crunched. We will act ASAP, and send you an email as soon as you are approved.

Once you are authorized to tag for OATP, you can find the bookmarklet by logging in to TagTeam and the OATP hub, and clicking on the Bookmarks tab. Drag the Add to TagTeam link to your browser's bookmarks toolbar.

Remember to use oa.new (the OATP primary tag) for all new items you want to include in the OATP primary feed (because they are OA-related and new in the last six months), and omit it from the items you want to exclude from the primary feed (for example, because they are not new).

If you have not already done so, review the OATP tagging conventions and some of the more common OATP tags.

[edit] Using a platform other than TagTeam

When tagging for OATP, you can use any platform which creates RSS or Atom feeds for its tags. These platforms include Connotea, CiteULike, Delicious, and many others. You do not need to use TagTeam itself or create a TagTeam account.

Creating a special tag

Create a special tag for items you want OATP to include, such as add2oatp, jane-add2oatp, 14159, or zebra. Your special tag may be any string of characters accepted as a tag by your chosen tagging platform.

Determine the URL of the RSS (or Atom) feed generated by your chosen tagging platform for your special tag. If your chosen tagging platform generates a feed for your use of the special tag and a separate feed for general or total use of the same tag, use the former.

Requesting permission from OATP as a tagger and notifying OATP of your special tag

To request permission to tag items for OATP, navigat to the OATP hub and follow the directions in the section #Requesting permission to to tag for someone else's hub. Make sure to include your Name, Email, the name of the tagging platform you want to use, and the URL of the RSS feed for your special tag. You needn't have a TagTeam account. If you have an account, you needn't be logged in.

When you are approved, TagTeam's OATP hub will subscribe to the feed for your special tag. Use your special tag for all the items you want OATP to include, and omit it from all the items you want to OATP to exclude. If you use it for too many items unrelated to OATP, then OATP will unusubscribe from your feed.

Similarly, use oa.new (the OATP primary tag) for all new items you want to include in the OATP primary feed (because they are OA-related and new in the last six months), and omit it from the items you want to exclude from the primary feed (for example, because they are not new).

The OATP policy is to subscribe to all apparently relevant feeds, and only unsubscribe from those that generate spam or persistently tag off-topic items. If you apply many tags to the same item, including your special tag, then OATP will harvest all the tags you used. If you haven't already seen them, see the OATP tagging conventions and some of the more common OATP tags.

  • To request permission, pick the target hub from the hub menu on the TagTeam front page. Once in the hub, pick the "Contact" tab. Fill out the web form and explain that you'd like to be approved to tag for the project. Note that approval requires an action from hub owner, who may be traveling or crunched. Some will act quickly and some may not.
  • TagTeam hubs can publish carefully curated feeds of content relevant to the project. If tagging for a hub did not require permission, then spammers could undermine the value of the project feeds. (You may already know the problem well.) Determined spammers can still request permission to tag for a given hub, and if the crowd for that crowd-sourced project is large, the owners may not personally know all participants and grant permission. But the permission requirement means that TagTeam hub owners can revoke tagging permission from spammers.
  • If you have permission to tag for more than one hub (and you're tagging through TT), the bookmarklet will show the hub for which you most recently tagged. To tag for a different hub, use the "Add to hub" pull-down menu at the top of the bookmarklet.

Tagging for a hub you own

Tagging for a hub you don't own

Modifying tags retroactively

--item only; feed wide; hub wide; permissions to modify tags; alerting users that their tagsg may be modified

Subscribing to tag feeds from other platforms

== Publishing feeds for subscribers

feeds for tags

feeds for users

feeds for tags for users

remix feeds

Searching

searching for tags and keywords

running phrase and wildcard searches

running Boolean search

saving a Boolean search

running fuzzy searches

Copyright and licensing

  1. The Harvard copyright statement only covers the code, not the content or data.
  2. Harvard has chosen to make the code free and open source. The code is at GitHub under an Affero General Public License (AGPL).
  3. When users enter original content, they retain ownership of it. But as a condition of using the software, they grant TagTeam a license to use it. See the details in Section 6.3 of the terms of service.
  4. When users enter content they don't own, they warrant that they have the rights necessary to share it through TagTeam. See the details in Section 6.4 of the terms of service.
  5. Some data arise from the use of TagTeam, such as the date when certain items are tagged. Insofar as these data are copyrightable by TagTeam, TagTeam releases the data into the public domain through a CC0 Public Domain Dedication. Insofar as these data are copyrightable by users, users also agree to release the data into the public domain. See the details in Section 6.6 of the terms of service.