Tags vs Labels in IdeaStation?

[Scoox]

Never quite understood the difference between "Tags" and "Labels" when posting ideas in IdeaStation. If they serve a similar purpose, perhaps they could be merged.

[brianrepp]

Hi @Scoox - definitely understand the perspective, it really has more to do with how the forum platform can leverage both.  That said, I think there is opportunity for improvement on how we leverage them, therefore today they seem somewhat redundant.  Labels as you see are meant to be more of a pre-defined set of options that help categorize at a broad level, and tags are free form ways to associate content with specific ideas, topics, words, phrases, etc.

[Scoox]

That makes sense, but whenever I add tags, it's usually words I've already used in my message anyway, so I can't help wondering: what's the point? I could be wrong but I assume the forum search will find my posts anyway, tagged or not.

[brianrepp · Accepted solution]

From a search perspective it doesn't make a huge difference, but for example I just added a tag to your last post called "F360".  Now everyone is able to click on that tag and find all other posts/threads with the same tag (vs going to search and finding not only tags, but keywords).  Again though, the feature is only as good as how often/accurately it's used by posters.

[Scoox]

Thanks Brian, that makes sense now. Based on your explanation, tags are probably not a reliable way of locating forum content, because it relies on users taking the time to tag their posts. I don't tag mine 99% of times.