Wiki Life: Tags on a Wiki? Why Tags help make TechNet Wiki as AWESOME as it is!!!

Welcome to Wiki Life Wednesday, where we discuss tips and tricks about using TechNet Wiki!

For example, here are the tag results for Windows 7:

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/tags/Windows+7/default.aspx

What the?? Why am I on there?

The Awesomeness of the Tag Cloud 

Anyway, you'll see the tag cloud on the right side of that page. The tag cloud is pretty sweet, because it tells you where the most content is as well.

Let me give you an example. One time, I was browsing the tag cloud, and I saw that the Turkish tag was bigger than any other languages (except for English and Brazilian Portuguese).

Here are the tr-TR tag results. Well that made me dig deeper to see what was happening with the Turkish community and why it grew that quickly. It started a lot of excellent conversations as we look to sync and grow the Wiki language communities.

The Awesomeness of Multiple Tags

So if you have a massive tag collection, like "Windows 7", then how do you use tags to drill down further?

Simple! You add multiple tags (I've done four without a problem).

The URL convention for filtering by multiple tags is as follows:

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/tags/\[tag1\]/\[tag2\]/\[tag3\]/default.aspx

Read more here: Wiki Life: How to filter TechNet Wiki articles by more than one tag.

Let's say I want only the articles about TechNet Wiki that contain videos. Boom:

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/tags/en_2D00_US/powerpivot/default.aspx

The Awesomeness of Language Tags

And guess what? We add language tags to the articles too! Even the English ones (en-US)!

That means you can use the Multiple Tags method above to search on specific languages. Let's say I want the PowerPivot articles that are in English only. Boom:

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/tags/en_2D00_US/powerpivot/default.aspx   

Let's go back up one example. Let's say I want only the English articles about TechNet Wiki that contain videos. Boom:

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/tags/has+video/wiki/en_2D00_US/default.aspx

Want a menu of all the language tags? Go here:

Wiki: Non-English Language Title Guidelines

Want a menu of the tags associated when translating articles from one language to another language? Go here:

Wiki: Translation Tags (en-US)

 The Awesomeness of Common Tags

And hey, guess what? There are other tags that have bucketized content as well (in addition to keywords and languages).

Here are our "Common Tags":

Wiki: Common Tags

These are tags that tell you what kind of article it is or what you'll find in the article (like a TOC, Table, image, video, Other Languages section, etc.). There's also a tag to track all the articles that came from TechNet/MSDN/Community forum answers!

Here's a list, but you should go to the article itself to get the latest updated list:

Tag Description
best practices The article contains recommended practices.
blog link The article contains links to one or more blog posts.
core docs The article is a core document for the TechNet Wiki.
Deployment The article contains information about deploying the product.
developer The article is targeted to a developer audience.
Discussion The article presents one or more opinions, and is meant to be a discussion. You can find a message template for this type of article here: Wiki: Message Templates.
Getting Started The article is an introductory level article, and is designed to help someone who is new to the product.
governance The article contains policies and information posted by the TechNet Wiki council.
has image The article contains an image.
has kb The article contains a link to a Microsoft Knowledge Base article on the Microsoft Support site.
has table The article contains a table.
has video The article contains embedded video content.
help The article contains trouble shooting information.
High-level Overview The article discusses theory and general concepts. You can find a message template for this type of article here: Wiki: Message Templates.
How To The article describes how to accomplish a specific task. You can find a message template for this type of article here: Wiki: Message Templates.
Installation The article contains information about installing a product or feature.
library link The article contains links to Microsoft technical libraries, such as MSDN or TechNet.
Link Collection The article contains a collection of links related to a particular product or feature.
Multi Language Wiki Articles The article has been translated into at least one additional language.
needs work The article is incomplete, and needs additional information or work.  If you do not want people to contribute to the article, use the Work in progress tag instead.
Portal The article serves as an organized starting page for a product or feature
Reporting The article contains information about generating reports.
script The article contains examples of script.
search The article contains information about searching and optimizing search experiences.
security The article contains security related information.
setup The article contains information about setting up a product or feature.
stub The article has little or no content, and is a placeholder until more content is added. How to Create a Stub Page.
survival guide The article is collection of links that covers the essential information about a product or feature.
TechNet Wiki Featured Article The article was (at some point) featured on the front page of TechNet Wiki. This helps us make sure we don't feature an article twice, it tells the reader that the content is valuable, and it gives us another form of list of all the featured articles. 
tools / Tool The article describes a particular tool or set of tools.
troubleshooting The article contains troubleshooting information.
Upgrade The article contains information about upgrading a product or feature, or a list of upgrades that are available.
video link The article contains links to video content.
Vendor-agnostic The article is relevant to a particular technology, and is not specific to any one vendor's implementation of a technology. You can find a message template for this type of article here: Wiki: Message Templates.
Wiki The article contains information that is specific to the TechNet Wiki.
Work in progress The article is actively being worked on, and is not ready for additional contributions. You can find a message template for this type of article here: Wiki: Message Templates.

 

So that's the deal. Tags are... um... awesome, I guess.

TechNet Wiki is the one wiki to rule them all!!! Don't believe me? We also have comments

   - Ninja Ed

 

See Also