How the tag system works

See the new 'tagadelic' tag cloud page for a sweet demo of tags sized by frequency so far...

The new Drupal system has a pretty advanced but flexible way to classify all its nodes - nodes are chunks of data like audio, images, polls, stories and videos that the system can accept and handle properly - with thumbnails and features like playing the video or voting in the poll.

The tags are attached, just like regular categories, to all types of nodes.

However, new tags can be created in the tags textbox, which also auto-completes when you start typing one in. So use one or two words are actually descriptive.

The tags will have some heirarchy. The four main sections of the website (Geo, Tech, Politics & Kulturny) will have some tags as 'child tags', so that for example, GEO has 'Iraq' as a child tag. This means we get a nice logical structure that you can surf around in.

Geo >> Iraq
and perhaps even
Geo >> Iraq >> Kurdistan
or even
Geo >> Pipelines >> AMBO
or even
Geo >> Drugs >> Opium >> Afghanistan >> Nangarhar

and such a category would bring you right to an image node like so:
Nangarhar, Afghanistan poppy fields - UN satellite imagery: Red and pink areas indicate broad opium cultivation

And you can use the spiffy image assistant button to add images too! It's right below the Body box.

So to summarize:
- use a couple words to describe any bit of material
- these tags might be part of a set that you can look around at

Hope that helps a bit. I am still sorta working it out.

Complex note:
There are also ways to set up entire new batches of tags, that can be organized and handled differently to deal with a lot of data.

Here is an explanation of the 3 different types of 'vocabularies' or mega-sets of tags that CAN be used. For now, i am using only one set of tags called simply 'tags', but we could set up another Vocabulary for, say, types of artwork or technical material.

An explanation
source: http://drupal.org/node/83773
hierarchy is like a tree. you can have a flat hierarchy. normally you have a single hierarchy, where a term can only have one parent; multiple lets you have terms with multiple parents, so they show up in both breadcrumb trails.

'free tagging' is like del.icio.us. You can apply tags, instead of dealing with a hierarchy. Free tagging allows you to create new terms just by typing them. the free tagging interface has autocomplete.

'multiple select' lets you make multiple terms in the same taxonomy apply to the same thing. For instance I have (had actually) a taxonomy for automotive technology. I had a term for parts, and terms for automakers. A nissan part would have both "nissan" and "parts" selected.

required means that content HAS to have a term from that taxonomy. for example if you wanted to separate your site into sections, you could have a taxonomy (possibly with hierarchy disabled) listing the sections. then you could make that taxonomy apply to all node types, and say that it is a required taxonomy. Therefore all nodes would demand to be placed into a section when they were created. You can make your theme change parts of itself based on a taxonomy term if you like; you can also control access by taxonomy, or lots of other things.