Adding a way to tag tags?

Question

I have what I call a 2 dimensional tagging system. You provide a data element and tag it. In this case the data element is a ( url , title, favicon ).

Here is the UI for it:

However I want to add another tagging level, or a way to tag the tags. That way you could organize your tags. However, I wanted a way to do this graphically.

The most common way I've seen is the way some browsers organize your favorites, where each group is in a box that you open.

I didn't like that method and was thinking of just putting bigger tags above the smaller ones.

For example a big tag that said music, underneath it, a small tag that said Taylor Swift, and then the data element, i.e. the favorite ( say a youtube video for "Haunted" )

However I found this to clunky. Is there a cleaner more innovative way to do it?

Answer 1

It looks like you're building a deep hierarchical structure of your terms instead of tag attributes. And that is fine, but as such you can't leave it just as open as a normal tagging system is. Wikipedia has this to say on tags:

a tag is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information (such as an Internet bookmark, digital image, or computer file). This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching. Tags are generally chosen informally and personally by the item's creator or by its viewer, depending on the system.

Reference: Tag (metadata)

I'd suggest the implementation of a real hierarchy with real structure, since you're already pretty advanced in your tagging system. Using a term store where you can manage your terms is probably the most efficient way to handle this situation. You could allow haw many terms you want in your "tag area", and visualize them the way you want. But you need a solid underlying structure to build on to make it scalable and manageable.