Notes + tags brainstorm

[janwieremjewicz]

Hey everyone!
Notes + Tags are shaping up to be really powerful, but a few parts of the design are still fuzzy. I want to make sure we’re aligned on how these should actually work.

Here’s what these offer today:

• You can write a note on a thread
• You can add the note to a team
• You can tag a note
• And if you share the note with a team → the tag gets shared too
  That’s what I've seen working so far and I have some questions :)

What needs clarification

1. Who sees what?

• If I add a private note, does anyone else even know it exists?
  • I mean - is it displayed in the list of topics?
  • When someone opens a topic do they know it's there?
  • Should private notes be 100% invisible to others?
• If a note is shared with my team, can they edit it? comment on it? just read it?
  • Who owns a tag after sharing it?
• Does a team get any notification that a note has been created?
  • Especially if there was no new tag added there.
  • Should replies/comments be allowed inside notes?
• If I share a tag with a team, is that tag now “team-owned”?
  • What if a team member had a tag of that name already?
• What happens when a user leaves a team? What is the outcome to them and team as it goes for their notes?

2. What’s the deal with tag names?

• Are tags unique per user? per team? globally?
  • Should tag names collide or merge?
• What if two people create the same tag name? If two people create performance and both share it with the team:
  • Should Hackorum merge them?
  • Should the team end up with two distinct tags?
  • What if that was for their private tags and they did not share?
• Who can delete/rename a tag?

3. Managing Notes & Tags

We probably need:

• A “My Notes” view
• A “Team Notes” view
• A tag manager (rename, delete, merge, etc.)
  Also: who’s allowed to delete a shared tag?

Automation ideas

This is exciting :) I think that starting with some regex this could become quite a helpful productivity feature.
So the idea is that the users could create rules

“If subject contains X → tag with Y”
“If body contains Z → tag with W”

knowing how such filters work, immediately an ask for some logical rules between these emerge as well as an option to see such a filter or auto-tag results.

Users define rules that auto-tag threads based on:

• Subject line
• Message content
• Sender
• Mailing list name

We’d need to figure out:

• Are rules private or team-shared?
  • I was thinking that the rule applies to a tag and that tag ownership is what controls visibility
• Do rules apply only to new threads, or also to old ones?
  • I was thinking of the way that message filters work on email clients. So to all threads.
• Should automation re-run when rules change?
  • I was thinking that yes
• Should automation be allowed to reorder or prioritize tags?
  • If I was to choose I would want to be able to define sort by:
    • alphabetical
    • date created
    • number of threads in tag
    • last activity (as in last +)
    • last team activity (last answers from team)
    • most/least % read
    • max/least activity since last visit

Tag activity indicators

When looking at tags, it’d be great to know:

• How many topics are in a tag
• How many are new since I last checked
• How many I’ve already opened

Something like:
#some-tag (11) +2 [icon]
Where:

• (11) = total topics
• +2 = new topics since last viewed
• Icon = topics opened / not opened by the user

Additional questions:

• Should unread messages inside tagged threads also count?
• Should “new activity” include replies or just new threads?
• Should there be a mechanism to prevent tag-clutter?
  • Should tags auto-expire if unused for months?
  • At minimum team admins should have the ability to clean up...

Notes contents

Do notes support formatting?

• Should they allow Markdown?
• Should it be possible for notes to include Quote/references to specific email lines?

[janwieremjewicz]

Some proposed solutions to boost the discussion

1. Permissions Model

Object	Visibility	Ownership	Notes
Private Note	Only creator	User	Completely invisible to others
Team Note	Team members	Creator or Team?	Needs permission model (view/edit?)
Global Note	All members	Hackorum admin	For public announcements / system msgs
Private Tag	Only creator	User	Not shown in global/team searches
Shared Tag	Team members	Owner or Team?	Needs tag governance model
Global Tag	All members	Hackorum admin	System-wide or curated tags

2. Tag Governance

• Tags remain owned by the creator unless explicitly made team-owned.
• When two tags with same name ('performance') are shared:

Prompt: “A tag named ‘performance’ already exists in the team. Merge or keep separate?”

• Team-admin role can:
  • Archive tags
  • Rename tags
  • Merge tags

3. Automation Rules

As mentioned in the original message, I've been thinking of email rules. As such:

• Rules apply to all new incoming messages by default.
• Retroactive processing is optional via:
  • “Apply rule to past 30 days”
  • “Apply rule to all history” (warning: expensive)

[dutow]

You can write a note on a thread

You can also add notes to specific messages instead, then both the thread and message gets linked to it

You can add the note to a team

You can mention any number of teams or users

You can tag a note

You can specify any number of tags

If I add a private note, does anyone else even know it exists?

No, only if you mention a team or user

If a note is shared with my team, can they edit it? comment on it? just read it?

Currently notes are owned by the creator, and gets shared read-only. This was a simple design, and we can decide how to proceed from this.

Does a team get any notification that a note has been created?

Anybody mentioned directly or as a team member gets a notification, it's the activity menu in the top bar

If I share a tag with a team, is that tag now “team-owned”?

We collect all tags that you have access to, and display the list on the sidebar. And then link all topics that belong to that tag. So technically there's no tag ownership, it's just a name mentioned in notes

What happens when a user leaves a team? What is the outcome to them and team as it goes for their notes?

You lose access to team notes / team member info. But your activity log remains as is for now.

Are tags unique per user? per team? globally?

As I replied earlier, tags are just collected from notes, only notes have ownership. If a tag mentioned in multiple notes (most likely), each mention has different owners. Right now we do not have tag ownership.

What if two people create the same tag name? If two people create performance and both share it with the team:

Both notes/threads linked to the same tag will show up in the tag results

Who can delete/rename a tag?

Nobody, a tag gets automatically deleted if all notes tagging it gets deleted / edited

3. (Others)

Do notes support formatting?

Not currently, but it's a good idea to use markdown, definitely create a GitHub issue about this

Should it be possible for notes to include Quote/references to specific email lines?

We can at least refer to specific messages, let's see if we want anything more specific than that. (with markdown, you can always add manual blockquotes)

4. (Automation)

Yes, the search is a very basic ILIKE %query% for now.
Regex could be one improvement, but I also have plans such as:

• Integrate pg vector for semantic search
• Add specific filters, like creator:me, creator:@user, creator:@team, activity:me, etc. Ideally most of the things we have under the "quick filters" should be part of this, and the quick filters should be simply preset search queries.

I think automations should be something separate that could result in tags. Similar to how gmail filters are separate things, but they can move messages between labels, make them read, etc. You can add private or team automation, that can result in creating notes/mentions/tags, or change the readibility or things, or something else.

[janwieremjewicz]

Are tags unique per user? per team? globally?

As I replied earlier, tags are just collected from notes, only notes have ownership. If a tag mentioned in multiple notes (most likely), each mention has different owners. Right now we do not have tag ownership.

What if I create a private tag Performance and someone from another company creates a tag Performance? Both private ones?

Both notes/threads linked to the same tag will show up in the tag results

What if you create tag Performance then, sharing it with Percona team that I am a member of?
also same here?

Both notes/threads linked to the same tag will show up in the tag results

I like this:

Add specific filters, like creator:me, creator:@user, creator:@team, activity:me, etc. Ideally most of the things we have under the "quick filters" should be part of this, and the quick filters should be simply preset search queries.

If auto-tags were available, these "quick filters" would simply be preset auto-tags :)

[dutow]

What if I create a private tag Performance and someone from another company creates a tag Performance? Both private ones?

You will see the notes you mentioned under Performance, and the other user will see his notes under Performance, completely independently.

What if you create tag Performance then, sharing it with Percona team that I am a member of? also same here?

I don't understand the question? The note gets displayed for any user that is part of the Percona team, so it will show up in their results.