Discussion: use same table of tags as exists on publiclab.org?

[ebarry]

Hello! Following up on a discussion a week or so ago about which tags are used (and how) on various Public Lab websites, i'd like us to consider whether mapknitter's tagging interface might pull from the same set of tags that moderators curate on publiclab.org.

Here's a quick overview of tagging on various Public Lab sites:

1. publiclab.org (which has the biggest, and most extensively curated set of tags)
2. mapknitter.org (which has a relatively underdeveloped set of tags)
3. infragram.org (which has no tagging feature)
4. spectralworkbench.org (which has very elaborate tags that can do math on the data and incorporates version tracking!)

I am wondering if using the set of tags that is curated for PublicLab.org on mapknitter would help us better relate content across the two sites, and whether it would greatly improve the autosuggest experience on mapknitter to have it work the same way it does on publiclab.org. These are the two main benefits i imagine we'd get from implementing something like this.

What do you think about the idea that mapknitter's tagging interface might pull from the same set of tags that moderators curate on publiclab.org? Would it take a lot of work? Thanks!