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Duane,
I'm wondering why "one person or a small group" labeling some "thing" is
a problem? Is this to say that one person or a small group can't label a thing correctly and comprehensively keeping the best interest of the end-user in mind? If a taxonomy has thesaural properties, or is just a good-old fashioned thesaurus, it should be able to accommodate various view points with synonymy.
As for the Slashdot.org "experiment," why generalize about how an
ontologist or taxonomist would tag it? It sounds like, if there are, indeed, such unique terms being used to tag something at Slashdot.org that they would elude a person whose vocation is to tag content using the most widely-accepted terms, then you're really saying that "one person or a small group" is tagging things in a completely unique way at Slashdot.org! Isn't that a problem then?
Keith DeWeese
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] [ontology-summit] PLEASE, PLEASE!!
From: Duane Nickull <dnickull@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, March 07, 2007 1:00 pm
To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
John:
I am still undecided. I am currently writing about the folksonomy
pattern
in a book on the web 2.0.
The pattern is one that is useful in deriving the representation terms
which
in itself might be useful to the actual semantics to be accurate to a
large
section of society.
The problem I see with a lot of taxonomies and ontology work is that
one
person or a small group decide what to label something and the label
(tag)
and the concept are joined at the hip. There will always be a
large set of
society that do not use the same label and will not agree with
the
ontology/taxonomy so the work gets dismissed and it starts all over
again
with another group who will "do things right for once and all".
While this pattern is good for anyone seeking employment security
in
standards work, it is not serving our communities as a whole.
Folksonomy's allow a larger section of the public to express their
input
into how something should be tagged. We are doing an experiment
on
Slashdot.org on story tagging and the results are very interesting.
I doubt
in any event that an ontologist or taxonomy author would have chosen
the
same tags for the stories that the members did.
At the very least, folksonomies probably represent a very good way to
derive
accurate labels (representation terms) for things to facilitate the
tag
being meaningful and accurate to the largest section of society.
The
process does not however lend itself to being useful in terms of the
logical
world as most of the tags are opinions expressed from a very narrow
point of
view (the taggers own perception) rather than a bigger framed question
of
"what does this thing really mean?".
Duane (sitting on the fence...)
On 3/7/07 10:49 AM, "John F. Sowa" <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Debbie and Duane,
>
> Both of you seem to imply that there is no clear definition.
> According to Debbie,
>
>> To me, does not necessarily mean folksonomy is a slur. Does the
term
>> imply an ad-hoc unstructured or immature version of a formal
ontology?
>> Maybe on-the-fly the authors don't have or need an official
term yet.
>> It is what it is, like the rumors of no native american word
for art,
>> or no eskimo word for snow, "things" or "processes" that are
so
>> integral that so far, there has never been a need for them to
be
>> described from outside in a comprehensive overview.
>>
>> When writing formal specifications, it may be neccessary for
terms to
>> be applied by others outside a field. In this sense, a
folksonomy
>> might be more like an outline or a sketch. Sketches and
outlines are
>> hard to make also.
>
> If it is a sketch or outline, then call it that. But
sometimes,
> it might be intended as a taxonomy, a glossary, a type hierarchy,
> a lexicon, a thesaurus, or whatever. But for one reason or
another,
> it doesn't meet all the requirements.
>
> My suggestion: If it is an informal or unstructured version
of
> some X, which doesn't meet all the requirements for a proper
X,
> then just call it an "unstructured X" or an "informal X".
>
> The word "folk" is used in a positive sense in "folklore"
and
> in a negative sense in "folk psychology." That would make
the
> word "folksonomy" doubly ambiguous: we're not sure what it
means
> or whether the speaker has a positive or a negative attitude.
>
> For such terms, I recommend the refrigerator policy:
>
> When in doubt, throw it out.
>
> John
>
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