Surely the main issues are not that there are different terms
used by different people in different contexts but rather:
-
How do you give and assert unambiguous identity to each
person/group’s “things”?;
-
How do you map between them: or more precisely, formalise
assertions of possible similarity/identity between different things?;
-
How (if at all) do you assess the “value” of any
such assertions (in the sense, are they reliable, trustable)
While an upper-level ontology may help to provide some “loose
bunching” of, or “loose coupling” between, terms for
different things or classes of things, this process often breaks down as you move
from generalities to specificities.
Namespaces, URIs, PSIs, all help to plant a flag for your own
terms. They do not guarantee that that one ontology can speak to another but it
provides starting reference point: as in all areas of interoperability, if you
have standards (even multiple standards) then you have hooks with which you can
interoperate. “Free-for-all” tagging à la Flickr and /. Depend for
their success on implicit assumptions in their respective communities of the
meanings of the terms rather than any common reference points
Peter
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of keith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 07 March 2007 20:30
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] [ontology-summit] PLEASE, PLEASE!!
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?
-------- 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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