TAXONOMIES | FOLKSONOMIES |
Central control | Democratic creation |
Top-down | Bottom-up |
Meaning to the author | Meaning to the reader |
Process to add new | Just do it |
Accurate | Good enough |
Navigation | Discovery |
Restrictive | Expansive |
Defined vocabulary | Personal vocabulary |
Published July 31, 2008 by Stephen Dale
Taxonomies vs. Folksonomies
Stephen is Director and founder of Collabor8now Ltd, an organization focussed on developing collaborative environments (e.g. Communities of Practice) and the integration of knowledge management tools and processes to support business improvement. He is a certified knowledge manager with the Knowledge Management Institute (KMI) and the author of several published research papers on collaborative behaviours and information technology.
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Just wanted to say HI. I found your blog a few days ago on Technorati and have been reading it over the past few days.
Well if you don’t allow your self to be put off by the off Tweeter and do come on the course, you will find most of day three devoted to lightly constrained tagging systems as an alternative to either of the above ….
It sounds as though the course leader hadn’t really investigated folksonomies much at all or, indeed, spent much time using systems with folksonomies.
My team find that, even when using deep-level IPSV terms, we have to use standard metadata as well. The main reason being that the vocabulary used is very much based on “council speak” and, even if searchable via google, are not words that non-council people would be familiar with.
Not only that but there are changes in terms that are used depending on location both in terms of dialect (eg yorkshire vs cornwall vs essex, for instance) but also legal terms (Scots law vs english law).
All the various standard vocabularies are much more to do with the national government’s project to have a citizen account and being able to find something on one council site in the same way as we would on another.
Also, folksonomies, especially mature ones, are extremely friendly to search engines, because the people creating the tags are the same people that carry out the searches.
ooops, my bad. didn’t realise I was required to put tags.
Dave,
ahh, I should have guessed you would pick up on the Tweeter. I’m certainly intrigued by the course, but as an independent freelancer I have to look careful at cost/benefit. since it’s me that’s paying and not some large corp. Will have a think.
Andrew,
thanks for comments. I’m intrigued to know whether your team use IPSV because it’s mandated, or whether it is adding real value – e.g. for information sharing between councils, or to support document or records management? As you can see from my original post, I can’t see any practical benefit – unless it is tied to something like EDRMS.
Steve,
Mostly because it’s mandated and may be useful in future for connecting simmilar pages across councils. We tend to use the “real” terms in the standard XHTML metadata which google is better at using anyway.
The same applies to all the mandated lists (Navigation list, A2Z list etc …)
We also tend to find that the lists have been made for England. Quite often, Scottish and English law have different terms for the same thing and can even have entirely different set ups.
Even though we have a specifically Scottish Navigation list, the terms used can vary between, say, Dundee and Glasgow. As in England, dialects across the whole country can be very different.
I think, in our case, folksonomy would work really well because council staff can tag the pages with the “council terms” and they can also be tagged with the everyday terms by anyone else.
I have been advocating the Hybrid approach to folksonomies and taxonomies in the Enterprise for a while and recently published an ebook that provides a high level look at the benefits of the Hybrid approach that i hope you find useful and entertaining!
I have been in many a meeting where the mention of ‘folksonomies’ causes visible anguish – but i am seeing that attitude change quickly.
You can download it here:
http://solutions.dowjones.com/cookbook/ebook_sla2008/cookbookebook.pdf
Daniela,
many thanks for the ebook link. A hybrid approach sounds like it could be the best of both worlds. I look forward to reading about it.
Steve