In a huff about Folksonomies
January 7, 2005 at 8:54 PM
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It seems like the LIS type Information Architects are in a huff lately over Folksonomies. For example take this post by Lou Rosenfeld entitled Folksonomies? How about Metadata Ecologies? He makes some good points about the limitations and gaps with using Folksonomies. However, as Thomas Vander Wal points out in the comments, users have navigation blindness. Even the preliminary results for this year's annual readership survey show that internal searching is falling second to a good topic index. Perhaps a case of search fatigue?
Comments
In a huff? I'm starting to get in a huff about that characterization.
Would you prefer I use snit? tiff? stew? fit?
But what makes you think anyone is in that state? Lou says "...it's exciting to consider how these two approaches might fit together and function as a whole. Neither works especially well on its own: controlled vocabularies often miss out on input from content authors and become rigid, stale, and distant from the vernacular of users; folksonomies will begin to break down for the reasons mentioned above. Treating them as major parts of a single metadata ecology might expose a useful symbiosis..." How's that being in a huff? I'm not sure who the other LIS type IA's are that you're referring to and what they've said. So perhaps there are more huff-like discussions. I haven't seen them, though.
Lou's post was one of the more logical discussions on the topic. I don't link to stuff that is nothing but a pure rant. So, in short, both in blogs and in email I have been hearing a lot of uproar over it. To quote Mr. Vander Wal, "I am finding some of the IA approach[s] rather ironic as folksonomy is about the lack of structure and just naming/tagging/categorizing objects and the IAs want to force structure on it." Of course you would to have read the full email to get the point Thomas is making here, so it's a little bit out of context right here. Anyway, make your own opinions about Folksonomies if you like, but also realize that it's just another tool in the toolbox for finding information.
Tanya, actually demonstrates one of the great functions of folksonomies offer, which is cross-cultural synonyms. Tanya posts her L'iChat post. Similar things are bubbling up over at del.icio.us without any professional hands needed. Clay Shirky's folksonomies + controlled vocabularies gets rather close to where things could be going. Lou has to correct Clay on a few points, but I think Clay has the grasp. Keep in mind folksonomy tools are only used by an insanely small percentage of those online at the moment. But, in every user testing session I have been in one in about five does not like local search and the navigation is not intuitive for them (many state they do not understand the vocabulary, while others claim they would rather search and just get right to what they are seeking). Folksonomy tools could help alleviate some of these users stated problems, particularly in an enterprise intranet. We need to start harvesting folksonomies for some of the emergent terms that are being used regarding the sites we work on.
L'iChat actually shows one of the problems since "chat" in english and "chat" in French mean two very different things. However looking at something with a critical eye doesn't mean I think it shouldn't exist. It's important to assess any method's strengths and weaknesses. Nick, I assume that you aren't equating critical thinking with rant, so I have no idea where these ranting LIS folks are. I have read a lot of weak generalizations that seem to want to brand librarians as being wholly "against" this or that based purely on some stereotype and that's starting to get me in a huff for sure.
Yep, I'm also curious as to where the huffing and ranting is taking place. In my posting, I tried to take a skeptic's view, and then discuss how these two forms of metadata might actually be complementary. Frankly, Clay's comments were disappointingly huffy. I usually appreciate his opinions, but he didn't read mine carefully, referred to it as "stupid," and lumped me--and many others, apparently--into some sort of "
I think it's crankiness on a relative and subjective spectrum - not outright hostility, it just seems like the only ones not excited by and even offering negative critiques of the flickr/del.icio.us tagging (like Lou's "it won't scale" type arguments in the first half of his post, before extending the olive branch in the second (which also ingeniously places folksonomies as a second-class citizen to and to be used in conjunction with traditional IA - neat trick!)) are the library science/IA types. Is it maybe because - gasp! - metadata for the masses is finally happening and they may not be needed anymore? A librarian against their own irrelevancy? You don't say! Personally, I'm all for it - those people would Dewey Decimal us to death if they had their way and the web would be accessed by looking up the right code on a library card - yuck. Am I the only one that loved the internet when it first came out because one of the things that it allowed you to do was finally bypass the arrogant and unfriendly "keepers of the information" at the front desk and access stuff for yourself? Folksonomies or whatever the hell they'll be called in a month are just another step in that direction.
AI: you are correct. I get the feeling that those who are complaining, or subjectively so in some cases, that irrelevancy is very much on the plate. I guess I read too many librarian blogs than those in this discussion here... perhaps that
Try using keywords on Technorati or Feedster and follow what is being said on blogs. These seem to be catching about a third of the content out there, but it eases the keeping track of everything. I have been getting a lot of e-mail on this subject the past couple months and most of the statements and questions regard how to implement a folksonomy as their taxonomy does not work for all of their users. There have even been librarians noting about the ease of use, low cost to add tags, and the immediate reward for tracking their own information and the ease of finding related information or objects. This is about 80 percent of what I am getting from non-librarians.
LIS is about providing access to information not about the act of classifying it. That's just a means to an end. The only critiques by LIS folks that I've read are attempts to suss out folksonomies' strengths and weaknesses. I think you'll find we author just as many critiques of centralized classification systems. I'm still waiting to be pointed to these reactionary LIS folk. The only people in a huff seem to be the non-librarian types using the label "librarian" on their strawman. And, Nick and Al, as far as irrelevancy goes, I'm sure the information science profession fears folksonomy means irrelevancy as much as intelligent agents did in the 90's and computers in general in the 80's. I'm surprised at you guys...these things don't build themselves.
Tanya, if you want to dig through my OPML file I'd be happy to send it to you.
Just pointers to LIS folks who are in a huff over Folksonomies and now librarians who are railing against it because it spells the end of their profession, please. People who are just ranting that librarians are just the sort of bun wearing, uptight, close-minded people who would hate such a thing don't count, as that doesn't actually make it so.
Tanya, it looks like I can do a search in my feeds for the content and then export as an RSS file. There are 55 posts from what I can see. As for librarians being that type of person, well all I can say is I know many librarians and that is a very typical and incorrect stereotype... some of my good friends are librarians.
Right, so, let's not perpetuate it and assume we're in huff based on it.
