Folksonomies In Del.icio.us and Flickr

[e-mail] writes "Lots of discussion going on about 'folksonomies' -- bottom-up taxonomies that people create on their own -- as used in Del.icio.us and Flickr: Adam Mathes has a thesis on Folksonomies; IFTF's Future Now makes a point about problems with folksonomies: no synonym control ( "mac" and "macintosh" on Del.icio.us); no hierarchy and content types; and only simple one-word tags. Joho the Blog notices a discussion about what to call it in Mob indexing? Folk categorization? Social tagging?, and John Battelle links into Taggle and "federated tagging". I wonder if a Google Suggest like system might reduce 'lazy tagging' ,and maybe synonym control when the federation appears. Tag, you're it!"

What the???

[Anonymous Coward]

That was the single most incoherent paragraph I have read in awhile. I'm afraid to RTFA because it'll probably result in me contracting brain cancer somehow.

wtf?!?

[marcushnk]

I must need more sleep.. that looked like complete gibberish to me.

Re:I'm just tagging my Flickr photos now.

[Eric Giguere]

And this is also why search-based systems like GMail [gmail.com] and Zoe [www.zoe.nu] that let you group and classify things on the fly are so useful. And it's not limited to computer stuff, either. Haven't you ever tried to figure out which of your (manila) file folders you should use to file a receipt?

Eric
See your HTTP headers here [ericgiguere.com]

There are no synonyms

[bkhl]

The lack of synonym control is one of the reason "folksonomies" works. Even if say the tags "mac" and "macintosh" might seem like synonyms, what if someone uses the two tags "macintosh" and "clothes" together, for the other kind of macintosh? Would you like those to go under "mac" too?

Instead, these systems works because there are so many participants, it doesn't matter if you miss 50%, 80 or 90% of them because of differing tag names.

But but...

[Roland Piquepaille]

no synonym control ( "mac" and "macintosh" on Del.icio.us)

Aren't words what people make them to be? I mean, if many people, from the bottom up, decide that "Mac" should be primarily a synonymous of "Macintosh" (which it is, de facto), then secondarily an acronym for an ethernet card address, then for TV addicts a short for Duncan McLeod, so what? Who's to define what words mean if it's not the people who use them?

I mean look at the French: they have something called the "French academy" that makes up a bunch of words willy-nilly every year, after much discussion, to be added to the "official" french language, but without consulting the potential users (the French). Well guess what: most of these words aren't known, let alone used, with precious few exceptions.

So I say great: if grassroot efforts end up redefining the language, and help consolidate new words into the core language, and help create new words and expressions, I say fine. That's what defines a living language that people like and use.

Re:Another article on the topic

[Jeff DeMaagd]

That title alone suggests it is more pompous than the slashdot submission.

I'm sorry, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

This all looks like nothing more than a filing system for the anally retentive.

This will be abused

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, but this is not a very good idea. After it has got popular enough to attract attention, it will be ripe for abuse.

You can just imagine what the bots will be tagging the viagra ads and nudie pics with...

Sure, we can start with bayesian filtering and manual deletion all over again, just like with wikis and blogs. But isn't it time that we start caring about these issues before we jump on every new product?

fsck, all giberrish

[l3v1]

/* Note: this is going to be off topic, so I don't mind if it gets modded that way */ I read the damn thing at least 3 times... not that I didn't understand for first (I know about it all over, and the linked stuff) but for the plain reason that I just couldn't believe my eyes someone could put together a paragraph which sounds so totally out of language non-human gibberish all over. My head just hurts. Indeed.

Re:Learn to read

[Dachannien]

If the concept is so simple to explain (and it is, because you just did it), why was that explanation not included in the article? Instead, they introduce this "folksonomies" term, give an eight-word definition that includes two terms (bottom-up and taxonomies) which need further explanation to put them in the proper context, and expect everybody to understand what's being talked about.

Re:What the???

[xZAQx]

Lots of discussion going on about 'folksonomies' -- bottom-up taxonomies that people create on their own -- as used in Del.icio.us and Flickr: Adam Mathes has a thesis on Folksonomies; IFTF's Future Now makes a point about problems with folksonomies: no synonym control ( "mac" and "macintosh" on Del.icio.us); no hierarchy and content types; and only simple one-word tags.

That pile of shit is ONE sentence.

Slashdot: Where grammar is sacrificed for stories about "revolutionary" technologies such as blogs and other bullshit made up trends that will be nonexistent in 6 months.

Re:What the???

[marketingshift]

I tried to break it down from my 2 yeard old daughter's point of view. Let me know if this works for you. http://www.marketingshift.com/2005/01/folksonomies -toddlers.cfm [marketingshift.com]

Re:What the???

[moonbender]

Hm? There is no problem with the grammar in those phrases, at least I don't see any. It's also not really difficult to understand - I'm not a native speaker, and I parsed the sentence without any problem whatsoever. It's arguably one sentence, as evidenced by the fact that is just one full stop, but there are other punctuation marks that clearly seperate the clauses, ie. the colons and the semi-colon.
Granted, I didn't exactly understand the meaning, but that was simply and solely due to the fact that I lacked the background knowledge he presupposed. I checked out one of the numerous links; acquiring the necessary knowledge took me, oh, 20 seconds.

What we can see here is the reaction by many folks in the Slashdot crowd when confronted with an unfamiliar topic: bitch and moan instead of spending some time to find out what it's all about. Pathetic. I mean, I agree that the story should have been a bit more explanatory, obviously a lot of people have no clue what it's all about, but this kind of verbal abuse is not warranted.

BTW: Your final sentence is longer (ie has more words) than any of the clauses in the paragraph you quoted, and is a lot more difficult to understand. "Bullshit made up trends" is one long compound noun.

Interesting article, but ...

[Grismar]

It only seems to hold as long as the controller/owner of the system succeeds in keeping porn or other aggressively commercial media out of its systems.

When that happens, popular keywords will soon start referring to porn and such media and the designers will need to think of other ways to determine relevancy of terms/keywords/tags to an object.

The article is interesting and relevant to any "unspoiled" community tag-database. But imo, it has little value when talking about systems that have been open for some time to the commercial scum, that seems to succeed in filling every nook and cranny of the internet.

Re:Learn to read

[ElGanzoLoco]

If the concept is so simple to explain (and it is, because you just did it), why was that explanation not included in the article? Instead, they introduce this "folksonomies" term, give an eight-word definition that includes two terms (bottom-up and taxonomies) which need further explanation to put them in the proper context, and expect everybody to understand what's being talked about.

It's called "wanting to be hip, even if noone else understands what I say".