[Sigia-l] is midwest, is not midwest

[Truong, Kristen]

Lucie said:
"By the way, your New England friends were correct about New England.
It's 
the only region in America that has a precise, unequivocal, official 
definition."

Not really true....

Alright... I'm not sure why I'm joining this tangential
discussion...Maybe it's because I'm a Midwesterner.  I grew up in Ohio,
and now live in Michigan.  These are both *officially* in the Midwest.

No matter what individuals' interpretations of what states are in the
Midwest, the states officially included are as clear as the states
included in New England.

There are 12 states in the midwest:  
Arkansas 
Iowa 
Illinois 
Indiana 
Kansas 
Michigan 
Minnesota 
Missouri 
North Dakota 
Ohio 
Oklahoma 
South Dakota 

These are defined for geo-political reasons, which have been discussed
already.  The federal government has, as well as academics, geographers,
and teachers have, clearly defined the midwest as these 12 states.
Probably, anyone FROM these states know that they are in the Midwest.  
http://www.census.gov/geo/www/us_regdiv.pdf
http://www.ahsd25.k12.il.us/Curriculum%20Info/midwest/midwestmap.htm

In an attempt to bring this discussion back to IA relevance...
Since a group of people (us) who presumably have a high level of
educational background do not seem to be able to agree on *officially*
and *clearly* defined categories, it is no wonder that there are little
agreed upon standards for categorizations in general.  So, the question
then becomes, how do we accommodate for these differences for users?
Several options have been discussed.  I was just wondering what are the
best ways of accommodating users who have different schemas for
categories?  I've heard many mentioned...

-redundancy
-follow some "official" scheme
-follow some "logical" scheme
-faceted classification
-others?

In addition, is there great need for standardized classification
schemes?  When are they valuable?  When are they not?

Kristen Truong
Information Architect
Construct Team | Covisint
ktruong at covisint.com