[Sigia-l] Faceted Classification

[Listera]

"Christopher Fahey [askrom]" wrote:

> It has always seemed to me that "faceted classification" is just a fancy
> way of saying "put your content into a database and use lots of metadata
> fields".

Right on. In the interest of simplifying stuff even further, I'd love to get
rid of the word 'metadata'. It sounds as highfalutin as 'faceted' without
adding much meaning. In a database, it's just another (data) field. In fact,
*any* field (besides the main data object) is 'data about that data',
including its record ID. Using non-jargon terminology gets us one step
closer to being better understood by others, including designers,
developers, managers, business people, etc. In building database-based
systems for various media for over a decade, I have never used the words
'faceted' or 'metadata' once in front of clients, and I don't believe I have
never been misunderstood on that account :-)

Best,

Ziya