[Sigia-l] locations of synonym terms in hierarchical taxonomies?

[Holly Hanna]

One instance where you might want to have a single synonym pointing at
multiple authority terms is in the case of abbreviations or acronyms.  It
depends on the depth and extent of your taxonomy, obviously, but if you've
got content that addresses both automatic teller machines (ATM) and
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (also ATM), it could make sense to make the
acronym a synonym to both authority terms, since you couldn't be certain
which concept the searcher was seeking when they typed in ATM.

Holly

> It also depends on the purpose of the taxonomy:
>
> - A browse taxonomy lends itself to exposing synonyms where they occur.
> One user might be familiar with 'PDA', another with 'Handheld'.
> Supplying both maximises the chances of the users reaching the desired
> content/resource.
>
> - An indexing taxonomy may need to be stricter in terms of how it
> assigns keywords to a particular resource. To reduce the complexity of
> the indexing it may be better to stick to a preferred term and various
> non-preferred terms.
>
> - A taxonomy used as the primary navigation on a site may also need to
> be more discriminatory as the appearance of synonyms in the same list
> may be confusing for users.
> (I was recently lloking for a combined printer/scanner/copier and came
> across a site (sorry can't remember which) which had links to
> 'All-in-one printers' and 'Multifunction printers' which pointed to the
> same page. I felt obliged to explore both links in case I missed out on
> a great deal, but on discovering they pointed to the same page, got
> irritated for having wasted my time doing so)
>
> My understanding of Multites is that it won't force the synonyms to
> exist at the same level of the hierarchy, but if they were at completely
> different levels, can they really be regarded as synonyms?
>
> regards
> vanessa
>
>
>
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