[Sigia-l] Taxonomy open to all - was: Difference between Taxonomies and Clas

[Noreen Whysel]

In the early 90's when I was working in Lotus Notes databases that allowed 
users to create and self-categorize records, we had a difficult time with 
the assortment of categories the users defined.  Multiple 
spellings/misspellings, various synonyms, non-uniform capitalization schemes 
(all caps, initial caps, all small), people putting spaces or 
non-alphanumeric characters at the beginning, etc.  However we also found 
that restricting users to a few defined categories was limiting and adding 
an "Other" selection became too broad.  The solution we came up with was to 
have a series of defined categories (a sort of sanctioned vocabulary) with 
an additional free-text "define your own category" choice and then sorting 
these into new categories on a regular basis, thus developing some control 
to a rather ad hoc process.  (This became a problem when we started using LN 
for the web, as every time we made a change like this it renamed the 
document - so all referring pages also had to be updated.  I don't remember 
what the solution was to that.  I'm sure they figured out a solution at some 
point since then.)

Noreen


>From: "gunnar" <gunnar at langemark.com>
>To: "Christina Wodtke" <cwodtke at eleganthack.com>, <sigia-l at asis.org>
>Subject: [Sigia-l] Taxonomy open to all - was: Difference between 
>Taxonomies and Classification / Classification Schemes
>Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 08:31:21 +0600
>
>Taxonomies are controlled vocabularies.
>I agree (could you not agree?)
>
>But I have seen - in a community working on an open source content
>management/community system  (www.drupal.org) - the use of the term 
>taxonomy
>attached to a vocabulary (taxonomy) system - accessible by all users so 
>that
>any person could add terms. I realize that this use of the term was perhaps
>due to a lack of understanding of it, but it seems that there's a trend 
>toward
>distributed, shared and user controlled systems.
>
>How controlled is that?
>
>My question is: "What makes a vocabulary controlled?"
>
>My first reaction was: "Now if the controlled vocabulary is controlled by
>everybody it will run amok - and cease to be controlled and therefore 
>become
>useless little by little ..."
>
>As I have a soft spot for anarchy and bottom up, I'm in a bit of a pain 
>here.
>I would like a scheme which would allow for such an approach to taxonomy
>building, but I'm hard pressed to defend the feasibility of it. My best 
>guess
>is still, that it will not work.
>
>Is a controlled vocabulary - controlled by anyone who chooses to - still a
>controlled vocabulary? Can it be usefull?
>
>
> > -...... All of the terms mentioned above are
> > controlled vocabularies. That means that they are organized lists of
> > words and phrases, or notation systems, that are used to initially
> > tag content, and then to find it through navigation or search."
> >
>
>Best
>Gunnar Langemark
>gunnar at langemark.com
>------------
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