[Sigia-l] Taxonomy open to all - was: Difference between Taxonomiesand Classification / Classification Schemes

[Tom Trottier]

Are taxonomies exclusionary? If the relationship between two terms can 
be characterised fuzzily, then you could have voting, and a dynamic 
taxonomy, at the cost both of complexity and forever-correctness.

The real questions to evaluate a taxonomy scheme are, 
 - what represents the "world" best
 - what is useful

tOM

On Monday, February 23, 2004 at 13:54,
gunnar <gunnar at langemark.com> wrote:

> > > I would think a system that allowed anyone to add a term wouldn't be an
> > > efficient way and you are right that is would become unusable after a while.
> > 
> > Be careful generalizing like that. You'd think a system that allowed
> > anyone to add or edit any webpage wouldn't be efficient and would become
> > unusable, and you'd be wrong in many cases.
...
> But my reason for asking the question about totally open taxonomy maintenance
> is to get arguments pro and con this phenomenon - which (at least to my
> superficial knowledge) in some senses contradicts the idea of a CONTROLLED
> vocabulary. I'm aware that a controlled vocabulary may not have a central
> controlling authority as such, but have no good examples of a controlled
> vocabulary controlled by a vast community of users. The closest to it, that I
> can find would be Wikipedia - which is an encyclopedia, and thus have some
> characteristics in common with a controlled vocabulary.
> I'm simply curious. Can we find a good example of a very open approach to
> building and maintaining a taxonomy?
> And can we find an example which is so open that it can hardly be called
> controlled.


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