[Sigia-l] The A>B, B>A problem

[Peter Van Dijck]

Thanks Leonard - an answer to my question!

However, the problem I'm describing isn't exactly "what citation order 
should the facets be put in?". It is more: "What's the name for the 
problem when there is NO one correct citation order for your facets 
possible because different users will want to access the information 
differently."

I'd love to hear more about your view on this. If I understand you 
correctly, you are saying: you should have some principle to order the 
facets in a hierarchy. (Note that I am talking about a hierarchy used 
for browsing. I'm not sure how different usage is in your case?) What I 
am saying is: there often is no solution, because some users will want 
to access by country first (in this example), others by color. So this 
is a problem, that can be solved in various ways. But what is the name 
of this problem, if any?

Does that make sense?
P

Leonard Will wrote:

> As expressed here, you are combining concepts from two different facets:
> place and material. The question you are asking is normally expressed in
> the information science profession as asking what the citation order of
> these facets should be. There is no simple answer, but two general
> guidelines are widely used.
> 
> The most famous one is that of Ranganathan :
> PMEST - personality : matter : energy : space : time
> where "personality" means the core concept or focus of the area covered
> by the classification scheme ("taxonomy" if you must :-) )
> 
> In your example "wine" might be considered as "personality" or "matter",
> depending on the scope of the scheme, and in either case it would
> normally precede the concept "France" which belongs in the place facet
> ("space").
> 
> A more extensive list for the citation order of facets is that developed
> by the Classification Research Group (of which I am a member):
> 
> thing - kind - part - property - material - process - operation - system
> operated on - product - by-product - agent - space - time - form
> 
> This may be altered in some areas, but it gives a generally useful
> order. The main thing is to have some such rule in mind rather than
> making arbitrary decisions as each new concept is introduced, which
> makes your hierarchy unpredictable.
> 
> Characteristics of division have been mentioned, and I think it is
> important to distinguish arrays based on these from facets. I am a
> member of a working party which has prepared a draft revision of the
> British Standard for thesaurus construction (BS5723, currently identical
> to ISO 2788); I'll forward a copy of the announcement of this to the
> list in a separate message. The draft includes the following
> definitions:
> 
> ==================== beginning of quote from draft standard ======
> 2.1 : array
> = group of sibling terms
> 
> EXAMPLE In the following, outerwear and underwear are sibling terms in
> the same array.
> 
> clothing
>      outerwear
>           overcoats
>      underwear
> 
> 2.2 : characteristic of division
> = attribute by which a concept can be subdivided into an array of
> narrower concepts each having a distinct value of that attribute
> 
> EXAMPLE In the following, age group is the characteristic by which the
> concept of people is divided.
> 
> people
>      (people by age group)
>      children
>      youths
>      adults
> 
> 2.11 : facet
> = high-level grouping of concepts of the same inherent category
> 
> NOTE Examples of categories that may be used for grouping concepts into
> facets are: activities, disciplines, people, materials, living
> organisms, objects, places and times.
> 
> EXAMPLE 1 Animals, mice, daffodils and bacteria could all be members of
> a living organisms facet.
> 
> EXAMPLE 2 Digging, writing and cooking could all be members of an
> activities facet.
> 
> EXAMPLE 3 Paris, the United Kingdom and the Alps could all be members of
> a places facet.
> ==================== end of quote from draft standard =========
> 
> A concept cannot belong to more than one facet, because facets are by
> definition mutually exclusive. A concept can belong to more than one
> array within the same facet, because more than one characteristic of
> division may apply: for example "boys" may be in a "people" facet and
> can occur in the two arrays headed by the node labels "(people by age)"
> and "(people by sex)".
> 
> A great deal of confusion arises because this distinction between facets
> and arrays is often not observed.
> 
> There is a lot more that could be said, but this message is long enough
> so I'll wait to see whether any discussion ensues.
> 
> Leonard Will
>