Talk:Folksonomy

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News This page has been cited as a source by several media organizations. The citations are in:
Votes for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 7 July 2005. The result of the discussion was keep.

An in depth article about categorization could contain this information under a more suitable title, and I'm not convinced that this word is in wide enough usage (yet) that wikipedia should promote its further use with an article by this name. I am not going to list this for VfD myself, but if someone else does, I would support it. ~leif ☺ HELO 02:01, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Hey! This sounds like original research!

Hey! I thought: no original research allowed on Wikipedia.

And it's not fair to just write a blog entry somewhere, and then link to that.

But we'd like to have authoritative, knowledgable people, writing here. But only about things that are factual; Not their own insights or thoughts into a matter.

The fact that this neologism has been appropriated by hundreds of writers, who agree that it describes a new and interesting phenomenon on the Internet, elevates this term far beyond the category of individual research.Bryan 03:15, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
The neologism is beyond reproach -- of course the article has a right to exist. But some of the particular content is very much like original research. The most glaring is the section on folksonomy and the Semantic Web -- most Semantic Web people I know would have the *opposite* opinion, that folksonomies are an impediment to the Semantic Web, as they are non-normalized, ill-formed "ontologies" (arguably they are not even to be called ontologies, or at best very "soft ontologies"). I am not against folksonomies at all, but to say they can help the Semantic Web is very intriguing, controversial, debatable -- all the things that should not be in a Wikipedia article.--Tmusgrove 00:07, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The definition of "Taxonomy" is confusing.

'Taxonomy is from "taxis" and "nomos" (from Greek). Taxis means classification. Nomos (or nomia) means management.'

Taxonomy says "from the words taxis = order and nomos = law".

From the article: So "folksonomy" literally means "people's classification management". I'm not a specialist in Greek, but I fail to see how Folksonomy can "literally" mean "people's classification management" without "taxis" in there. --Ben 20:52, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

This is an ic ronic term. It refers to people's disorderly and unsystematic classification schemes that break all the rules of formal classification, but in a way that provides useful information to Internet users.Bryan 03:15, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] wikipedia category system

Shouldn't the Wikipedia category system get a mention here, since we are at the forefront of folksonomies? :81.156.107.201 14:38, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think this is a good suggestion - can you add it? Bryan 03:15, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] added another example of a music site with a folksonomy

upto11.net is a new music recommendations site that employs user tags and leverages P2P-user music collections as the basis for recommendations. Articles about musical artist, albums and songs from the Wikipedia are also integrated, including links on each page that encourage our users to add to / edit those articles at the Wikipedia. Thought it added a unique new example of a music recommendations site that uses a folksonomy. I'm one of the founders. --Dsupto11 03:34, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia is not an internet directory

...so I am being bold and removing the examples section as well as the links in the external references which are nothing more than sites which use a folksonomy, or a dynamic list of folksonomy links. Chuck 18:18, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

What? C'mon. We're talking about a few good examples! If you came across this concept, wouldn't you want to visit a few sites that exemplified folksonomy? Bryan 03:15, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Mea culpa. Just looked at your change, you're right. Sorry! Bryan 03:27, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I got here in search for examples. And they are gone! There is a List of search engines. Why not a list of Folksonomies?! Where should one look for examples? If i'd be a normal user, this is what I'd like to see first!

[edit] Big words != Smart

If I have to look up the words portmanteau and neologism, then they dont belong in the summary. I took them out and replaced them with something a bit more readable.

The best writing is the writing that can be easily understood by anybody.

Thank you. --jonsafari 04:39, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Along with acronym and initialism and others, these are accepted words for classifying linguistic constructions such as one would find in any serious dictionary. It's more to the point that linguistic jargon mainstream to a dictionary are appearing in the summary section of a page making a pretense to belong in an encyclopedia. It strikes me that category:big word is not a terribly incisive folksonomie in this instance. MaxEnt 00:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A few big words now and then aren't such a bad thing

Dear Anonymous who doesn't like big words: I agree with you 100%. I like clear, readable prose too. Still, think of a young reader who comes across this word, and thinks that it has been used since the time of the Greeks. It IS a neologism -- or, as Wikipedians prefer to call such things, a portmanteau word.

Look, this is an encyclopedia. Big words are to be expected. If they are linked, you can click the link and learn the word. That is what encyclopedias are FOR -- learning. Please do not remove words you do not understand unless you believe the the discussion could be improved by using a simpler word. Bryan 03:15, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New definition

Let me explain my changes in the first paragraph. The term "folksonomy" was coined by a very, very smart guy named Thomas Vander Wal. Many people have found his definition of folksonomy useful, and it has been widely adopted. The trouble is, Vander Wal didn't think much of the way this page used to define it:

His definition of the concept (which I have tried to restore to this page) beautifully captures the social and personal dimensions of folksonomic classification -- categories that we associate with an online personae and, if we find them congenial, inspire a search for similarly tagged objects. The following explains the concept pretty well:

Bryan 11:16, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

It's taken a while, I know, but I finally got around to updating the introduction to fully deal with Vander Wal's criticisms. It's important that the introduction contains the paragraph about the connection between tags and online personae.Bryan 19:57, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

You may be interested to see that Vander Wal now has a static page (rather than a series of blogs) to explain the concept at http://vanderwal.net/folksonomy.html This is my first time ever on Wikipedia so I wouldn't presume to edit the main article, but if you think it would be useful perhaps you could add a link somewhere. Opoulter 10:28, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Problems with folksonomies

I've had a first stab at a critical section in this article. Please feel free to edit and develop, I'm just concerned the article doesn't mention some of the potential problems that folksonomies may create. I am sure some great and good have written measured critques that should be referenced? (Mark Gaved 19 November)

This is really a valuable contribution! We're still in the hype phase of folksonomy... and I haven't seen any literature that questions the concept. I think the most fundamental criticism would be that it seems to be incompatible with the notion of a semantic Web, in which there are machine-readable indices on every Web page that specify their "aboutness." Any formal taxonomy of Web page subject matter would have to deal, inevitably, with the ambiguities of natural language. Also, user-generated categories seem vulnerable to search engine optimization dysfunctions; in the quest for limited Web attention, should I not tag my page on butterfly collecting with categories such as "oral sex"? (incorporate any of this into this section as you please). Best wishes Bryan 23:17, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

cheers Brian. I used to be a librarian and sometimes had to unpick other people's folksonomies to help users (the usual "Dutch/Netherlands/Holland" synonym issues ) so I am a little sceptical of purely folksonomic approaches, but I am sure some more measured writings have been made and it would be great to see them summarised. You say there isn't any lit criticising folksonomies, would it exist within library ad information science literature under the guise of justifications for clear classification systems? Here I am now a PhD student in a University department that focuses on the Semantic Web [[1]] but I'm mainly a grassroots appropriation of technology guy so came at this topic from references to grassroots capture of knowledge! ....I'm not sure I get your reference to buttterfly collecting / oral sex though! (Mark Gaved)

The point is, if I have a boring page (butterflly collecting), I can tag it any way I want, including with something that might bring curious visitors. I really don't know of any literature of any kind on folksonomy -- it's too new to have made its way into the journals. Somebody out there must be studying it, though! Say hello, please, if you are. Bryan 21:09, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I added a reference to a nice paper by Scott Golder and Bernardo Huberman on tagging that is being published next year and mentioned a few of the problems they identified. Personally however, I am not convinced these are really problems but rather illustrative the awesome flexibility of tagging.

Tag based categorization doesn't preclude a taxonomy; it works in parallel to offer another way to sort the same objects. The idea isn't to organize a library with tags, but rather to for each reader to apply tags to books as they read them. If enough readers tag enough books, exciting wisdom-of-crowds action will result. Golder and Huberman found that tags can show stability after as few as 30 taggers. User:Graypriest November 25, 2005

thanks for this Graypriest. I'll try to find some references on problems of retrieval: I want to believe in folksonomies but the "awesome flexibility of tagging" in my experience as a librarian translated to 'user frustration at not being able to find anything'. (Mark Gaved).

[edit] Wikipedia's categories = folksonomy?

I've been trying to think my way through this question: Are Wikipedia's categories a form of folksonomy? I think they are, but they masquerade as controlled vocabularies, which is potentially misleading. I would really like to hear from somebody who has been involved in Wikipedia's categories effort on this. Bryan 23:21, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Reversion of (some) lead paragraph edits

Folksonomy is a portmanteau word: "A portmanteau (plural: portmanteaux) is a word that is formed by combining both sounds and meanings from two or more words. It can also be called a frankenword (incidentally, this is another example of a portmanteau). The term used in linguistics is blend (see the section linguistics below)." Could also be termed a neologism, but either is better than "spin." Bryan

[edit] Well,

First time I have found a topic I had never heard of browsing on wp...--BozMotalk 15:45, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Examples and 'How to roll your own'

Seems to me that this article is very exciting, but leads nowhere. My unanswered questions are:

  1. Where do I find a *good* example of how this is done? The article mentions several sites using the notion of 'social tagging' or 'folksonomy' - how about providing clear links to them? Or better, a clear and clickable link to the purest single example?
Fair comment. I've added two links in the first paragraph of the article. --mgaved 10:08, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
  1. How do I provide a folksonomy service for users on my site?

yoyo 23:01, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spam

There are unrelated external links labeled "Security" added February 4 by 217.17.167.99 . Please revert someone who knows how to do.

Thanks for spotting it. I see the same IP has spammed some other articles aswell, and will take a look to see if some of the links are still left. To remove spam like this you can just edit the page or section and remove them. It's as easy as that. Thanks again! Shanes 14:33, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

That was fast! Hope the link to talkinghub forum I've added will be considered as content related. Because it does related.


[edit] Wrong take on Dublin Core

Dublin Core (DC) is not a controlled vocabulary for defining subjects. DC is a set of tags for assigning properties such as *title*, *description*, *creator* and so on. A controlled vocabulary, in the sense that would be relevant for a discussion of folksonomies, is a set of tag values which could be used inside the DC *subject* field. So the previous contributor confused the DC elements with the possible content of one of those elements. A good example of a controlled vocabulary is the Library of Congress Subject Headings.

Excellent point - may I suggest that you go right ahead and make changes to an article when you can see that there's an obvious error? Your contributions are welcome.Bryan 19:27, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Approximation?

I have seen this on the article :"nomos (or nomia) means "management"." . I think it is quite approximative. "Regulation" would be more accurate.

[edit] March 24 2006 changes

The changes logged from 128.143.168.21 were mine -- while I was working on the article, it seems, my login expired.Bryan 19:24, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] point of view / criticisms of folksonomies

The criticism portion of the article starts with arguments against criticisms. Arguments for controlled vocabularies are better explained on the controlled vocabulary page.

I agree, the "criticism section" I set up feels to have developed so as to cover more than just criticism of the folksonomies. I still think it's important that there should be a critical section so I've moved out the paragraph which started the amended section (arguments against criticisms) to the "benefits" section. I've moved out the last paragraph to its own section -"Potential compromise between folksonomies and top-down taxonomies". Just a quick structural change, it may need further tidying... (and improving!) --mgaved 16:48, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is Flickr a Folksonomy?

Does Flickr allows users to tag other's photos? I haven't found a way. If no, should we name Flickr as just "tagging"?

Well there is a way but Flickr tagging system differs alot from del.icio.us tagging system - so I would suggest to name techniques with different terms.

Denis Krukovsky

http://blogoforum.com/

If anyone is interested, I found Wanderwal thoughts on this at http://www.vanderwal.net/random/entrysel.php?blog=1781 . Denis Krukovsky, Blogoforum .

[edit] NetInsert blurb

Orkwan insists on including this in the article. In fact, for a whole month that's the only thing his user has been occupied with. To me, this is obviously spamming, but when I removed it referring to WP:EL, he reverted with "Amended vandalism by malicious user". I have no interest in a revert war, so could other people please comment on this? Haakon 08:06, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Moreover, the service in question has nothing to do with folksonomy as it is defined here or by Vanderwal. NetInsert authors may re-read his writings on what is folksonomy. Denis Krukovsky, Blogoforum

[edit] Folksonomy technology/ies + examples

TECHNOLOGY What technology are used in websites using folksonomy? (If my question is technically wrong, please correct.) More info should be added on what software/platform/technology is used to create tag clouds, share content, etc.

EXAMPLES Also to be added, examples of the use of folksonomy. Orkut made user with similar interest or hobbies searchable when user X clicks on their favorite hobby, for instance. you click on "Running in my room" and can find other users with the same hobby. Is this folksonomy?

Need to understand the concept.

Please make the article understandable to the common person by showing everyday examples. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.2.140.190 (talk) 18:08, 30 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Converted to 'ref' tags

I've converted all notes/references in the article to use <ref> tags because what was there seemed to be a little screwy (see diff). I hope no one objects... - dcljr (talk) 21:26, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Firm Examples Needed

I've never heard of a "folksonomy" before, and am not sure what it is, even after reading the article. Can someone add some firm examples of some "folksonomies?" Thanks. - MSTCrow 03:52, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree the definition here has little sense. Somebody please simplify and clean it up.
I've added an example of folksonomy under "links" section. - Dkrukovsky 09:29, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Move from Folksonomy

At 09:21, 9 September 2007 User:Anthony Appleyard moved the previous contents of Collaborative tagging to Collaborative tagging (2) (which he then deleted) to keep its long history separate from the history of Folksonomy after Folksonomy has been moved to Collaborative tagging, in case Collaborative tagging ever must be deleted and undeleted for some reason such as histmerging. Ditto their talk pages. Anthony Appleyard 09:27, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

This move was totally inappropriate, "collaborative tagging" and "folksonomy" are independent and distinct concepts. There may be some similarity and overlap, but this entire article is about "folksonomy" ... if you want to propose a merge, or a deletion, do so with discussion *first* please. Thanks. dr.ef.tymac 22:17, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
folksonomy is collective tagging not collaborative tagging. Collaborative tagging would require people working together to build a common understanding, which is not related to what a folksonomy does in people tagging things for their own use and refinding in a services what aggregates the individual's tags as collective intelligence. Collaboration and collective efforts are often mistaken as similar, but they are distinctly different terms that are not similar. Folksonomy is collective and should not be mistakenly confused as collaborative. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tvanderwal (talk • contribs) 03:05, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Short definition

This is why I rephrased the short definition in the beginning of the article:

  • The term "Folksonomy" was in introduced by Thomas Vander Wal when tagging was pretty new on the web. Nowadays it is is misleading: Tagging systems can be hierarchical like a taxonomy but there are many other types. "Folksonomy" narrows the meaning too much and the term is more used in popular culture then in academic context.
  • "collaboratively creating and managing keywords called tags to annotate and categorize Content". Tags are keywords. You can use tags to just annotate or to categorization, its not limited to the latter purpose.
  • "In contrast to traditional subject indexing, folksonomy metadata is generated not only by experts but also by creators and consumers of the content." - this is the core property of tagging compared to traditional systems of information science. Amlost all other properties are known and used for decades in subject indexing (its a shame that there is no general article about subject indexing in Wikipedia yet). For more information have a look at some textbook of Library and information science.
  • Please don't use <ref> for footnotes but for references only. Footnotes are bad style. Palmers book is not about tagging nor subject indexing - he only mentiones tagging, this is not a good source.
  • Tag clouds are only one popular way to visualize a folksonomy.

-- Nichtich 17:02, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

* The inclusion of collaboratively creating and managing keywords is not correct as it is collectively created with each individual voice captured by identity for use and reuse by the individual (capturing individual perspective and context) and others with similar understanding. The aggregation, on the page or across instances, of the same object being tagged by individuals is done to great collective intelligence. The similarity of terms (collective and collaboration) has often caused misunderstanding. But, collaboration is the creation of an object with a common focus, which is not what happens in a folksonomy as it is individual perspectives that do not have common focus. There is a large amount of value derived from the collective approach that was missing from collaborative tagging, hence the creation of a term to set apart collaborative tagging from other tagging services and tools. They each have value in contexts and environments that make sense. -- Tvanderwal 3 December 2007
* I strongly believe that a clean-up of the folksonomy page point to collective tagging as an alternate method as they are distinctly different. -- Tvanderwal 3 December 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tvanderwal (talk • contribs) 18:38, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Strong objection to the "back-door delete" of Folksonomy

Nichtich said: The term "Folksonomy" ... is misleading ... there are many other types. "Folksonomy" narrows the meaning too much

This move was totally inappropriate: Whoever "moved" folksonomy to "collaborative tagging" ... this was totally inappropriate. What you've essentially done is a *back-door delete* of folksonomy and replaced it with a different article. This should have at least been proposed as a merge first ... and a merge has problems for the very reasons enumerated above.
If the term "folksonomy" is not broad enough, then write another article about the "more broad" concept or term, do not just erase an entirely legitimate article title on an entirely legitimate subject that is supported by entirely legitimate references. If you don't think an independent article on "folksonomy" should exist, then follow the established procedures for proposing article deletion. Do not do a back-door delete on content that you personally disagree with by forcing a move.
Let's count the references:

Google scholar:

  • Results 1 - 100 of about 732 for "folksonomy". (0.13 seconds)
  • Results 1 - 100 of about 322 for "collaborative tagging". (0.21 seconds)

(More than twice as many results for "folksonomy")

Google books:

  • Books 1 - 39 of 39 on "folksonomy". (0.12 seconds)
  • Books 1 - 8 of 8 on "collaborative tagging". (0.04 seconds)

(More than FOUR TIMES as many results for "folksonomy")

Moreover, if you want to propose a sweeping change to pre-existing article content, do so on the talk page *first* and explain your rationale *before* doing the sweeping changes. The fact that there were objections to this approach should have been obvious from the recent edit history. dr.ef.tymac 22:09, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't have a clue what a "back-door delete" and I'm sorry if I have stopped over any internal special Wikipedia community rule. Can we please argue based on science and the specific subject instead of referring to Google and special rules that only some hard-core-Wikipedians know of? The subject of this article is known under several names and there is no scientific consense how to name the baby. Moreover different people use same terms with slightly different meanings - but the overall concept is the same. But I don't insist on words but prefer to improve the article which is in a pretty bad state of quality. -- Nichtich 22:30, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Sure, I would *love* to discuss this with you based on science, in fact, I urgently request that we do that. A basic ground rule of such discussion seems pretty straightforward: please substantiate your claims with references to reliable sources.
You said: "the subject of this article is known under several names" ... really? What assumptions are you making about the scope of this article (currently titled "folksonomy")? That sounds like an editorial perspective and not a scientific conclusion.
Are you saying that the concept "Collaborative tagging" is a superset of "folksonomy"? If so that's great, just create an article on "collaborative tagging" and indicate that there. "Biology" is a superset of "cell", but you don't see anyone moving the content in "cell" to "Biology" do you?
Are you saying that the concepts are unclear and fraught with ambiguity? If so, that's great, just make sure to substantiate this ambiguity with a reference so WP readers can know this is not just your personal opinion. Also, please don't make unilateral editorial decisions on how to handle that ambiguity when another contributor suggests that the chosen approach is inappropriate. Also, the Google results were given to indicate that the term is "widespread" ... so even if there is ambiguity, there are references that cite this Wikipedia article ("folksonomy") and the term is pervasive.
Are you saying that the concept "collaborative tagging" is unambiguous and clear, but the concept "folksonomy" is not? That's great, indicate that in the collaborative tagging article. Just make sure to substantiate this point with references, and just make sure you don't "re-write" folksonomy in such a way that it appears you are trying to "protect the world" from this technically imprecise terminology.
Neither "collaborative tagging" nor "folksonomy" are concepts - they are terms that are mostly used for the same concept.
There are all sorts of "quasi-scientific" terms that have more rigorously-defined and more precise corollaries that are preferred by information scientists and other specialists. That doesn't mean the less-precise terms are supposed to be removed or obscured from Wikipedia. Not every reader of Wikipedia is a specialist. Wikipedia is intended for a general audience.
The existence of inherent ambiguities in a term is not an excuse to try to obliterate the term from WP, *especially* when that term is the title of an article that has been independently cited in reliable print media. dr.ef.tymac 22:53, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
The term will remain as long as it is mentioned in the article and there is a redirect. By the way citing Wikipedia in this way is not reliable. -- Nichtich 00:25, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
folksonomy and collaborative tagging are not synonyms, as the term folksonmy was coined to provide understanding for a type of tagging that is different from collaborative tagging. Folksonomy is individuals with identity maintained for their tagging efforts tagging in a manner that is for themself first, but is collectively aggregated to make sense through collective intelligence. Collaborative tagging are tools that do not maintain identity to the individual's tagging efforts and all people tagging are seen to be collaborating to tag with single focus. Collaborative tagging a related subject in that both folksonomy and collaborative tagging involved tagging, but they are quite far from being the same concept or synonyms. Other forms of tagging (not actual tagging, but lumped in with tagging) are keywords and controlled vocabulary, etc. which have more structure than the free tagging associated with folksonomy. -- Tvanderwal 3 December 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tvanderwal (talk • contribs) 18:27, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please ... let's avoid an edit war over this article

I have restored the lead section for "folksonomy" (which is the original title for this article), and placed the "collaborative tagging" content in the article entitled "collaborative tagging".

Rationale:

  • The Wikipedia article "folksonomy" has been independently cited by outside reliable sources and print media, moving it will cause unwarranted and unjustifiable instability;
Do you say that if Wikipedia content has been cited then it cannot be modified anymore? It's a wiki and Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia tells how to use permalinks to link to specific versions that don't change. See the paragraph "Academics Quoting Wikipedia" in Vander Wal's posting from November 2, 2005.
Nope. I don't say that. Change is quite acceptable, as long as it is not unwarranted and unjustifiable (please re-see above). dr.ef.tymac 14:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Folksonomy and "Collaborative tagging" are distinguishable concepts;
This is arguable. Can you summarize the difference in two sentences please?
Please re-see your own words: "Folksonomy" narrows the meaning too much and the term is more used in popular culture then in academic context. Do you now wish to repudiate your own rationale?
You're free to change your viewpoints here on the talk page, but please don't let this not-yet-solidified thinking affect the article itself. All I'm asking is please have major changes well-thought-out before executing them to the significant disruption (or removal) of preexisting content. dr.ef.tymac 14:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
  • The proponent who introduced the "collaborative tagging" emphasis readily admits that "folksonomy" and "collaborative tagging" *are not the same concept*
If the proponent is me then this is wrong. I just don't insist on the name "collaborative tagging".
This doesn't make sense, I'm willing to bypass this remark unless you want to clarify it. dr.ef.tymac 14:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Articles about separate concepts should remain separate unless there is a clear and substantiated rationale for merging the two concepts;
True. The point is that this article is about something that is not either folksonomy or collaborative tagging.
This sounds like an editorial decision. If it is, I will happily discuss editorial preferences with you and work toward an agreement so we can both pool our efforts and improve the article. If it is a factual assertion about specific elements of this article, supportable by references, please provide the specific support. dr.ef.tymac 14:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Moving "folksonomy" to "collaborative tagging" is tantamount to deleting "folksonomy", given that the two concepts are distinct, and the two terms are sufficiently different to cause confusion among general audience readers who are not familiar with the precise nuances of these distinct concepts.
I don't understand this point.
  • If you want to delete "folksonomy" please follow the established procedures for proposing article deletions.
Nobody wants to delete "folksonomy".
Please note that unilaterally changing an article to a "redirect" to another article with a different title, and dramatically restructuring the lead section can have the practical appearance of a deletion. If that was not the intent, and the intent was simply to improve this article, that's great. Please let's work together to meet that objective. dr.ef.tymac 14:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
ok, let's go. I suppose we just have different viewpoints of the definition, differences and commonalities of "folksonomy", "social tagging", "tags", and "categorization" and so on. So let's find our the differences and get an objective consensus. -- Nichtich 22:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Strong recommendation: PLEASE stop moving the content of this article, or re-phrasing the lead to imply that "collaborative tagging" and "folksonomy" are the same concept. They are not. Moreover, any distinctions or clarifications about these different concepts should come from *published reliable sources*. Moving the content without direct substantiation is not only confusing, it is inconsistent with WP:OR. dr.ef.tymac 22:39, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

So what's the difference? If there is one then it should be definable in an understandable way. The current article (and the article before I started editing it) is about how people annotate stuff with tags and while doing this create a bunch of keywords. Some call this folksonomy some refer to the whole concept as "social classification" and other terms. This is a research topic and there is no established name yet. Research about tagging is done in private blogs, by social software developers, in bioinformatics and many other disciplines of computer science, in library science etc. - don't expect all of them to use the same terminology! But this Wikipedia article should be about the phenomenon no matter how you call it. -- Nichtich 23:25, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
What you are proposing is an editorial decision. This has nothing to do with scientific validity. Please go back and review your own words:
   "Folksonomy" narrows the meaning too much and the term is more used in 
    popular culture then in academic context.
If you want to write an article about the "underlying phenomenon" that is known variously by all sorts of diffuse and inconsistent terminology, please, go right ahead. This article is not just about the "phenomenon" it is also about the term itself. The term is a colloquialism, a neologism and has been adopted in contexts completely independent of its origination. The specific term is referenced in many sources (both academic and non-academic). The fact that it is used "mostly" in pop-culture contexts is even *more* reason why it should not be conflated with the more "academic" terms you seem to personally prefer.
For terms-only there is Wiktionary. The article should not conflate but clarify and define in an understandable way. Up to now its a general article about social tagging titled "folksonomy" - thats not "term only".
I agree, clarification does not come when you "re-title" the entire article and do so in contravention of multiple references. ... and no one said anything about "term only". The fact that a specific term has recognition in specific contexts doesn't mean that the article is about the "term only" ... the article talks about trends on the web. It's pretty obvious, because so do most of the references. Just like you said:
   "Folksonomy" ... is more used in 
    popular culture then in academic context.
If you don't like the fact that popular culture subjects are discussed on Wikipedia, you should demonstrate your disfavor by proposing a policy change, not by commandeering the content of an article despite numerous objections. dr.ef.tymac 01:49, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Research in collaborative tagging is a fine article title, if you really insist on emphasizing the fact that this is the subject of ongoing research, but please note you will still have to provide substantiation for that. Also note, that's no justification for re-titling an independent article on what you refer to as a "popular culture" phenomenon. I repeat: Wikipedia is intended for a general audience *not* just information scientists. dr.ef.tymac 00:50, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
That's why we need a simple definition that clarifies the difference. Can you give one? I started a draft below. Or how about this: "Folksonomy is a term used to describe systems of social tagging, especially the set of tags created in this systems. For more information see the article on social tagging, this article is only about the term but not about its meaning" If you give the definition of folksonomy that this article is about, I can move everything else to another article. -- Nichtich 01:11, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
It is not our job to provide custom-made definitions for concepts whose precise definition is subject to multiple interpretation ... you've already acknowledged there are multiple viewpoints in the very references you've provided to substantiate your opinion! Can you please explain why you feel it is necessary to *gut* this article just to make your point that the term is not always used with precise scientific rigor? dr.ef.tymac 01:49, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Short definition of folksonomy, based on multiple sources

The term was introduced by Vander Wal. He defined later (while complaining that people don't know how to cite Wikipedia and that Wikipedia does not follow his personal view):

Folksonomy is the result of personal free tagging of information and objects (anything with a URL) for one's own retrival. The tagging is done in a social environment (shared and open to others). The act of tagging is done by the person consuming the information. (Vander Wal, 2005 - blog posting)

Other usage in "reliable" sources:

the popular tags in social tagging systems have recently been termed folksonomy (Marlow et al, 2006 refering to Vander Wal, 2005 - peer reviewed article)
A folksonomy is a type of distributed classification system (Guy et Tonkin, 2006 - peer reviewed article)
The central focus of a folksonomy is for personal refindability and derived from that point we get great value (Vander Wal, 2006 - disagreeing with Guy et Tonkin, 2006 in a blog posting)
There is debate about the nature of these concepts and terms. Some writers have distinguished between a folksonomy (a collection of tags created by an individual for personal use) and a collabulary (a collective vocabulary). Other writers however use folksonomy to mean a collective vocabulary. [...] A folksonomy is essentially the name given to a collection of tags built up by the action of user tagging (Hayman and Lothian 2007 - peer reviewed)
From the collective perspective, the main tangible product of a social tagging system is

the database of tagging events that is generated. At a minimum, this database contains the interrelated collections of all of the tags used (sometimes called the folksonomy) (Good, 2007 - submitted)

Tagging is referred to with several names: collaborative tagging, social classification, social indexing, folksonomy etc. [...] there is almost always some feedback that influences tagging behaviour towards consensus: the Folksonomy emerges (Voss=me, 2007 - peer reviewed paper)

Conclusion: A folksonomy (from folk and taxonomy) is either:

  1. A term defined by Vander Wal. He also defines which usage of the term is right and which is wrong.
  2. The set of popular tags in a social tagging system. See more in the article "social tagging"
  3. A term used in context of and to denote the phenomenon of collaborative/social tagging/classification etc.

If you choose 1 then it is useless to proceed in writing an Wikipedia article about it, if you choose 3 then its the current situation (merge), if you choose 2 then "Folksonomy" is a stub that points to this article for further information. -- Nichtich 00:21, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] An attempt to move forward

Nichtich said: if you choose 2 then "Folksonomy" is a stub that points to this article for further information

No, you have it exactly backward. *This* article is "folksonomy", it has been from the start. If you feel that another article should be written, one that talks about the "general phenomena" called "collaborative tagging" (or called "Scientific research in collaborative tagging" or anything similar), then that is the article that should correctly identify the scientific refinements relevant to this "general phenomenon".
Then what is folksonomy? I am still waiting for a short definition to get the difference that you still claim without referencing (I gave several sources above and I can give more). If you tell me the difference then I can split the article - but I bet that "folksonomy" will be pretty short afterwards. Here is another definition that may fit: ""folksonomy" is a buzzward used in popular culture on the web to refer to things related to social tagging. People use in in this and that context without knowing what they are talking about, but who cares - this is Wikipedia so just add your opinion in this article, it's just a catcher for amateurs anyway. If you are seriously interested in the concept behind folksonomy then try the other article."
I address these issues below. Please also note, the tiresome speculation about "experts" and "amateurs" does little to nothing to enhance your credibility, in fact it significantly detracts from the independent merit (if any) of your viewpoints. Please help keep the discussion focused and on topic. dr.ef.tymac 20:11, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
You yourself cite references that clearly indicate there are conflicting usages of the term "folksonomy" even in academic peer-reviewed journals. You yourself have admitted this term has independent application in "popular culture" contexts, and that is precisely the predominant emphasis of this article (both now, and before the attempt was made to "recast" it in a completely different direction, including a re-title).
Are you still talking about the word "folksonomy" or about a concept?
What is the title of this article? dr.ef.tymac 20:11, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I humbly and patiently repeat: Wikipedia articles are intended for a general audience, and not every concept, term, principle and subject is intended to exclusively enumerate "scientific" interpretations to the omission or substantial deemphasis of all other viewpoints (viewpoints that are referenced ISBN 1590597656, ISBN 0596101619, ISBN 1412927676 (and many others).
Its not about scientific research in collaborative tagging but about collaborative tagging itself - this includes any relevant usage. You can also write about complex topics for a general audience but this is really an art and you need detailed knowledge of the subject anyhow.
More off-topic unsubstantiated speculation about the relative level of knowledge of different Wikipedia contributors. If you are implying that you, personally, are a master of this "art", I respectfully suggest you will do well to demonstrate such mastery by sticking to the point. The distinction you make: (in versus about) didn't help because it should have been blatantly obvious about is what I meant.
If you want to write an article about the scientific application of the term "collaborative tagging" do it in the article on "collaborative tagging". Even if you think folksonomy should merely be a "stub" that points to "collaborative tagging" (or some other article) that is an entirely different course of action than "re-titling" the article and conflating the two into one. Moreover, there's no reason to "gut" an existing article just because it does not coincide with your editorial or terminological preferences. Wikipedia has literally *hundreds of thousands* of articles that relate to purely "popular culture" topics and issues.
The division between "popular cultur" and "scientific application" is purely artificial. What you propose looks more like the division between amateurish confusion and systematic, profound description.
*Yawn* more comical "amateur versus expert" histrionics. May I ask why you are arguing against your own premise:
   "Folksonomy" narrows the meaning too much and the term is more used in 
    popular culture then in academic context.
I am assuming we both agree a significant element of scientific expertise and "profound description" is the ability to keep one's own arguments straight.
This article already has a section indicating differences in views held by information scientists. What you seem to be attempting is to re-write the entire article so that those views swallow the entirety of the content here, despite the fact that you openly admit it is related to popular culture.
No matter how you slice it, this is entirely inappropriate. dr.ef.tymac 01:31, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Can we please discuss inappropriateness on concrete phrases? I split the short definition and gave arguments point by point and I gave several short definitions of "folksonomy". We can go through the article word for word and discuss every sentence in detail - this will be hard work but more productive then general judement on appropriateness. Just offer an alternative definition to find out the differences. -- Nichtich 16:38, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I would be more than happy to do that, do you know any of the various options available to propose substantial changes to an article *without* making direct edits to the article itself? I suggest we take one of those options. Moreover, since you are the one apparently contesting pre-existing content, I suggest you go line-by-line and explain why you find fault with this specific article, and why you (apparently) attempted to delete it by dramatically restructuring the content. dr.ef.tymac 20:11, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Follow-up: The most recent changes to this article (the ones done to emphasize "collaborative tagging" and to tie-in subject indexing) do not, in my opinion, constitute an improvement. This is especially so considering that subject indexing does not even exist as an article yet. Because of this, and because the apparent attempts at improvement are better handled less obtrusive fixes, I intend to undo the changes in order to more fairly balance the article and reduce the potential for confusion. dr.ef.tymac 02:07, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
The fact that such a fundamental concept like [[subject indexing] does not have an article yet only shows that up to now there are little experts in Wikipedia that know about it and are willing to write about it (maybe because editors have no know more about Wikipedia internal policies instead of the topic they are writing?). Omitting subject indexing in a definition of folksonomy is like omitting "driving" in the definition of "car". Of course you can say that with a car it is all different and in popular culture it is not "driving" anymore but something else...
*Clap clap* very entertaining non sequitur. If you really want to help improve this article, and you are not just here to indulge in presumptuous and vainglorious pontification over the internet, you would do a great deal to enhance your declining credibility by sticking to the subject at hand. Better yet, shed the wonderful light of expertise upon the cave-dwelling denizens of Wikipedia by creating the article Subject indexing yourself. Go ahead, no one will stop you or ask you to recite Wikipedia policy as a prerequisite. Don't believe me? Go do it and see. It will be a great way for you to test your hypothesis about why people don't start Wikipedia articles.
Not that your random and unsubstantiated speculations aren't utterly enthralling, but I hasten to remind you that the whole "pop culture" distinction was introduced by *you* ... do you wish to recant your position? Surely there is no realm of academic or scientific expertise where self-contradiction and poorly organized reasoning are considered virtues. Such qualities are certainly not going to help improve this (or any other) Wikipedia article. dr.ef.tymac 20:11, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Follow-up: Part of the solution for ameliorating this dispute, I believe, lies in directly addressing the variability of this term in a manner that is not confusing, and still directly reliant on references, many (indeed, *most*) of which, whether we like it or not, are non-scientific sources. Any version of this article that does not readily acknowledge this reality is deficient. dr.ef.tymac 02:16, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Maybe it's better to seperate Readability/understandability and definition. Once you know what a concept is you can try to define it in easier words. But we first have to agree upon what "folksonomy" is. Is it a buzzword without meaning then the article can be abridged a lot. If there are several meanings then it needs to be either a disambiguation page or we need to find the commonality in a more general definition and list the meanings afterwords. If there is a core meaning and several differing interpretations then we have to find a core definition. Anyhow you need a short definition to explain what "folksonomy" is - until this we will discuss over and over again. -- Nichtich 16:38, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
This article already had a very straightforward and accessible *single sentence* definition (at least for the purposes of this article) ... that is, until the apparent dispute with the word folksonomy itself. Perhaps you remember how it goes:
   "Folksonomy" narrows the meaning too much and the term is more used in 
    popular culture then in academic context.
So, now you seem to be talking about "definitions" ... o.k. then, great, can you please define what you meant by "narrows the meaning too much"? Narrows the meaning of *what*? Perhaps that will help solidify the definition you seem to be struggling to identify. dr.ef.tymac 20:11, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] clarify the concepts

I am still unsure about the different viewpoints that led to this edit war. I first proposed to merge "folksonomy", "collaborative tagging", "social classification", "social indexing", "social tagging" and so on because in my opinion these names all refer to the same concept. After this discussion I am less sure, but clarification is still needed for to no write independent articles about the same concept with different words and viewpoints. The task is difficult because all these words and concepts are fluid and partly new and different people use it in different ways (that's why I proposed to handle them all in one article). So here is a first draft of some clarification. Please change the definitions and propose alternatives so we can find the solution and together improve the whole topic in Wikipedia. -- Nichtich 23:18, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First draft

  • tag (metadata) : a keyword assigned to a piece of information via social tagging mostly to indicate the topic but also for more general purpose.
  • keyword (search) : a term that captures the essence of the topic of a document or a search query. Also known as descriptor.
  • subject indexing : assigning keywords to describe the topic of a document. Mostly done by experts or authors only and often with a controlled vocabulary.
  • controlled vocabulary : a set of predefined keywords.
  • classification : a hierarchical controlled vocabulary. Also known as taxonomy or category system.
  • categorization : grouping objects in categories (either with a given classification or via creating a classification)
  • social tagging : assigning keywords to pieces of information to annotate and indicate its topic. In contrast to subject indexing done by non-experts, mostly for personal use and mostly visible to others. The keywords are thus becoming tags. Also known as collaborative tagging, social classification, social indexing and maybe more phrases.
  • semantic tagging : social tagging with a controlled vocabulary. Also known as semantic annotation.
  • folksonomy : the set of (most popular?) tags that were created via social tagging. May be used as a controlled vocabulary afterwards.
Initial reply: First let me say, there may indeed be very little fundamental difference in perspective between us. The single most critical factor (in my opinion) is that we probably differ less on the *ontological* framework, and differ more on the *practical* considerations necessary to make the article clear, concise, well-structured and still consistent with all relevant references (both academic and non-academic).
This "first draft" of definitions is a good example of what I mean. In general terms, it looks excellent (although there are some very minor quibbles that can be made, for example tag (metadata) does not *necessarily* imply a "social tagging" context, even though that is the prevailing assumption and usage; a "tagging" system can be devised and applied by one person alone to a restricted-access corpus -- but as I said, that's a relatively minor point and it's surely nothing you haven't already considered on your own).
The first draft does, however, have one pretty glaring omission, *nowhere* does it seem to acknowledge colloquial usage or inconsistencies in usage. The attempt to fully operationalize the terminology here is definitely appropriate for a Master's thesis, but even a Master's thesis would be incomplete if it failed to at least acknowledge the vagaries of usage and differing terminology. Moreover, the very matter of applied terms in this area could be the subject of a Master's thesis in itself.
As I mentioned previously, although we are responsible for improving the article, we are not responsible for improving the current state of research in this area, at least not in our capacity as Wikpedia volunteers. If there are vagaries in usage (or ontology), we should not attempt to "write them out of existence" here on WP. The fact that such vagaries exist is substantiated by both academic references and the volume and variety of citations that use this term; many of which are not written by reference librarians or information scientists. ((I can back this up with specifics later if necessary)).
Nevertheless, clarifying core concepts (supported by references) is definitely a positive step forward, and so is the creation of Subject indexing (thanks for adding the stub). I expect to be taking a break from this and article for a bit, but I definitely support the positive steps forward and expect to get back in to help out (if and where appropriate) so we can eventually get this clarified. Thanks for your remarks. dr.ef.tymac 16:42, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Of course we should include vagaries in usage in the article - I indicated it with "also known as" but there is more differing in terminology which must be included in the articles too. On the other side a simple definition is needed and we either have to seperate concepts or combine them in one article. Anyhow I think we now agree that "folksonomy" should be a seperate article (but it's in a very bad state of quality). I will concentrate on other articles in the topic area first. -- Nichtich 22:23, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Different words mean some difference in meaning

I just want to point that in a linguistic viewpoint, different words indicate difference in meaning, even if subtle. My point is that a folksonomy CAN be the result of collaborative tagging, but also the result of other processes.

Reply - Folksonomy was coined to separate individuals tagging and collectively aggregated as opposed to the collaborative tagging that was and utter mess in tools like Bitzi and many others that came prior. Folksonomy is not synonymous with collaborative tagging in any way was coined as a separation. Failure to understand this difference is a lack of understanding of the coining of folksonomy to separate that framework for tagging as different from collaborative tagging.
There is confusion around collaborative tagging as is it defined as the definition as explained is not collaboration but collective aggregation. Collaborative is incorrectly used. Collaborative tagging would be people using a system and working to come to one set of tags or all people using the system are not seen as individuals and one user is interchangeable with another. Where identity is separated, as in a folksonomy, and aggregated that is collectively aggregated tagging. -- Tvanderwal

[edit] Merging with collaborative tagging

It makes all the sense in the world to me to merge the two articles, especially given that the author of the much briefer Collaborative tagging, whether the same author or not, refers to Taxonomy quite frequently and as though they are one and the same. Of course this should be the artcile kept and Collaborative tagging be incorporated into here and the aforementioned article should simply redirect here. Alan 69.123.15.135 (talk) 19:42, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Whose "impossible" rules?

In the article it says that it will be impossible for machines to make use of such anarchistically-based indexing methods. What, in this case, does "impossible" mean? Forever? Or just until better "Web of Trust" mechanisms enable something like RDF to flourish? Love26 (talk) 15:04, 11 February 2008 (UTC)