Folksonomy: A short description of what it is and how it works

Abstract

As a supplier of On Demand software, the author had the luxury of seven years of real data about usage patterns from which to draw conclusions about how content management systems are used over time, as well as anecdotal experiences in dealing with thousands of companies in an installed based of more than 45,000 users. One of the conclusions that he drew was that there was a fundamental flaw in the taxonomy-based structure of most content systems. Folksonomy is a new method of classification that many believe is starting to solve some of the challenges of content management systems. Folksonomy is a democratic and distributed classification method in which all (or many) users of the system can "tag" their content with a label of their own choosing. By tagging documents at the time they are created with human terms that are understood, it is easier to search for them later. Folksonomy Problems Folksonomy is a democratic approach to information classification. As with democracy it has it problems, but is perhaps the least messy of all alternatives. The power of the crowd is almost always better than the power of a few intelligent, well-meaning people in a hierarchy, as we have learned from the state-controlled systems of the 20th century. The benefits will be to content producers and consumers alike. If, in my consulting days, I could have published to the system without knowing which database to post to or the company-imposed categories, I would have published more often. If sales people can go to their knowledge database and find what they want more easily, maybe they will stop using last year's financial and customer figures. But, as with democracy, tagging and folksonomy cannot go unbridled. Modern folksonomy systems need to develop tagging rules and need to be supplemented by some top-down classification systems imposed by those in an organization that have more experience in structure. We believe that taxonomy and folksonomy need to co-exist but that folksonomy in particular will unleash a great wave of productivity in the office worker's ability to find and store information that it will finally bring the promise of "content management for the rest of us Folcsonomía es un enfoque democrático para la clasificación de la información. Al igual que con la democracia que tiene problemas, pero es quizás la menos sucia de todas las alternativas. El poder de la multitud es casi siempre mejor que el poder de una inteligente pocas personas bien intencionadas en una jerarquía, como hemos aprendido de los sistemas controlados por el Estado del siglo 20. Los beneficios serán para los productores de contenidos y los consumidores. Si, en mis días de consulta, podría haber publicado en el sistema sin saber qué base de datos para enviar a la empresa o impuestas por categorías, habría publicado con más frecuencia. Si las ventas de la gente puede ir a su base de datos de conocimientos y encontrar lo que buscan con más facilidad, tal vez se deje de usar el año pasado y las cifras financieras de los clientes. Pero, como con la democracia, el etiquetado y folksonomía no puede ir sin freno. Folcsonomía sistemas modernos necesidad de elaborar normas de etiquetado y deben ser complementados por algunos de arriba abajo los sistemas de clasificación impuesto por los de una organización que tiene más experiencia en la estructura. Creemos que la taxonomía y folksonomía necesidad de coexistir, sino que folksonomía, en particular, va a desatar una gran ola de la productividad en la capacidad del trabajador de oficina para encontrar y almacenar la información que traerá finalmente la promesa de "gestión de contenidos para el resto de nosotros"