I’ve been thinking a bit about the pros and cons of using a Taxonomy vs a Folksonomy. For those not up with folksonomies (spelling?) then read this to explain all.
A folksonomy makes a heap of sense on the internet where there is no central governing body, and even if there was, it would probably be widely ignored. However, internally to a company, it’s a different story. Does a folksonomy make sense, or is a taxonomy a better way to go?
So, I came up with this list as I was thinking about it. I’m sure it’s far from complete. Post additions as comments and I’ll update the post as appropriate.
| Taxonomy | Folksonomy |
| Brittle | Flexible |
| Accurate (if done well) | Less reliable |
| Compliance must be forced | Rewards but doesn’t force compliance |
| Hard to add to | Easy to add to |
| Centrally controlled | Democratically controlled |
| Predictable | Organic |
The question I’m really getting to is: can a folksonomy work in a corporate environment? And I’m not talking about at Microsoft where the audience is, on average, more sophisticated than the general public. I’m talking about at any large organisation. My gut reaction says a folksonomy would be a bad way to go, but I can’t seem to come up with the reasons to justify my gut. Would you use a folksonomy for an internal corporate taxonomy?
Rob Fay responded on 28 Feb 2006 at 9:09 am #
I believe a few things must be considered. First, is the corporate site an Internet site or an Intranet site? Second, what is the mission of the organization? What products/services does it provide? Who is its target audience?
If we first define our scenario, then I believe we can make more sense of the organizational models we’d like to apply.
For instance, if we were dealing with a corporate Intranet, I would suggest that there might be a benefit to have a formal taxonomy, yet have a link with every piece of content for people to “add this to del.cio.us.”
One major incentive with folksonomic “tagging” is for findability. As “web professionals,” shouldn;t we do everything we can to make a site usable and findable?
Jonno responded on 28 Feb 2006 at 5:26 pm #
The objective of a taxanomy is to remove ambiguity in categorisation.
With a good taxanomy, each thing being categorised will be placed in exactly one category, and each person trained in that taxanomy should choose the same category for that thing as anybody else trained in that taxanomy would.
With a folksonomy, different people are free to assign different categories to something than other people would.
Whether ambiguity is good, bad, essential or intolerable really depends on the application, more so even than the environment that the application runs in.
Look at Clay Shirky on why allowing people to categorise the ’same’ thing in different ways can be good for some applications.
Rob Fay responded on 01 Mar 2006 at 8:35 am #
I would agree and disagree with Jonno. A good taxonomy does not necessarily have objects placed in one category. Instead, this “category” may be available from multiple channels, pointing to the “one” category.
If you are thinking about employing tagging for intranet usage, you might consider >this tool, which allows organizations to localize del.icio.us. Seems pretty cool!
Mark responded on 01 Mar 2006 at 2:16 pm #
I’m thinking that for this particular application, a traditional taxonomy might be better. The sort of information I’m dealing with is truly critical (it’s literally a case that mistakes could, in the worst case, cost lives). As a result, I think the education needed to ensure proper compliance to a formal taxonomy is probably the way to go. Having something miscategorised, and as a result not found by the right person at the right time with potentially serious consequences, is not an acceptable risk.