Kroski, E. (2005). The Hive Mind: Folksonomies and User-Based Tagging.

This an excellent, well-referenced blog article that summarises information about tagging.

User-Based Tagging and Folksonomies
del.icio.us — social bookmarking site
43things.com — giant, global to-do list
flickr.com — digital image storage and management website
technorati.com — users perform searches on blog content

The Wisdom of Crowds
Folksonomies are inclusive
Folksonomies are current
Folksonomies offer discovery
Folksonomies are Non-Binary
Folksonomies are democratic and self-moderating
Folksonomies follow “desire lines”
Folksonomies offer insight into user behavior
Folksonomies engender community
Folksonomies offer a low cost alternative
Folksonomies offer usability
Resistance is Futile

The Hitch
Folksonomies offer no synonym control
Folksonomies have a lack of precision
Folksonomies lack hierarchy
Folksonomies have a “basic level” problem
Folksonomies have a lack of recall
Folksonomies are susceptible to “gaming”

Summary
The advantages to top-down hierarchical taxonomies for library collections are without question. For cataloging the Web, however, they just aren’t feasible. The new, “voice of the people” approach of folksonomies emerges at a time when attitudes about information organization and retrieval are shifting and the technology is developing to support them. The opportunities for learning about user behavior as well as the implications for improving and/or complementing existing taxonomies that these systems can provide are of no small import. We are on the cusp of an exciting new stage of Web growth in which the users provide both meaning and a means of finding through tagging.

Thesis Relevance: Ellyssa comes at this area from the perspective of someone with a Masters of Library and Information Science degee. Her references are extremely useful and provide a good synthesis of the literature and key people discussing tagging and folksonomies.

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