What are we doing when we tag? October 25, 2006
Posted by karen t in Uncategorized.trackback
When I read through many descriptions of folksonomies and tagging there is often a glowing reference to the fact that it is bottom-driver, user-centered and gives “power to the people” as Emanuele Quintarelli notes. Elyssa Kroski talks about how now users have the power to classify and organize content. But I think that it’s important to recognize that there is something else going on when we tag. As John Udell points out, when we tag we are first and foremost thinking about our own needs. We just want to remember our links. It just happens to be a happy coincidence that we are also creating a system (I can’t quite bring myself to call it a classification system) that helps us find information on the Internet. I would argue that what this results in is description rather than classification.
In order to classify things, one must specify relationships, and some relationships are hierarchical. I have to admit that whenever I look through lists of del.icio.us tags, my first impulse is that I want to organize the links into folders. I was very relieved to read Sam Kome’s article because he reviews cognitive psychology research that basically says that categorization is a fundamental human activity. The whole point of hierarchies is to decrease cognitive effort.
Maybe we should start looking at tagging as an interesting experiment in description as opposed to an attempt at classification. I think it would take a little pressure off my poor tired hierarchical brain.
Your comment on the fact that we’re creating a system (not necessarily a classification system – more of a description) touched on something that I was feeling rather uncomfortable about as well. This is an interesting way to look at tagging. Do we really need to adopt tagging in libraries as a way of classifying?
I’m glad someone else is suffering from the same compulsion to organize everything into folders. If only we could colour code them too, my obsession would be complete.
categorization is a fundamental human activity
Think of the need of all those 19th Century naturalists to categorize species. It reminds me of an A.S. Byatt book I read a few years ago: Angels and Insects. There is a lot of insect categorization in the first novella (of the book), but I think that’s mainly allegorical…and suggests ‘our’ problematic categorization of the human species, that is, the division of humans into ‘races’, genders, etc.
Hi Karen – somewhat related to your post: have you taken a look at the “tag bundle” functionality in del.icio.us? It’s sort of the del.icio.us answer to “folders” in many ways, and can also be used as a sort of hierarchy. Might be a small concession for your poor, tired, hierarchical brain
Also wanted to say – I really like your idea of thinking about tags as descriptions rather than as an alternative means of classification. I think a lot of librarians would find the distinction particularly comforting!