Hello everybody,
I agree with Pete regarding the use of the word "social". However, I
still would add a dimension in this specific context: informality. It
seems to me that it emphasizes the informality and casualty of the
process of tagging.
I say this because although I'm a computer engineer, I am fascinated
a long time ago for the informal interactions that occur,
particularly, in the context of scholarly communication. It is very
clear to me that informal communication provides a fertile
environment for sharing ideas and knowledge.
The same happens with tags: it is fascinating to try to understand
how these processes of tagging occur. When people tag an item, most
of the times they are not so worried to tag it in the "proper way",
i.e., to tag it in a way that it is easier to be found by other
persons. In fact, I suspect that probably there is not even a direct
match between the tags they use and the keywords they would use to
look for it. :-) (I didn't catch it all at Manzanillo, because some
of you speak really fast :-), so I don't know if someone touched this
issue there - if did, I apologize for not citing)
For instance, remember that case of the painting (photo?) of the
woman with a black dress? This was the most used tag, right? And why?
Does anybody know? Well, at least I would like to know if these
persons that tagged this item as "black dress" would use this same
expression to find it. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't... :-)
These tags (and their relationships and social and technical context)
all together are so rich in meaning that they deserve a closer look,
I believe. And, yes, in my opinion the "social" word is not really
needed, but it emphasizes this aspect of informality and casualty.
Best regards,
Ana
Ana Alice Baptista
http://www.dsi.uminho.pt/~analice
Em 2006/11/01, ās 13:48, Pete Johnston escreveu:
> Hi Liddy,
>
>> For those who were not at the DC session, we have had a few
>> private conversations about how tagging relates to DC
>> metadata and whether or not it should be called 'social'
>> tagging. This is my first contribution - please see my ideas
>> at http://dublincore.org/ taggingwiki/SocialTagging
>>
>> (I have a secret hope that the community will decide that
>> 'social' is not necessary and we'll get a shorter email
>> header! - yes, yes, I can change it anyway, I know, but I'd
>> like to hear what others think :-) )
>
> Thanks for doing the legwork to get this group launched. I missed the
> meeting on tagging at DC-2006 because I was "double booked" - a
> pity as
> it sounded as if it was one of the more lively and stimulating
> sessions!
> So I may be going over ground that you have already covered, but
> FWIW, a
> couple of quick thoughts on the "social" adjective.
>
> In your piece on the wiki, you draw a distinction between the creation
> of metadata by "trained cataloguers" (using the example of MARC
> records)
> and the creation of metadata by "ordinary people" (using the
> example of
> DC).
>
> I recognise that there is a distinction there - but I'm not sure
> that is
> the aspect which people are seeking to capture through the
> inclusion of
> the "social" adjective.
>
> I think the "social" in the "social tagging" term is intended to
> emphasise the communal or collaborative aspects of the operation
> (and/or the context/system within which the operation is
> performed), not
> the level of training or expertise of the person performing that
> operation.
>
> In theory, I could engage in "tagging" within a system in which I was
> the only user - I could run a del.icio.us clone on my laptop,
> accessible
> only to me on my login on that machine, and I could post entries and
> "tag" resources within that system. In this scenario, I'm certainly
> performing the "tagging" operation. But there is no communal or
> collaborative aspect to that operation. I'm not sharing my
> collection of
> entries (including my tags) with anyone else, and I'm not looking at
> entries (including tags) from the collections of other individuals:
> no-one else is analysing or using my tags and modifying their tagging
> behaviour based on that experience, and I'm not analysing or using
> anyone else's tags, and modifying my tagging behaviour based on that
> experience. This (it seems to me) is "tagging", and it may be very
> useful to me as an individual for my personal information
> management and
> retrieval, but it's not "social tagging".
>
> If I was doing this sort of thing in a system that was on our
> organisational intranet and a few colleagues were also posting entries
> to there own collections and applying their own tags to resources, and
> we were browsing each other's collections and using each others' tags,
> then a communal element is introduced. Even if there are only a
> handful
> of contributors, there is now a "social" dimension to the operation -
> and typically the software makes this explicit by e.g. offering
> suggestions for tags based on the conventions used by other
> contributors. This _is_ now a form of what I would call "social
> tagging", albeit one which is perhaps more limited than is found in
> the
> contexts where the term is typically used. The "community" in this
> case
> is small and probably quite homogeneous in terms of
> aims/experience/interests/language (and more broadly of culture etc).
> And different contributors might "engage" with that "community" to a
> greater or lesser degree - we might all choose to ignore each others'
> tagging conventions! - but there is, potentially at least, a social
> dimension to the tagging operation.
>
> And of course I could extend that scenario to an open, global system
> (like del.icio.us etc) where the community of participants is large
> and
> heterogeneous, with wide variations in aims, experiences, culture,
> language etc
>
> In my scenario I'm not making any assumptions about the "ordinariness"
> (or otherwise! ;-) ) of the participants or their levels of
> expertise or
> training. A community of "trained cataloguers" can engage in social
> tagging and "ordinary people" can "tag" in ways which are not
> "social".
>
> I understood that this group was interested specifically in tagging
> which takes place within that sort of communal/collaborative context
> (e,g. in my second and third scenarios rather than my first) - in
> tagging which is "social". And for that reason I think it is useful to
> retain that adjective as part of the name.
>
> Turning to DC metadata creation, I'd probably say that while it's true
> that a good deal of DC metadata creation has been carried out by
> people
> who are not trained cataloguers, I'm less sure that it has taken place
> within this sort of communal/collaborative context, and in that sense
> I'd probably say that DC metadata creation has typically not been a
> "social" process, or at least not in the way or to the extent that
> tagging in a system like del.icio.us is (or can be).
>
> Cheers
>
> Pete
> ---
> Pete Johnston
> Technical Researcher, Eduserv Foundation
> Web: http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> Tel: +44 (0)1225 474323
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