Concept Names Language is inherently ambiguous. The dream to create universally agreed-upon, standardized conceptual language will be extremely difficult. We can achieve widely-accepted consensus, but that’s the silent agreement we…
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Ask Who? Taxonomies do not build themselves. Constructing any controlled vocabulary requires, at minimum, input from end users, subject matter experts, and a taxonomist. End users and subject matter experts can provide concepts and their attributes for inclusion…
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I am not a fan. A taxonomist working on any taxonomy of sufficient size and scope will encounter disambiguation issues. This occurs when the label for a term isn’t clear…
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Relationships It is fundamental human nature to form relationships. Forming a relationship between two people is based on transparency, mutually beneficial outcomes, and trust. The world of online semantics is modeled on…
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1. Theory In the land of information science (related to but distinct from generalized information theory, which is much more mathematical and concerned with, for example, signals), taxonomy theory is more or less dictated…
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Consider the small hierarchical structure shown at right; you might find something like it in any number of product, e-commerce, or indexing taxonomies:Although this structure seems reasonable at first glance,…
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The Definition of Success Coming up with a definition for a term should be easy, right? If in doubt, consult a dictionary and the definition is available. In the age…
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