Clay Shirky's Viewpoints are Overrated
A detailed rebuttle to "Ontology is Overrated" ...
"So, I finally got around to reading Clay Shirky's Ontology is Overrated essay. I'd been avoiding it for months, knowing I was going to want to take some time with it, and that I was going to want to respond.
Clay has a tendency to use examples of tags-as-identity. So, he dismisses the value of the thesaurus, saying that you don't want to connect terms like "cinema," "film," and "movie," because "The movie people don't want to hang out with the cinema people."
OK. But, let's say I'm a scientist. Doing research on Avian Flu. And I go to Connotea, "free online reference management service for scientists". If I look in "Avian Flu," I will actually miss a vast number of articles of potential interest. Because, as this list shows, people are using a variety of terms for what they undoubtedly would consider the same thing...
Tags are rarely a matter of identity. Of the "cinema" people against the "movie" people. Of the "queer", "gay", "homosexual". Yes, that does happen occasionally, and yes, in those few instances, you shouldn't assume synonymity. But if I'm trying to understand the breadth of issues around the avian flu, you *better* point me to all the pertinent resources." continued ... (Via peterme)
"So, I finally got around to reading Clay Shirky's Ontology is Overrated essay. I'd been avoiding it for months, knowing I was going to want to take some time with it, and that I was going to want to respond.
Clay has a tendency to use examples of tags-as-identity. So, he dismisses the value of the thesaurus, saying that you don't want to connect terms like "cinema," "film," and "movie," because "The movie people don't want to hang out with the cinema people."
OK. But, let's say I'm a scientist. Doing research on Avian Flu. And I go to Connotea, "free online reference management service for scientists". If I look in "Avian Flu," I will actually miss a vast number of articles of potential interest. Because, as this list shows, people are using a variety of terms for what they undoubtedly would consider the same thing...
Tags are rarely a matter of identity. Of the "cinema" people against the "movie" people. Of the "queer", "gay", "homosexual". Yes, that does happen occasionally, and yes, in those few instances, you shouldn't assume synonymity. But if I'm trying to understand the breadth of issues around the avian flu, you *better* point me to all the pertinent resources." continued ... (Via peterme)
Example of Most Popular tags.
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