Wildly Appropriate

Vander Wal On The New Pew Report on Tagging

Feb 1, 02:37 PM

At first glance, this new report about 28% of Americans who're online having created tags is amazing. IA superstar and inventor of the term folksonomy Thomas Vander Wal digs into the data and observes that non-white survey participants are tagging more than their white counterparts. What's the reason?

These higher numbers of people tagging who are not white seems to support the idea that those whose vocabulary and terminology is not represented will tag to ease their refinding the information. When things are in familiar terms they are easier to find and having the ability to tag from one's own context eases refindability. The Report does not dive into this and it is a really good subject for future research.

Folksonomy as a tool for overcoming the biases in systems built by and tuned to the language of the ruling class/majority? Very very cool... Yay tagging!

 

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