What in the World is Folksonomy?

Folksonomy is one of the new buzz words sweeping the world with the advent of the Web 2.0 craze. While Microsoft Word still underlines the word “folksonomy” with the swiggly red line to indicate a spelling error, this word is freely and frequently used and understood within the online community. Dictionary.com defines it as “a type of classification system for online content, created by an individual user who tags information with freely chosen keywords” (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/folksonomy). This word has its roots in the well-known word “taxonomy,” which is the science of classification. Thomas VanDer Wal combined the word “taxonomy” with the word “folk,” resulting in the word “folksonomy.” The “folk” component of this word signifies the social nature of this form of taxonomy. While in the past, professionals and experts in the field of taxonomy and, perhaps, the creator of a document or data were the only ones privy to rigidly classifying and organizing that piece of information, the world of folksonomy permits users like you and me to create metadata simply by tagging online data with relevant keywords of our choosing. A popular site that is designed to focus on this type of user-generated web content organization is del.icio.us. Within this site, the user-generated tags associated with a piece of web information are used to classify that information within that user’s collection, as well as across the entire system (http://www.adammathes.com/academic/computer-mediated-communication/folksonomies.html). That tagged bookmark can then be viewed not only by that particular user, but can also be shared publicly with others. It is this form of Collaborative Tagging that makes folkosonomy a social form of bookmarking.

I recently entered the world of social bookmarking by creating a user account on del.icio.us. Until now, my experience with bookmarking has consisted of storing bookmarks inside my browser. These bookmarks were only accessible to me, and that too, only if I was accessing the web using the same computer that I stored the information on. Despite the fact that I had stored a bookmark, I rarely accessed information using it, simply because my bookmarks stored in my browser had become long, unclassified, and chaotic lists that I had to weed through every time to find what I was looking for. I think I am going to enjoy the accessibility and versatility of storing, organizing, and sharing bookmarks online. Click on the icon to the right to access my bookmarks in del.icio.us.

Of the ten URLs that I have bookmarked so far, I tagged nine of them as “MSPTC.” This stands for “Master of Science in Professional and Technical Communication,” the degree program I am currently enrolled in at NJIT. All of these bookmarks pertain to topics associated with some aspect of technical communication. I tagged three sites pertaining to HTML as they seemed to be useful tutorials on introducing html and coding. Of the three html-related bookmarks I tagged, http://www.w3schools.com/html/ appeared to be the most popular in the del.icio.us community, based on the number of users who had also tagged that site. I also tagged a blog on typography, ilovetypography, simply because it is an excellent blog on typeface-related topics. It has beautiful examples of web typography and some excellent links to other sources of information on typography. Typography is an important aspect of visual design and very pertinent to MSPTC. I tagged one of the foundational sites on usability information, http://www.usability.gov/. This site is clearly popular in the del.icio.us community based on the number of users who have tagged it. It is a very useful site for information on usability and user-centered design of web pages. Another of my bookmarks, http://worqx.com/color/index.htm, deals with color theory, an understanding of which is critical when designing visual documents. It is a well-designed tutorial with additional links for further study. I tagged the Paradigm Online Writing Assistant as a basic writing resource. This site provides strategies for mastering the writing process and includes, among other things, sections on organizing, revising, and editing writing. Writing effectively is foundational to professional communication. Another of my bookmarks is http://www.commoncraft.com/. I tagged this site especially for the video on social bookmarking, but the site does offer other videos on topics like wikis and RSS feeds. The trademark of Common Craft is that they make short explanatory videos in plain English on complex topics, making them readily understandable to laymen. Finally, I tagged an article by Linda Weinman on http://www.peachpit.com dealing with web aesthetics. The article appeared to be replete with information on designing good web sites.

As the bookmarks I discuss above are all tagged with “MSPTC,” they are classified on del.icio.us with all other bookmarks that users have tagged with the same label (http://del.icio.us/tag/msptc). As such, I have access to bookmarks that users interested in similar content have stored, and that I might never have otherwise found on my own. This is a very useful feature of social bookmarking for students and professionals who have the potential to greatly benefit from having access to a plethora of web content pertaining to a topic of interest without themselves having to wade through the entire web to find it. Furthermore, users can form shared accounts to further collaboration, or can simply subscribe to a tag of interest on del.icio.us to keep up with any new bookmarks added by their colleagues and peers with that tag (http://del.icio.us/about/). Social bookmarking, therefore, makes it possible for the entire community to peer-review web content and participate in classifying it. There is no hierarchy of tags as in classic taxonomy. Instead, words that are most frequently used as tags by users simply rise to the top. Everything about this system of classification is collaborative in nature. The greater the number of our peers that have tagged a certain URL with a specific tag, the greater is (generally speaking) our level of confidence in that particular site containing useful and relevant information on that topic. So, in a sense, social bookmarking is a mini-democracy. It’s “of the people” – these are our bookmarks, “by the people” – we get to tag them any way we choose, and “for the people” – our tagged bookmarks, when combined with everyone else’s, results in a large peer-reviewed resource of web content (makes reference to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address). Of course, this system leaves some room for chaos as rigid tagging rules and accountability are minimal on a site like del.icio.us, leaving it entirely up to the user to select a tag of their liking for a bookmark. However, as the article “How tags exploit the self-interest of individuals to organize the Web for everyone” states,..“even with no one in charge, the product of all the individual decisions of del.icio.us's users is surprisingly well organized--and surprisingly intelligent.”