Playing with Taxonomies.

This article presents the author's explanation of taxonomy, which is a logical organization of information categories. Keywords and navigation schemes are some of the physical manifestations of taxonomies. The logical/physical distinction is somewhat like a prototype versus retail or XML schemas versus instances. Certain professional groups and verticals have developed standard taxonomies for specific subject areas. Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), for example, categorizes medical subject headings. Unlike MeSH, which is emotionally neutral, we want to tag our own content in our own way and resist mightily any group imposing its views on our content. That is the problem with taxonomies, at least when they attempt to capture deep-seated ways of looking at information close by. Most agree that taxonomies are critical to good information systems. Video games raised awareness and helped fund new generations of graphic hardware and software, with Napster demonstrating the power of peer-to-peer technology. A similar trend is rising with taxonomies. Several Web sites are now being built to enhance social activities in a way that demands the use of socially developed taxonomies. In both sites, finding information demands some agreed-upon, dynamic way of classifying content and changing that classification as the content grows exponentially.