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Comments on 2008-01-06 RDF and Free Tagging

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Hi Alex,

I think you're absolutely right. If you think about it, RDF really is a tagging standard but it won't ever be universal. What I mean by that is that it requires some top-down agreement of what tags can be used and what they mean. It's tough to get to this agreement, and it requires compromises. Once it's defined, it's also hard to change. On the other end, free tagging is easy (just tag it! The problem actually is that it's TOO easy!), it does not require compromises, and it's straightforward to change.

So what's needed in my view is really a solution that let people tag stuff and then aggregate their work and statistically turn that into tag guidelines that can (or cannot) be used, e.g. tag recommendation and other tools to help homogenize the tags used.

I've been working on that for a while through a solution called TagOver? but was in need of programming skills I do not have. For more on what I'm doing, in relation to the above, may I shamelessly plug in my blog at http://gregboutin.typepad.com/greg_boutin_weblog/

Greg Boutin 2008-01-07 03:39 UTC