Saturday, January 21, 2006

A Post from the Future

Folktologies -- Beyond the Folksonomy vs. Ontology Distinction "One point that Clay makes, which I think is very interesting, is his view that perhaps the world is moving from a graph-theory information model (ontologies) to a set-theory model (folksonomies) -- but in fact, under the surface this argument falls apart. OWL is nothing other than a language for enabling extremely sophisticated set-theoretic operations on information. In fact, if you actually look at the OWL language itself, it is primarily comprised of set-theoretic statements."

"Ontologies are, in my opinion, simply the next evolution of database schemas. Surely, Clay would not argue that database schemas have no place in the world!"

"Imagine a folksonomy combined with an ontology -- a "folktology." In a folktology, users could instantly propose or modify ontological classes and properties in the same manner that they do with tags in tagging systems. The most popular ontological constructs (the most-instantiated classes, or slots on classes, for example) would "rise to the top" and self-amplify, while the less-instantiated ones would "fall to the bottom" over time. In this way an emergent, self-organizing, and self-pruning ontology could emerge within a community."

Via, Folktologies -- Beyond the Folksonomy vs. Ontology Distinction.

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