This is a fast paced panel discussion.  Just going to jot down some notes.  If you all have questions about the post's content, comment and I will fill in the detail later.

 

One distinction: del.icio.us vs wikipedia = indiv space vs shared space

Del.icio.us tags= a document description & associated behaviors or additional context around it

 

del.icio.us- why tag, what to tag, how to tag? Key idea- people tag for different reasons, some to help themselves find stuff again, sometimes to help other people find their stuff, sometimes to help organize groups, behaviours, or context around a given concept. 

tags on flickr to create groups of photos

 

Audience question: can we create meta- meta tags to share tag info acros across different services?  Response: the purpose of the tags is not always the same and therefore it is difficult to normalize tags across different services. 

 

how to give users feedback on how to effectively tag?  what feedback loops can be provided to boost learning?  Flickr- no such thing as a bad tag, Wikipedia- community polices innappropriate tags, Del- shows your tags, top/popular tags, intersection of tags w/others. Del.icio.us- don't interfere too much by imposing restrictions as users won't be able to find the stuff they tag.

 

Shirky- user/time are new axes for classification and this creates a need for tags and taggers to understand context. 

 

Del- expert-generated taxonomies don't pay attention to what people are trying to do.  Del tags are for people to help them find stuff, not to necessarily describe things in the abstracts