[topicmapmail] An Idea about TopicMap intelligent views

[Thomas B. Passin]

Carlo Moneti wrote:

> I understand. But I would like to suggest a (novice) thought: That a 
> common ontology needs to be learned doesn't justify giving up on one. 
> All words are learned. All labels for concepts are learned. Any given 
> organization is in a good position to establish and enforce an ontology 
> for its domain. I good ontology doesn't have to be completely and 
> instantly self-evident to everyone; it is good and useful if it's easily 
> understood and learned. The LOC subject headings is certainly useful 
> (despite the various professional criticism about the current 
> implementation).
> 

How easy the LOC or other systems is to learn depends partly on whether 
you want to use or find items entered by someone else, or whether you 
are going to do classification.  I was mainly thinking about the latter, 
  with the thought that members of the organization would be classifying 
and publishing - or archiving - their own material.

It is not quick nor necessarily easy even for a professional to classify 
a work using, say, LOC.  For classifying works in a library, one can 
afford to spend some time on arriving at a satisfactory classification. 
  But for ordinary folks, they won't do that.  Many people don't even 
know that their browser can file bookmarks in folders.

So it is not obvious to me that just because an organization establishes 
an apparently decent ontology, that it will be useful in a widespread 
way.  Maybe there are ways to marry a simple top-level vocabulary with 
more personal and variable lower level terms.

Cheers,

Tom P