[TagCommons-WG] Use Cases for Sharing Tag Data

[Nitin Borwankar]

Thomas Vander Wal wrote:

>[...]
>
>- Since the site currently only searches simple terms it is really apparent
>that tag combinations are extremely valuable as is having a common object
>being tagged for disambiguation of tag terms.
>
>I went into the project thinking there were three valuable legs to tagging
>(identity, object being tagged, and each tag), but found that the tagging
>venue is also important to capture when working to share tags and
>disambiguate terms.
>
>  
>

Hi Thomas, Tom, others,

Thomas, you mention above a couple of concepts that are actually related.
Both the "tagging venue" and  "tag bundle" (tag collection) indicate a 
single thing viz. context.
Tag bundles define a context in which to understand each tag better.
(Also, but unrelated, I like to see tag bundles as initial filtering 
mechanisms to narrow down a set of documents over which keyword search 
may be effectively used.)

I'd like to suggest something radical, that a single tag by itself is 
meaningless but is imbued with meaning by
the other tags with which it is used.  Or to be more precise - single 
tags have potentially ambiguous meaning which is disambiguated by the 
other tags it is used with.

This relates to Wittgenstein's thinking that a meaning of a word is not 
absolute but lies in its use.
In the subject area of tagging I interpret that to mean that a tag by 
itself has little or no meaning but tag bundles
are far more useful entities for consideration.  A corollary of this is 
that "tagging venue" or site is a very large tag bundle defining a large 
semantic domain.


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Nitin Borwankar
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