Information R/evolution

[anavish]

Michael Wesch, the guy who made "The Machine Is Us/ing Us", has another short video about organizing information in the internet era.

Click to view

So yes, it's a little too faltzy, but it stresses some points the importance of which we might have missed when we were too busy experiencing them in our daily life. Take, for example, the decline of categories in

Comments

[talash]

Take, for example, the decline of categories in favor of tags. Totally unjustified if you ask me. Now, I don't say tags are bad, the contrary. But tags by themselves don't organize information in any way-- and I will back up that statement with the following example. Suppose you have a supermarket and you have some stuff you want to sell. So you tag that stuff and you know that this is tea and that is coffee and that is sugar and salt and bread etc and all is well but you still need to put all this on some shelves. I suppose that you will have a shelf for dairy products and a shelf for drinks or maybe soft drinks will be on one shelf and stuff like tea and coffee on another-- but you will, in one way or another have categories for your tagged stuff. Why? Because people will be looking for them under these categories. Now, suppose you say: "Shelves, huh? Why do I need shelves? I don't see no reason for shelves in my supermarket and instead put this machine which lets the customer enter a description of what they're looking for (for

[anavish]

tl;dr

just kidding (but you were begging for it). To summarize, basically what you're saying is:

1. Supermarkets use categories and they work.
2. If I used tagging on supermarkets I wouldn't know where to put (== how to tag) some stuff.
3. Hey look, I know all kinds of anecdotes about walmart that have nothing to do with the argument
4. "tags are but the lowest level of abstraction".
5. Tags are overhyped, they're actually pretty old; see library catalogues.

[talash]

1. That we don't have to "scan through the aisles" has nothing to do with tags but rather with the fact that we have good search. But some people's attitude towards this seems to me like: "hey, we have tags! and there's some really good search we have as well! let's kick the shelves down and take them away and instead have everything arranged in one large pile." and respond to anyone who objects to the idea with "hey, you don't really need the shelves. you can find anything because it's tagged and when you look for a tag you find it." and i ask you-- does that make sense to you? i think that a system which employs tags and search but still retains the categories is better. as for (4)-- yes you're right, but you need higher levels of abstraction to structure your data as well and new types of knowledge can emerge from those structures. as for (2)-- well, this is one example where tags alone don't work and you need such a higher level. also, let me bring you another example. suppose i get high and then i have the munchies. i go to the