So I want to comment on things you and Rick have written, but I'm not seeing how/where to do that in the usual blog-commenting kind of way... do you have comments disabled for this blog? Is that maybe not a feature of the template chosen for posts? I've created blogger blogs in the past and commenting on posts was always a feature that I wouldn't have known how to turn off... hmm
I was wanting to comment a few posts below that there seemed to be an analog to the "tags" vs "categories" debate for grouping media items (images, posts, links, etc). Tags being like keywords, supporting emergence and dynamic groupings - instead of pre-specifying a set of categories that things are sorted into. The distinction can get fuzzy and is probably more of a continuum.
Sorry for the comment confusion.
ReplyDeleteSo the "tagging" phenomenon would apply to the emergent *groups* that we see in the output crowd that may not be directly related to the way the designer set up behavior groups. And the "categories" phenomenon would apply to the behavior groups authored at the beginning by the designer? Am I on the same page as you?
- J
Maybe. It's actually more a philosophical question when contemplating how to define a "subgroup" (i.e. what a subgroup is).
ReplyDeleteWhen you say, "the designer set up groups", that might mean a "category" approach is being taken... like when yahoo back in the day organized the web by specifying N different bucket topics for all web pages to be sorted into. From a design perspective this seems perfect for when you know exactly what you want, what it looks like, how to get it, etc.
This is to be contrasted with an emergent approach to specifying groups when the above is not true (i.e. you don't know exactly what you've got, want, etc). In delicious, flickr, google search, etc this means instead of pre-specifying a bunch of groups, you label what you've got with descriptors and groups emerge based on what there's a lot of.
I'm not thinking of any specific changes to your implementation proposal... I'm thinking more at a high level about how we distinguish different groups of individuals.
I think the value of this thinking comes down to the specifics of the problem you're trying to address.