In the book Everything is Miscellaneous, Weinberger always points out the most basic, and key factor in the relevance of the web, is the users ability to interact and influence the material. He takes real world, tangible, 3D examples, such as the organizations of a Staples store, or a library. As the book progresses he ties in his examples of real world origination and applies them to the functionality of the internet. In chapter 5 all of his main points from the previous chapters begin to make sense in terms of how we as users apply our own personal preferences to the web. One of the examples Weinberger used that was very helpful to me in understanding the complex organization and tagging systems was his section about wikipedia (98). He talked about how when you search the word elephant in wikipedia many other variations and possibilities containing the word elephant are shown to the viewer. When I search through wikipedia sometimes I see the extra search options as completely irrelevant and miscellaneous. However after reading about other examples of tagging, like the Getty Thesaurus, and Encyclopedia Brittanica, I am grateful that there is a miscellaneous aspect of searching, without it, we would all have to think the same, and have the same key words represent our reality.
In both Weinberger, Web 2.0, and Web Squared, the authors all spoke about how influential and powerfull the collective users of the web are. After reading Web 2.0 and Web Squared I left with a better understanding of the complexities of the web, I also found my self more consumed with the immensity of the web. Even though i still have feelings verging on intimidation, all three of these readings reassured me that human thoughts are behind the organization of material, especially in regards to tagging. The way humans organize their thoughts, paired with the freedom available through the internet, can either make finding information very easy, or nearly impossible, depending on how "outrageous" your search is. More often than not I find tagging to be very useful. However when I go search google images and type in a word, I am always a little nervous that some "random" image of something completely irrelevant and inappropriate will pop up.
I agree with your apprehension of Google images, I'm always careful when searching on there, not knowing how others have tagged their pictures.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the readings, I focused on Wikipedia and tagging as well, I'm interested how people link and tag things to make it easier for other users to locate specific pieces of the huge puzzle the web creates.
I also really like how you linked the past Weinberger chapters and how the examples he uses are getting more defined as we advance in the book.
Tagging certainly has made our lives easier when searching for things on the web. There may be one or two irrelevant pictures or sites but the majority are what we may be looking for. It is much easier than having to guess the one way it is labeled and then to see if we can find it through that one keyword. I agree that Weinberger makes it easier to wrap our heads around this idea of the third order by slowly building on previous thoughts and giving concrete, everyday examples.
ReplyDeleteFrom time to time, we all get bad search results. Maybe a bad link, mislabeled or even just completely irrelevant. That is, to me, a small price to pay compared to the cost of learning any 'regular' system. Such a system is, often by a result of standardization, alphabetized and yea, that works. But we have to know how the authors decided to use the words available to them. Synonyms come to mind as a big problem, because if we define something by two words, how do you decide which to use? It has to be arbitrary.
ReplyDeleteBeing arbitrary in of itself isn't bad, but it means more time spent learning about those decisions. That time is greater than the time spent ignoring bad search results.
I like that you made the connection on the power of collective users (collective intelligence?). This is definitely a strong thread that runs throughout the readings thus far. I would've been curious to hear a few more direct connections, but overall this is a good post (nice use of Weinberger in particular). Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI also like your mention of the collective power of users, but it raises a few concerns.
ReplyDeleteFirst, what about Cory Doctorow's points Kristin brought up in class?
-We lie
-We're lazy
etc.
That's a valid point that I think really hits Weinberger's hard, and it's a common criticism. I like to look at that side of things because I see a lot of muck and useless crap on the web that really doesn't add anything. Tags like "stupid" and "dumb" for example; users can add a lot but not all of it contributes to the benevolent, lovely, perfect image of beautiful organization that Weinberger makes out to be.