>> There is a general consensus that these two are fine examples of FC.
>>
>> [http://www.wine.com/]

>>
[http://eat.epicurious.com/recipes/browse_home/index.ssf/?/recipes/browse_ho
>> me/index.html]

> These are examples, but not ones I would consider fine.

Excellent! I actually posed a question along that line when I first drafted
my previous email. And in my blissful ignorance, assumed that they were
regarded as fine examples but had reservations as I stated with epicurioius.
So, what are these sites lacking? Incomplete or improper facet analysis
resulting in a less than desirable classification? epicurious, yes, you and
I agree. How about wine.com?

> Let's tackle access by the ingredient facet first.

> How best to approach this?

> I'd propose:

> Meat
> Dairy
> Vegetable

> I'd be interested in hearing from others about how to approach facet
> analysis, especially worked examples, or examples of sites which
> demonstrate elegant use of facets. (I'll try to access my list and get it
> here soon). We can go further with this list too.

What methodology did you use to define these isolates? To me, they make
sense...they feel right. Unfortunately, that doesn't agree with the folks
who ultimately sign off on it.

In Ranganathan's scheme of classification, he suggests that there are five
fundamental categories: personality (distinguishing characteristic), matter
(physical material), energy (action), space (location), time (time period).

Now one question I've always had is whether one should look at these
categories and find the facets that naturally make sense within them. Or is
it a mistake? Should one do the analysis without Ranganathan's scheme and in
the end discover that yes, the facets we end up defining organically fit his
fundamentals?

To me, doing it without Ranganathan's scheme makes sense...giving the
analysis the most unbiased view possible. However, would I be missing out on
a valuable tool?

Cory

> In order to make it as easy as possible for the people who use the site,
the
> classification system has to be modified to match the understanding the
user
> has of the content of the site.

Agreed.

> Also, I would say, that granularity from one facet to another can be at
any
> number of different levels. Each facet does not have to be equally
specific.

Somewhat disagree.

> Success is defined by how well your audience can use the system, and how
> easy it is for the organization to maintain it.

Agreed.

Now the latter two statements seem conflicting. In the case of epicurious,
having varying levels of granularity of isolates within the facets at
abstract levels Beef (1 animal) Poultry (many animals) is not as successful
helping your audience use the system. As the user traverses the
classification, I'd agree it isn't necessary to have equally specific facets
and/or isolates.

Cory

At 04:29 19/12/2002, drdenisebedford <dbedford@...> wrote:

>Two particular applications of faceted taxonomies I've worked with in
>the CMS environment are thesaurus facilitated search, and faceted
>metadata as the basic architecture of a metadata repository.   The
>metadata repository provides the foundation for recommender engines,
>for user profiling, and for content syndication.
>
>Is anyone else applying these structures in a content management
>system environment?

I've now seen *a lot* of content management systems, primarily
those developed in Australia.

At present, if you are lucky, the CMS supports the customisable
input of metadata. Generally, though, nothing more that "keywords"
and "description" and offered.

I have yet to see a CMS that offers any sort of global view
of the metadata, or tools for manipulating it.

This is certainly a major weakness in the market, and
one that I hope will be addressed in the near future...

James



-------------------------
James Robertson
Step Two Designs Pty Ltd
Knowledge Management Consultancy, SGML & XML

Content Management Requirements Toolkit
112 CMS requirements, ready to cut-and-paste

http://www.steptwo.com.au/
jamesr@...

Hi all,
Here's my intro.

I'm another one of those librarian types. I am currently
working for the BBC, working on the content analysis and
modelling of the whole site.

I'm interested in faceted classification because I
developing it for the BBC, mostly for internal content
management purposes and the provision of better contextual
navigation. It is so much more interesting than the work I
was doing before because it is pop culture and as a friend
told me, my ultimate job. Where else can you talk about and
describe soaps, music, archaelogy and Iraq.

I'm trying to define facets that will link content at a
high level and then define specific CVs and metadata for
specific sites. I want to link content about Martin Kemp in
EastEnders (BBC Soap), The Krays (film) and Spandau Ballet
(music). Once I get into the EastEnders site, I can find
out more about the soap and his character, the
relationships between the characters. This type of metadata
will let me connect the soap content together.

Ok, more than an intro...

Talk to you all soon.

Mags

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Everything you'll ever need on one web page
from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts
http://uk.my.yahoo.com

Hi!
What a multi-faceted group we are! ;)

I come to this list via the world of ontologies and
knowledge representation. I spent four years at
Cycorp, working on the common-sense knowledge base,
Cyc, as well as working on natural language processing
modules. I currently live in the Bay Area and, during
the boom, developed ontologies and models for
e-commerce software. I was also product manager for an
ontology builder tool, brilliantly called "Ontology
Builder" :) at VerticalNet. I'm currently at Inktomi.
You can check out their search capabilities on HotBot.

I joined this list to learn and contribute where I
can!

- Lisa





__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com

I think you need to keep two things in mind when thinking of facets and
facet analysis.

What is the universe you are trying to organize/analyze/provide access
Who are your users

Context is always key here.

The following text is from Vickery (1960). Faceted classification.
In the future I'll try not to be so heavy-handed with my quotations.
Today I think completeness is essential.

(p.12-13)
What is facet analysis?

"The sorting of terms in a given field into homogeneous, mutually
exclusive facets, each derived from the parent universe by a single
characteristic of division."

"Facet analysis is partly analagous to the traditional rules of logical
division, on which classification has always been based. The result,
however differs from traditional classification in the following ways.

First:
The strictness with which the rules are applied: in the analysis performed
in order to construct a scheme every distinctive logical category should
be isolated, every new characteristic of division should be clearly
formulated, every new relation should be recognized *even though at a
later stage it may be possible and advisable to present a less refined
analysis*

Second:
...facets so distinguished are not locked into rigid, enumerative
schedules, but are left to combine with one another in the fullest
freedom, so that every type of relation between the terms and between
subjects may be expressed.

Third:
(From the theoretical point of view) FC breaks free from the restriction
of the traditional classification to the hierarchical, genus-species
relation: by combining terms in compound subjects, it introduces new
logical relations between them, thus better reflecting the complexity of
knowledge [and I insert here: whatever universe for which you are
attempting to provide access].

Facet analysis by means of fundamental distinguishing characteristics or
*categories* is the basic operation in constructing a faceted
classification."

End of the reference citing:

>
> There is a general consensus that these two are fine examples of FC.
>
> [http://www.wine.com/]
>
> [http://eat.epicurious.com/recipes/browse_home/index.ssf/?/recipes/browse_ho
> me/index.html]

These are examples, but not ones I would consider fine.

>
> The epicurious recipe site troubles me. I think it is a good example of how
> FC *navigation* can succeed on a web site. However, the FC itself does not
> seem complete. For instance, Beef and Vegetables at the same level creates
> problems. Beef is more specific than Vegetables as a facet. What about
> Chicken? It is like Beef as a specific meat, but hidden under Poultry. And
> to add the fact that I can't find Turkey under Poultry.
>
> Is this a misappropriation of good FC? Or am I being too picky?

In my opinion yes. You've got to conduct proper facet analysis, if your
site design, and access tools are going to be robust and useful.

Our Universe is recipes.
Our users may possibly want to access by
	 ingredient, cooking time, meal type etc. etc.

So what then should our facets be?

Let's tackle access by the ingredient facet first.

How best to approach this?

I'd propose:

Meat
Dairy
Vegetable

Thus the facet/attribute (Ingredient)
would have as isolates/examples:
	 Meat Dairy and Vegetable

Now if a new cooking craze breaks out which involves introducing inedible
substances like *gasp* gold leaf (sound familiar to anyone?) we might want
to add indigestibles to the isolate/examples.

I'd be interested in hearing from others about how to approach facet
analysis, especially worked examples, or examples of sites which
demonstrate elegant use of facets. (I'll try to access my list and get it
here soon). We can go further with this list too.

Facet analysis is just the first hurdle. Interface remains a serious
impediment as well, as any of you who are familiar with Steven Pollitt's
work are well aware.

Kathryn

-----Original Message-----
From: Cory Preus [mailto:cory_preus@...]
Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2002 12:37 PM
To: 'facetedclassification@yahoogroups.com'
Subject: [facetedclassification] Poor FC example?

I don't know if I'm jumping ahead of myself here...but I'm hankering for
some discussion...and everyone else seems to be looking forward to
discussion as well.

There is a general consensus that these two are fine examples of FC.

[http://www.wine.com/]

[http://eat.epicurious.com/recipes/browse_home/index.ssf/?/recipes/browse_ho
me/index.html]

The epicurious recipe site troubles me. I think it is a good example of how
FC *navigation* can succeed on a web site. However, the FC itself does not
seem complete. For instance, Beef and Vegetables at the same level creates
problems. Beef is more specific than Vegetables as a facet. What about
Chicken? It is like Beef as a specific meat, but hidden under Poultry. And
to add the fact that I can't find Turkey under Poultry.

Is this a misappropriation of good FC? Or am I being too picky?

Cory
Dancing With Nerds

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
facetedclassification-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

I don't know if I'm jumping ahead of myself here...but I'm hankering for
some discussion...and everyone else seems to be looking forward to
discussion as well.

There is a general consensus that these two are fine examples of FC.

[http://www.wine.com/]

[http://eat.epicurious.com/recipes/browse_home/index.ssf/?/recipes/browse_ho
me/index.html]

The epicurious recipe site troubles me. I think it is a good example of how
FC *navigation* can succeed on a web site. However, the FC itself does not
seem complete. For instance, Beef and Vegetables at the same level creates
problems. Beef is more specific than Vegetables as a facet. What about
Chicken? It is like Beef as a specific meat, but hidden under Poultry. And
to add the fact that I can't find Turkey under Poultry.

Is this a misappropriation of good FC? Or am I being too picky?

Cory
Dancing With Nerds

I'm Avi Rappoport, and I love search engines.  I'm very fond of
faceted metadata search, which can only be accomplished when someone
does the work on the back end to make a faceted classification. I was
convinced by Marti Hearst, who does amazing IR/UI research.

I've written a report on my site about faceted metadata search and a
supporting one on faceted classification, and am pitching some talks
and articles on the topic.

In my experience, there are a lot of existing, if ugly, faceted
classifications within commercial RDBMS catalogs.  They've been
accessed only by fill-in-the-form interfaces.  So some of the time,
my job is to encourage them to expose the content they already have.

I just found another one last night, Amanzon's new apparel store has
a couple of facets: clothing type, brand and price.  They have big
categories, but are missing one vital one, which is size.  I bet it's
hard integrating with inventory control systems, but when you have a
3 year old, you do not want to see 18-month clothes, it's just a
waste of time!

Avi

--
Search Server Industry Analysis from Search Tools Consulting
     (510) 845-2551  -- <mailto: analyst@...>
Complete Guide to Search Engines for Web Sites and Intranets
     <http://www.searchtools.com>

I've just been reading through the postings.  I'm really glad to see
there are people like James involved in the discussion because
experience with content management systems in the future application
environment.  This type of system architecture really makes use of
all kinds of taxonomies, one of which is a facted taxonomy.   I have
found that the faceted taxonomy (as opposed to a hierarchical
taxonomy) is much more challenging to implement in the CMS
architecture, as well as from the user interface perspective.   Glad
to see we also have people chatting who are interested in usability
engineering.

Two particular applications of faceted taxonomies I've worked with in
the CMS environment are thesaurus facilitated search, and faceted
metadata as the basic architecture of a metadata repository.   The
metadata repository provides the foundation for recommender engines,
for user profiling, and for content syndication.

Is anyone else applying these structures in a content management
system environment?

I'll make this double quick because its time to go to the pub.

Hi. My name is Edward George,
I tend to do most things professionally.
I do everything from visual design to programming to lecturing on
artificial life but a good deal of time is spent on building information
repositories, creating such content and providing analysis /
visualisations on that content.
My job description currently stands as Lead Creative Designer / Lead
Information Architect / Research Manager.
So that gives you a good idea on what I spend time doing and getting
interested in.

I'm interested in classification and facets as most things involving
information / knowledge floats my boat. I'm particularly interested in
visual presentation and interaction of/with said concepts.

Looking forward to interesting discussions.

Cheers
Ed.

_Dances With Nerds_.

Like it!

For those who haven't encountered it before, I'd strongly recommend Jack's
*other* book. Though centred on topic maps it covers a very wide range, much
of which relates to faceted classification.

>XML Topic Maps: Creating and Using Topic Maps for the Web.
>Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-74960-2.
>
>http://www.nexist.org/wiki/User0Blog

Good morning, everyone.

Very glad to see a virtual discussion of these topics.  My background
in these topics is both theoretical and applied.  My day-job is as
thesaurus and taxonomy manager for the World Bank Group in Washington
DC.  I also teach graduate courses in these and related topics at
Catholic University of America, at Georgetown University, and for the
Montague Institute, Enfield CT.  I bring to this discuss an
educational and work background in information science, but also in
systems architecture and data structures, logic/mathematics,
linguistics, and usability engineering.  I understand the theories of
classification but also have several years of experience implementing
various types of taxonomies in portal, intranet, client/server and
traditional systems architectures.

I am familiar with many of the references you're all providing, and
do not see them as conflicting.  Rather, it is my opinion that what
has been lacking is a larger framework in which to understand how all
of these views fit together, and to see where/when we are using
different words to describe the same thing.  Rather than one idea or
presentation being "right" or "wrong" I see different perspectives.
I think having been in the application trenches for several years has
also helped me to see where the current theories need further
research and where we have gaps in our academic understanding of the
needs of the applications developers.

Look forward to listening to what you all have to say - and to
sharing my practical experiences with you.

Jack Park, here. I do topic maps, which, I think, make sense as combined
with various classification systems.

Not much to say (yet) except to reiterate the point made by others
introducing themselves here that it's great to have this discussion running.

Classically trained geek?  What a concept! Reminds me of the title of a
novel I am writing: _Dances With Nerds_.

Cheers
Jack


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
XML Topic Maps: Creating and Using Topic Maps for the Web.
Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-74960-2.

http://www.nexist.org/wiki/User0Blog

Hi folks!

My name's Danny Ayers, and I'm now mostly a software developer though have
done a fair bit of tech writing over the past few years. My main area of
interest these days is the Semantic Web. I'm currently working on a desktop
tool designed for this (forthcoming) environment [2]. I want my computer to
be able to tell me the merits of Boyce-Codd normal form and a red black tree
data structure, and perhaps more importantly how they might be useful to me
at this point in time...

I'm interested in faceted classification from a knowledge representation
point of view, to be able to use it as a means of organizing information for
easy manipulation & retrieval. In particular, I'm interested in using it
with the Resource Description Framework [3]. One initial application area
I'm looking at is blogging/syndication.

Just recently I lost the domain name I was using for my main web site (which
contained a miscellany of junk), but I should have a replacement online
soon. Anyhow, my project site [2] and "Semantic Weblog" [4] pretty well
cover what I'm looking at these days.

I'm originally from the uk but now live in the Garfagnana valley in Italy
(ciao Luca!) with my wife and 2+ cats. It's a lovely part of the world, when
it's not cold and foggy (like it has been all week).

Cheers,
Danny.


[1] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/
[2] http://ideagraph.net
[3] http://www.w3.org/RDF/
[4] http://www.citnames.com/blog

Greetings all. Looks like I am the second Michael on the list.

Currently, I work as a Content Manager/IA at Principal Financial Group.
Prior to that I worked as a user experience consultant for Sapient Corp.
in Atlanta, Georgia. I like to think of myself as an accomplished
interdisciplinarian/ generalist. I've got a liberal arts background --
philosophy, religious studies, communications theory  -- and a Masters in
Theology from Emory University.

I don't have any formal credentials in library science/information
management/classification; just lots of independent research and on the
job training. I stumbled on faceted classification because I wanted to
understand what a "taxonomy" really was in the context of digital
information management. No big surprise to this group, I'm sure, but they
aren't necessarily the same thing.

The idea of faceted classification intuitively struck me as the best way
to overcome the complexities of language/semantics that inherently clog up
information repositories. So, I'm interested in both classification theory
and faceted classification in practice. I face daily challenges in
managing content on our intranet (and in other repositories) that could
potentially be addressed by faceted classification.

Looking forward to the conversation.

-mb

---------------------------------
Michael Boomershine
Principal Financial Group
e: boomershine.michael@...
YIM: m_boomershine

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com

Howdy, howdy-

1 |
I'm Cory and I'm an e-business developer. I'm classically trained is a geek;
I can tell you the merits of Boyce-Codd normal form and a red black tree
data structure. Alas, I have a design tick as well -- making data into
information whether it is visually or textually.

2 |
I have a love/hate relationship with computers. I truly believe that
computers can simplify our lives and yet we do it marginally at best (which
leads to my frustration with the state of technology). I love being in an
industry where we can take a machine that is black and white -- 0 and 1 and
design it so that it is flexible to the variable nature of humans.

3 |
I believe faceted classification is a tool that helps us move in that
direction. My understanding of the subject is admittedly incomplete; I only
hope to learn more. In that respect, I've begun reading works by Ranganathan
his ilk and am excited about where FC could bring us.

Cory
wrk: http://www.cnt.com/
ply: http://www.wrote.org/

As an aside, Wrote is a personal project that I'd very much like to apply my
first working facet analysis to. So, hopefully, I'll be able to pick a few
brains as I apply what I've learned.

I'm Kathryn La Barre, a doctoral student at Indiana University with
research interests in knowledge organization. I'm also trying to
bring my last semester of coursework to a close. (So I am not able to
read all of the postings that presently exist--apologies).

My chief research interest is facet analysis, one of the tools of
faceted classification as detailed by Ranganathan, explored by Henry
Evelyn Bliss and brought to Western attention by a group of
researchers and practitions in London and America during the 1950's.
Chris Dent and I began a project to create conceptual access to an
email archive from Doug Englebart's Unfinished Revolution Symposium
at Stanford:
(http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~klabarre/unrev_firstpage).

I agree with those who started this group, there is still a lot that
is unsaid, or misunderstood about facet analysis. Such as:

What it is, how it can be useful, how to go about doing it, how to
determine whether something is or is not a faceted classification or
uses facet analysis.

I hope we can have that sort of discussion here, and clarify
misunderstandings and do something to prevent their repetition. Good
information is the best antidote to ignorance. My sense is that a
great number of people find out about FC and think it is pretty neat
and want to try it. They may not have had the time, resources or
interest to find out enough about it, and move ahead with the notion
without a full understanding.

Don't misunderstand me, all this talk about FC is wonderful, I just
think it is time to move past discussions that are bounded by the
incomplete and move into making systems which build from a
unified and grounded framework. (Sadly many of the links to what
discussion participants in peterme.com claim are good examples are
broken.)  Sometimes the systems which result from, or are considered
as examples in  such discussions are based on incomplete
understandings of FC and facet analysis, and result in systems which
do not work,or are not in fact FC and as a consequence, FC and facet
analysis is determined to be useless, or beyond comprehension. We've
got to do some groundwork, in terms of uniformity of language and
understanding first and this seems a fine place to accomplish this.

There hasn't been a comprehensive handbook since Vickery's _Facet
Analysis_in 1960 (though there have been many recent articles, in
print and online, in my opinion the ONLY one which is impeccably
executed and dead-on is Broughton's discussion of facet analysis:
(http://www.ucl.ac.uk/fatks/fat.htm).

E.J. Hunter makes an admirable effort:  _Classification made simple_,
in Second edition recently by Gower.

Incidentally, I have a copy of this and many of the original books
(including Vickery) that I think are essential for a complete
understanding of faceting. (And I had the thunderingly amazing
pleasure to meet Vickery this past November when I presented a paper
at a conference in Philadelphia (on the American Classification
Research Group-counterparts to the British Classification Research
Group).

I hope we all engage here in discussions and continue to reference
useful, high quality resources, and prototypes as well as work
togehther to create high quality resources and prototypes. I'm not
here to say that everyone is wrong (for if we are then no one is
right!). Hoping too that these discussions will deepen my own
understanding and fill gaps in my own knowledge.

My knowledge base (and trust me, I am not an expert) comes from
spending the past few years reading Ranganathan, and Bliss, looking
at work which I think demonstrates protofacets, and doing archival
research into discussions about faceting by those engaged in creating
faceted systems. I have an MLS, and am working on a PhD in
Information Science at the School of Library and Information Science
at Indiana University. Currently my proposed doctoral research
project involves Facet analysis and LSA.

Later,

Kathryn La Barre
http://php.indiana.edu/~klabarre/firstpage.html

I'm Kathryn La Barre, a doctoral student at Indiana University with
research interests in knowledge organization. I'm also trying to
bring my last semester of coursework to a close. (So I am not able to
read all of the postings that presently exist--apologies).

My chief research interest is facet analysis, one of the tools of
faceted classification as detailed by Ranganathan, explored by Henry
Evelyn Bliss and brought to Western attention by a group of
researchers and practitions in London and America during the 1950's.
Chris Dent and I began a project to create conceptual access to an
email archive from Doug Englebart's Unfinished Revolution Symposium
at Stanford:
(http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~klabarre/unrev_firstpage).

I agree with those who started this group, there is still a lot that
is unsaid, or misunderstood about facet analysis. Such as:

What it is, how it can be useful, how to go about doing it, how to
determine whether something is or is not a faceted classification or
uses facet analysis.

I hope we can have that sort of discussion here, and clarify
misunderstandings and do something to prevent their repetition. Good
information is the best antidote to ignorance. My sense is that a
great number of people find out about FC and think it is pretty neat
and want to try it. They may not have had the time, resources or
interest to find out enough about it, and move ahead with the notion
without a full understanding.

Don't misunderstand me, all this talk about FC is wonderful, I just
think it is time to move past discussions that are bounded by the
incomplete and move into making systems which build from a
unified and grounded framework. (Sadly many of the links to what
discussion participants in peterme.com claim are good examples are
broken.)  Sometimes the systems which result from, or are considered
as examples in  such discussions are based on incomplete
understandings of FC and facet analysis, and result in systems which
do not work,or are not in fact FC and as a consequence, FC and facet
analysis is determined to be useless, or beyond comprehension. We've
got to do some groundwork, in terms of uniformity of language and
understanding first and this seems a fine place to accomplish this.

There hasn't been a comprehensive handbook since Vickery's _Facet
Analysis_in 1960 (though there have been many recent articles, in
print and online, in my opinion the ONLY one which is impeccably
executed and dead-on is Broughton's discussion of facet analysis:
(http://www.ucl.ac.uk/fatks/fat.htm).

E.J. Hunter makes an admirable effort:  _Classification made simple_,
in Second edition recently by Gower.

Incidentally, I have a copy of this and many of the original books
(including Vickery) that I think are essential for a complete
understanding of faceting. (And I had the thunderingly amazing
pleasure to meet Vickery this past November when I presented a paper
at a conference in Philadelphia (on the American Classification
Research Group-counterparts to the British Classification Research
Group).

I hope we all engage here in discussions and continue to reference
useful, high quality resources, and prototypes as well as work
togehther to create high quality resources and prototypes. I'm not
here to say that everyone is wrong (for if we are then no one is
right!). Hoping too that these discussions will deepen my own
understanding and fill gaps in my own knowledge.

My knowledge base (and trust me, I am not an expert) comes from
spending the past few years reading Ranganathan, and Bliss, looking
at work which I think demonstrates protofacets, and doing archival
research into discussions about faceting by those engaged in creating
faceted systems. I have an MLS, and am working on a PhD in
Information Science at the School of Library and Information Science
at Indiana University. Currently my proposed doctoral research
project involves Facet analysis and LSA.

Later,

Kathryn La Barre
http://php.indiana.edu/~klabarre/firstpage.html

Moin Moin!

I'm Jim Kalbach, an IA with Razorfish Germany in
Hamburg.

My background is in library and information science
(MLS from Rutgers (I also have an MA in music theory
and composition)). In addition to facetted classification,
controlled vocabularies and thesauri, I'm also
interesting in information seeking behavior.

Hopefully we can talk about applied aspects of
facetted classification. Theory is great, too, but
I'd like to see practical solutions and case studies
and tips from the field.

Great to be with you.

Tschuess,
Jim

Ciao a tutti,

I'm an italian Content Manager and IA, but this last label isn't yet very
known in Italy, IA moves now its first steps in Italy.

I have an humanistic background, with a degree in Literature&Philosophy,
with a PhD in Linguistics, with a focus on the Informational Linguistic
Atlases. Then I obtained a master in Multimedial Technolgy and Communication
at Politecnico of Torino.

Now I work in an italian system integrator, www.kelyan.it

My website: www.lucarosati.it (in italian, sorry).

I'm very interested in Faceted Classification (in italian:
classificazione/indicizzazione a faccette), so I see this initiative like a
blessing. I have still a lot of things to learn...

Best regard,
Luca

On Tuesday, December 17, 2002, at 11:32 PM, Peter Merholz wrote:

> You son of a bitch! You're now the first result for "faceted
> classification"
> on Google
> http://www.google.com/
> search?q=faceted%20classification&sourceid=mozilla-sea
> rch&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
>
> I'm only second!

And  I'm in the mid thirties!

To introduce myself, I'm a misfit. I consider myself a designer, but I
rarely fire up PhotoShop. I'm Don fan and I'm the usability and IA
person, though I tend to share ideas via osmosis and practise rather
than formally. I also code but my code always gets re-written by
humans.  I worked for a long time in educational research where I
learned to love the word "participative" with all my heart.

Which is where, for me, facets come in. In the early days of the web I
hated the trend and desire people had to categorize the hell out of
everything. I knew in my constuctivist heart that each categorization
had implicit political values and creative restraints hidden within it
and that  some sort of dynamic categorization was a much more useful
way to conceive of the world.

I'm currently working facets into a few projects, although facets seem
to do a good job of disguising themselves as "just good common sense
design".

hello all

tom

--
tom smith
http://www.othermedia.com/blog/
0207 089 5959
3rd Floor, The Pavilion, Newham's Row, London SE1 3UZ

Hi,

Forgot to mention:

I've written alot of articles about content
management, intranets, etc. These all have a heavy
focus on usability and IA:
http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/index.php

I also have a weblog covering these topics:
http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/index.html

I'm also the author of a publication titled
"An Introduction to XML for Knowledge Managers":
http://www.steptwo.com.au/products/xml/index.html

Regards,
James

-------------------------
James Robertson
Step Two Designs Pty Ltd
Knowledge Management Consultancy, SGML & XML

Content Management Requirements Toolkit
112 CMS requirements, ready to cut-and-paste

http://www.steptwo.com.au/
jamesr@...

Hi,

I'm James, and I run a small knowledge management
and content management consultancy, located in Sydney,
Australia.

I have a strong interest in usability and information
architecture. As a business, we specialise in:

* Intranet design and strategy

* Content management systems
    - assisting clients with their requirements
    - evaluating products
    - strategy

* Knowledge management
    - identifying organisational knowledge issues
    - building new processes
    - empowering and engaging staff

We have a very holistic approach, bring in both
technology, people and information skills.

I am particularly interested in how faceted
classification can be used to build improved
intranet navigation, and where it should fit
in content management systems.

Regards,
James

-------------------------
James Robertson
Step Two Designs Pty Ltd
Knowledge Management Consultancy, SGML & XML

Content Management Requirements Toolkit
112 CMS requirements, ready to cut-and-paste

http://www.steptwo.com.au/
jamesr@...

I'm gonna do the same. My name is Peter Van Dijck, I run
http://poorbuthappy.com/ease (weblog)
http://petervandijck.net
http://easytopicmaps.com
http://liga1.com
http://xfml.org
http://taxomita.com
And that should give you an idea of my interests in classification :) I
have many questions about classification, some of which I hope I can
answered here, others I think nobody has answered yet and we could do
some cutting edge thinking here.
PeterV

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Merholz [mailto:peterme@...]
Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 6:32 PM
To: facetedclassification@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [facetedclassification] Introducing myself


> You son of a bitch! You're now the first result for "faceted
classification"
> on Google

> I'm only second!

Yeah, I noticed that recently. No idea why. Eat your heart out, Peter. ;-)

> I did a teeny bit to popularize the notions of facets within the IA
> community with this post:
> http://www.peterme.com/archives/00000063.html

> Which was my way of talking up what I had learned in a class taught by
Peter
> Morville and Samantha Bailey.
> http://argus-acia.com/acia_event/seminar_roadshow.html

Yep. Saw that a long time ago. I posted a comment, but it didn't show up,
for some reason. I see that you have additional recent comments, including
some from Steve Pollitt. Great! (I met Steve when we both presented in the
same "knowledge management" session at the ISKO conference in DC.)

> I'm interested in facets because I my gut tells me that people "get" them
> (when designed well), and are far more useful than other forms of
> classification and categorization.

That's why we're all here, I hope. But I think it's also one of the
design/interface issues we have to address. A very small percentage of
people use even the simplest Boolean queries, preferring instead to hack
away at big piles of retrieved documents. Will they use good implementations
of faceted retrieval? Do faceted approaches have to be *complemented* with
hierarchical approaches? (Or are there ways around that?)

> I'm interested in interfaces to facets, and have been keen on Flamenco and
> Endeca (http://www.endeca.com/)

Thanks for the pointer to Endeca. I had not come across that. Gotta look
closer.

> It's pretty clear the Web makes presenting faceted classifications far
more
> feasible, and their employ is inevitable.

My guess is that they will become inevitable when we find ways of combining
automatic classification by facets with manual controls.

Great to see your post!

     Phil

You son of a bitch! You're now the first result for "faceted classification"
on Google
http://www.google.com/search?q=faceted%20classification&sourceid=mozilla-sea
rch&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

I'm only second!

Hi, I'm Peter.

I did a teeny bit to popularize the notions of facets within the IA
community with this post:
http://www.peterme.com/archives/00000063.html

Which was my way of talking up what I had learned in a class taught by Peter
Morville and Samantha Bailey.
http://argus-acia.com/acia_event/seminar_roadshow.html

I'm interested in facets because I my gut tells me that people "get" them
(when designed well), and are far more useful than other forms of
classification and categorization.

I'm interested in interfaces to facets, and have been keen on Flamenco and
Endeca (http://www.endeca.com/)

It's pretty clear the Web makes presenting faceted classifications far more
feasible, and their employ is inevitable.

--peter
----- Original Message -----
From: "KMconnection" <pmurray@...>
To: "(faceted classification list) FCD"
<facetedclassification@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 6:36 AM
Subject: [facetedclassification] Introducing myself


> As one of the co-moderators of the Faceted Classification Discussion (FCD)
> mailing list, I wanted to describe my interests in FC and explain briefly
> how I came to those interests.
>
> I encourage other members to do the same.
>
>
> My interests
> ------------
>
> (1) First of all, my background is in technical writing and -- since 1988
or
> so -- what people ultimately began to call "knowledge management." I'm not
a
> library scientist by training, and I hope that the LS people in this list
> will help me fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge of FC. However, I'm
> not interested in systems of notation (e.g., colon classification) or
using
> FC to catalog the Web.
>
> (2) My primary area of interest is classification of the "knowledge" of
> organizations (unstructured information and human expertise in businesses,
> government agencies, associations, not-for-profits) -- whether on Web
sites
> or internal corporate knowledgebases. For that reason, I prefer to use the
> term "faceted knowledge organization."
>
> (3) I'm hoping that most list members will not be concerned with the
> "purity" of implementations of FC relative to its history in library
> science. And like many who are interested in FC, I don't have ready access
> to most of the "classic" texts anyway. But I definitely want to get my
hands
> on Vickery's book. I'm hoping that one of my old haunts -- the Brown
> University library -- will be accommodating.
>
> Ultimately, I'd like to see implementations of a very rich model of FC --
> one that includes, for example, persistent typed relationships among
> concepts, which are especially useful across facet hierarchies, IMHO.
>
> (4) I have a special interest in the value of combining terms from several
> facet hierarchies into syntactical descriptions (or queries) -- a
technique
> that appears to reflect Ranganathan's "phases" and his broad "energy"
facet
> (activities, operations, or processes) ... as well as good practices in
> back-of-the-book indexing.
>
> (5) I'd like to see a consistent vocabulary emerge from discussions on
this
> list. Uses of the term "faceted classification" are often unclear or -- in
> the case of the Topic Map standard -- just strange.
>
> (6) I hope we can uncover additional resonances and correlations in a wide
> range of knowledge-organization applications. I know that principles of FC
> have been used in retrieval of re-usable software modules (See
Prieto-Diaz'
> work.). Where else has FC been applied ... with or without knowledge of
the
> formal history of faceted classification?
>
> (7) I expect that the greatest value of this list for me will be practical
> discussion of implementations and issues. I'm willing to contribute some
> examples from my own work ... and quietly absorb an intellectual beating
in
> the interest of improving my tools and techniques.
>
> I hope we learn more about where, why, and when FC works. There have been
> some claims that it doesn't work or that it's too difficult to implement.
I
> believe we need to take a critical look at the method and assess
> implementation and interface issues separately.
>
>
> How I came to be interested in faceted knowledge organization
> -------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Well, for a while I thought that I had invented faceted classification.
>
> And I think I'm not alone in that hubris. FC is a very natural way of
> describing and organizing information, and when you stumble on it, you
tend
> to ask yourself, "Why hasn't anyone developed a formal method of
organizing
> information in this way?"
>
> You find elements of FC everywhere you turn:
>
> * You've heard of the parlor game "20 questions"? That's a simple form of
> FC.
>
> * Primus' SolutionBuilder and the Solution-Centered Support standard
employ
> a faceted model for organizing customer-support information.
>
> * Lotus Agenda, Corel InfoCentral, and other personal information managers
> took a faceted approach to organizing chunks of information -- by events,
> people involved, etc.
>
> I've been a tech writer and knowledge management specialist for quite a
> while now, and as far back as 1990 I began to explore alternatives to
> "traditional" forms of classification. Dewey, LOC, and emerging
directories
> like Yahoo! seemed grossly arbitrary to me, as well as incapable of
adapting
> to rapid change. They were also inadequate for serving information-seekers
> who want highly efficient access to critical information-- not whole books
> or articles but, for example, "How to insert widget A into socket B."
>
> Steve Pollitt's work (described in the 1996? proceedings of the ISKO
> conference in Washington DC) provided a great example of how FC could be
> used for collections of significant size, but it was inaccessible to me.
>
> I found only one Windows-based tool capable of providing faceted access to
> personal knowledgebases -- KK Aw's MultiCentrix. MultiCentrix has a unique
> and occasionally daunting interface, it isn't designed explicitly for
> faceted classification (KK was unaware of the connection.), and I don't
take
> full advantage of its capabilities to manage my personal knowledgebase.
> However, I do use MultiCentrix for my online Knowledge Management Product
> Guide, even though information exported from MultiCentrix to HTML provide
> only limited support for faceted access on Web sites. (KK is justifiably
> frustrated with the limitations of HTML.)
>
> I was delighted to learn recently of Travis Wilson's FacetMap (See
> http://facetmap.com.) and the Flamenco Search System project
> (http://bailando.sims.berkeley.edu/flamenco-interface.html).
>
> You can read more of my thinking about FC at
> http://www.kmconnection.com/DOC100100.htm.
>
> I encourage members to tell us more about themselves, their interests, and
> their needs.
>
>     Phil Murray
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----------------------
>
>
> -------------------------------------------
> "I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have
> not had the time to make it shorter."
> -- Blaise Pascal, Lettres Provinciales, 1657
>
> Phil Murray -- Chief Knowledge Architect
> The Knowledge Management Connection | http://www.KMconnection.com
> Home of the KMconnection Knowledge Management Product Guide
> 401-247-7899
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> facetedclassification-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>

As one of the co-moderators of the Faceted Classification Discussion (FCD)
mailing list, I wanted to describe my interests in FC and explain briefly
how I came to those interests.

I encourage other members to do the same.


My interests
------------

(1) First of all, my background is in technical writing and -- since 1988 or
so -- what people ultimately began to call "knowledge management." I'm not a
library scientist by training, and I hope that the LS people in this list
will help me fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge of FC. However, I'm
not interested in systems of notation (e.g., colon classification) or using
FC to catalog the Web.

(2) My primary area of interest is classification of the "knowledge" of
organizations (unstructured information and human expertise in businesses,
government agencies, associations, not-for-profits) -- whether on Web sites
or internal corporate knowledgebases. For that reason, I prefer to use the
term "faceted knowledge organization."

(3) I'm hoping that most list members will not be concerned with the
"purity" of implementations of FC relative to its history in library
science. And like many who are interested in FC, I don't have ready access
to most of the "classic" texts anyway. But I definitely want to get my hands
on Vickery's book. I'm hoping that one of my old haunts -- the Brown
University library -- will be accommodating.

Ultimately, I'd like to see implementations of a very rich model of FC --
one that includes, for example, persistent typed relationships among
concepts, which are especially useful across facet hierarchies, IMHO.

(4) I have a special interest in the value of combining terms from several
facet hierarchies into syntactical descriptions (or queries) -- a technique
that appears to reflect Ranganathan's "phases" and his broad "energy" facet
(activities, operations, or processes) ... as well as good practices in
back-of-the-book indexing.

(5) I'd like to see a consistent vocabulary emerge from discussions on this
list. Uses of the term "faceted classification" are often unclear or -- in
the case of the Topic Map standard -- just strange.

(6) I hope we can uncover additional resonances and correlations in a wide
range of knowledge-organization applications. I know that principles of FC
have been used in retrieval of re-usable software modules (See Prieto-Diaz'
work.). Where else has FC been applied ... with or without knowledge of the
formal history of faceted classification?

(7) I expect that the greatest value of this list for me will be practical
discussion of implementations and issues. I'm willing to contribute some
examples from my own work ... and quietly absorb an intellectual beating in
the interest of improving my tools and techniques.

I hope we learn more about where, why, and when FC works. There have been
some claims that it doesn't work or that it's too difficult to implement. I
believe we need to take a critical look at the method and assess
implementation and interface issues separately.


How I came to be interested in faceted knowledge organization
-------------------------------------------------------------

Well, for a while I thought that I had invented faceted classification.

And I think I'm not alone in that hubris. FC is a very natural way of
describing and organizing information, and when you stumble on it, you tend
to ask yourself, "Why hasn't anyone developed a formal method of organizing
information in this way?"

You find elements of FC everywhere you turn:

* You've heard of the parlor game "20 questions"? That's a simple form of
FC.

* Primus’ SolutionBuilder and the Solution-Centered Support standard employ
a faceted model for organizing customer-support information.

* Lotus Agenda, Corel InfoCentral, and other personal information managers
took a faceted approach to organizing chunks of information -- by events,
people involved, etc.

I've been a tech writer and knowledge management specialist for quite a
while now, and as far back as 1990 I began to explore alternatives to
"traditional" forms of classification. Dewey, LOC, and emerging directories
like Yahoo! seemed grossly arbitrary to me, as well as incapable of adapting
to rapid change. They were also inadequate for serving information-seekers
who want highly efficient access to critical information-- not whole books
or articles but, for example, "How to insert widget A into socket B."

Steve Pollitt's work (described in the 1996? proceedings of the ISKO
conference in Washington DC) provided a great example of how FC could be
used for collections of significant size, but it was inaccessible to me.

I found only one Windows-based tool capable of providing faceted access to
personal knowledgebases -- KK Aw's MultiCentrix. MultiCentrix has a unique
and occasionally daunting interface, it isn't designed explicitly for
faceted classification (KK was unaware of the connection.), and I don't take
full advantage of its capabilities to manage my personal knowledgebase.
However, I do use MultiCentrix for my online Knowledge Management Product
Guide, even though information exported from MultiCentrix to HTML provide
only limited support for faceted access on Web sites. (KK is justifiably
frustrated with the limitations of HTML.)

I was delighted to learn recently of Travis Wilson's FacetMap (See
http://facetmap.com.) and the Flamenco Search System project
(http://bailando.sims.berkeley.edu/flamenco-interface.html).

You can read more of my thinking about FC at
http://www.kmconnection.com/DOC100100.htm.

I encourage members to tell us more about themselves, their interests, and
their needs.

     Phil Murray







----------------------


-------------------------------------------
"I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have
not had the time to make it shorter."
-- Blaise Pascal, Lettres Provinciales, 1657

Phil Murray -- Chief Knowledge Architect
The Knowledge Management Connection | http://www.KMconnection.com
Home of the KMconnection Knowledge Management Product Guide
401-247-7899