Talk:Faceted classification

No link to MECE principle?

The [Knowledge Management Connection] article on Faceted classification mentions the MECE principle but that is not listed here. Any reason for that?

Incidentally Faceted classification is the theoretical foundations of the [Debian Package Tags] project. --16:48, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

MECE is a bad idea

Sometimes an item needs to be in more than one category. MECE is fine for libraries, where each book can appear on only one shelf. There are no such restrictions in the world of data.

Major edit for clarity

The existing technical explanation of faceted classification was (imo) too difficult to understand if you're not already in the field. I focused the article on navigation since that's how most people are going to encounter FC.

This version of the article could use a section on the technical side of the topic.

I added to the contrast with folksonomies the fact that folksonomies are bottom up and FC's are top-down.

I added a link to the Flamenco open source FC project.

dweinberger 20:43, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

More perspective needed

As someone who has been pushing the advantages of faceted classification for over 10 years, I was extremely happy to discover that a useful Wikipedia page had been created for the topic.

However, given the steadily growing use of faceted classification and navigation for online retrieval requirements, this looks like a good time to make this page an even better resource. And I hope that FC experts like Kathryn La Barre and Claudio Gnoli will chime in, too. (I'll send them pointers to this discussion.)

It's also important to note that the functions of faceted classification do not exist in isolation from other needs in the area of "enterprise knowledge management." And that's probably a good place to start this rambling commentary.

So, keeping in mind that I'm not a purist when it comes to applying FC in enterprises ...

First of all, it's useful to think of a faceted classification schema as multiple discrete "taxonomies" -- usually hierarchical arrangements of concepts based on whole-part or IS-A relationships. Each taxonomy is a single hierarchy representing a property (characteristic) of an object or an information unit. (OK, a facet can be completely flat, but that's not usually the case.)

Multiple-parent (polyhierarchical) relationships are not used in such taxonomies. And the separate taxonomies are chosen because they are typically semantically orthogonal to each other. Think People, Places, Location, Size, Color, etc.

In a well-designed interface for navigating information organized in this way, it is very easy to drill down to a small set of objects ... and just as easy to step "up" to higher levels of abstraction, because you are usually working with multiple taxonomies simultaneously. In fact, the ease and speed with which you can find objects organized in this way (that is, by properties rather than by commonly accepted name) is probably best expressed as "rapid information thinning" -- a phrase I first heard used by Giovanni Sacco.

I think it's important to note that multiple taxonomies also typically form the backbone of computer ontologies, and that the use of such ontologies within enterprises and industry associations is growing rapidly. The emergence of the Web Ontology Language (OWL) seems to have added impetus to that trend.

Although most developers of ontologies seem to focus on navigation and discovery of information within an ontology as best aided by graphic visualization of typed relationships among concepts, a faceted navigation interface to taxonomies in ontologies would be a natural complement to such visualization -- especially in large ontologies. I haven't seen this done yet, but maybe it's out there.

Another perspective on faceted navigation is that it is a navigational analog to retrieval of information from a relational database. It replaces construction of queries. This is especially true if you ignore the more "religious" FC viewpoint that you cannot select more than one concept from the same facet. Boolean logic applies equally well in both cases, IMHO.

Faceted classification is so natural that people are always re-inventing it in isolation. For example, take a look at the Wikipedia feature request for intersecting categories. It seems they're looking at representation of static intersections of categories, but the basic principle is the same. The discussion page has lots of interesting observations about basic categorization challenges -- most of which could probably be addressed by an experienced LIS expert with knowledge of FC.

And one last point: It was nice to see Flamenco become Open Source, but it appears that we may be facing some potentially nasty intellectual property wars, what with patent claims on various approaches to faceted navigation by leading vendors. (Thanks, Kathryn, for helping to point that out.) I hope it doesn't come to that. (And I can't comment objectively on this topic, because the company I work for has purchased and implemented one of the leading commercial FC-based products -- at my recommendation.) PhilMurray46 17:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Faceted classification vs. Faceted search / navigation

A previous version of this entry included a list of faceted search vendors. Aside from the question of whether this list was accurate or complete or whether it was appropriate to include a list of vendors in this entry (I feel it should be in a separate List of Vendors entry), there was a confusion between faceted classification, which is a way to represent information, and faceted search / navigation, which is a way to access information represented using a faceted classification scheme.

A representative of one of the vendors on the vendor list recently contacted me about the removal of the list, suggesting that the edit be reversed. I argued against, but I believe this discussion should be held on the talk page, rather than privately--especially considering that I am also associated with vendor. I'm also blogging about this entry at The Noisy Channel and suggesting that readers chime in here. Dtunkelang (talk) 04:25, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Multi-dimensional Classification

I am unable to find any other work done on this besides the few papers by Zhunge et al. and even those seem to not have any significant number of citations. This does not appear to be notable and certainly should not comprise half of this article. A13ean (talk) 13:30, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Notability of the "Resource Space Model"

Is the "Resource Space Model" developed by Zhunge et al. notable in the context of its own page, faceted classification or Faceted search? A13ean (talk) 13:39, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

No, just merge here as I proposed. No independent sources. But sounds relevant to this topic. Will work on it as I have time. W Nowicki (talk) 21:34, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

No, it is not notable in any of these contexts. Dtunkelang (talk) 12:24, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Whoa now. A publication does not need independent notability to be mentioned in an article on the topic of the publication. It just needs to be in a "reliable source", and I think several of the Zhunge papers do qualify as being reliable. So why censor it totally? I think you are goign too far, and this is just going to encourage edit wars and more spam. For example, the Knowledge Grid and Resource Space Model will probably keep reappearing. I think until the other approaches get more coverage, an argument of undue weight would say keep it down to a few sentences, which is what I tried to do. What is your reasoning for total censorship? This group does seem one of the largest projects in the world working on this topic. W Nowicki (talk) 23:24, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

If we are going to include external sources, we should at least start with the most notable / impactful ones. And I question the reliability, especially given that Knowledge Grid is being considered for speedy deletion and Resource Space Model is currently blanked over copyright issues. And the author is someone I've never encountered despite writing a book on faceted search and being deeply connected to the community. All of these are red flags. Sorry if that strikes you as censorship, but I'm just protecting the quality of an entry for which I have strong domain expertise and no conflict of interest. Dtunkelang (talk) 06:37, 21 October 2011 (UTC)