A folksonomy represents simultaneously
some of the best and worst in the organization of
information. Its uncontrolled nature is fundamentally chaotic,
suffers from problems of imprecision and ambiguity that well
developed controlled vocabularies and name authorities
effectively ameliorate. Conversely, systems employing free-form
tagging that are encouraging users to organize information in
their own ways are supremely responsive to user needs and
vocabularies, and involve the users of information actively in
the organizational system. Overall, transforming the creation
of explicit metadata for resources from an isolated,
professional activity into a shared, communicative activity by
users is an important development that should be explored and
considered for future systems development.
