Information classification (Part I) - Folk Taxonomy

Since the dawn of time, man has tried to make sense of the world around him by giving things names, categorising everything, and sharing that view with everyone else. This was seen to be a good thing by our ancient ancestors because sharing knowledge meant increasing the chance of survival.

We know that Man has been classifying, organising and formalising information for hundreds of thousands of years because anthropologists have observed classification systems of various sorts embedded in local cultural and linguistic systems that serve a social function:

• the naming of certain plants, herbs, roots, and berries, has been embedded in various cultures for centuries and has allowed knowledge about healing to be passed on from generation to generation.
• slang-variants of languages help identify the in-group from the out-group and communicate idiosyncrasies unique to the in-group, e.g. “Yellow peril” or “there’s a Red under your bed”, are ways of classifying people that carry specific cultural and historical idiosyncrasies.
• complex ideas created by scientists are communicated to other experts in explicit detail through a single term so that there is no room for confusion about what is being discussed.

Essentially, human nature seems to drive classification of things, giving logic and meaning to chaos so that ideas can be communicated to others and stored in the collective knowledge of the social group.

As a consultant in the area of information architecture (IA), I need to know about methods of classification so that I can make recommendations about the best possible way of organising data, information and/or knowledge so that others can find it by either browsing or searching. This has important ramifications for:

• Website architecture – how do you intend on making your site structure? Or you navigation? Or do page titling so things can be indexed by Google?
• Records management – what sorts of ways are you going to classify information so it can be found and used as proof of an incident? How money was spent? How decisions were made?
• Information and knowledge management – how are you going to capture the knowledge in people’s heads, articulate it, and make it available for others to find?

So what are some ways we can classify information? I would say that there are three ways information can be classified:

• as a folk taxonomy – social, cultural and hierarchical
• as a taxonomy – scientific, hierarchical, highly structured with categories that are most often mutually exclusive
• as a folksonomy – social, cultural, and tag-based

Of course, with each method it is important to know what it is, and the benefits relative to its disadvantages, in order to determine how to know when you might need one, which method of classifying information works best and when, and how to make one.

Given this is part one, of my three part blog on this subject, I figured I’d start out with folk taxonomies.

Folk taxonomies

Rather than try and define a folk taxonomy, let’s start out with some examples.

Astrology

As far back as the 700 B.C.E., the Ancient Babylonians were giving names to stars and patterns of stars in the sky. Some sources suggest that the Twelve Tribes of Israel correspond to the twelve astrological signs and were probably picked up by the Israelites as they fled Egypt. Astrological signs became popular during the Middle Ages as Arabic culture introduced the symbols to the Courts of Europe and were firmly embedded in Western culture over centuries starting with sailors who used the folk taxonomy to help guide them through the seas at night.

Flora

English-speaking Ontario has its own folk taxonomy for botany. Quite apart from any mythological significance, oaks were extremely important to the community because of the uses that could be made of their wood.

The Ontarians called white oaks ‘stave oaks‘ since its wood is pre-eminent for making barrel staves. Due to the plant material that collects in stave oaks, the wood turns a white colour, and the wood itself becomes impermeable, making them excellent containers (can you say ‘beer keg?’).

Fish

In southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia, locals have a folk taxonomy for fish [1] that reflects both the social evolution of the culture, their mixing with other local and foreign cultures, and their work as trade sea traders, sailors and pirates.

• Small surgeonfish species: dodohb
• Large surgeonfish species: malelahb
• Generic surgeonfish: kuup [translated as smelly. Refers to the strong smell of fish on hands and mouth when eaten).

Folk taxonomies are good! Use them!

What do these examples have in common with each other?

• They evolve, are generated, and communicated as a result of a social- or group-dynamic
• They are used in everyday speech
• They express a part of the groups’ social knowledge and have real meaning to those who use it

So, if a good way of classifying information already exists within a group’s culture, making use of a folk taxonomy will mean that you don't need to reinvent the wheel. Often, they may not even know that they have a way of classifying their information and just need someone to articulate it, document it, and show them how to apply it in perhaps a more practical way.

Folk taxonomies are also goof if you need a place to start, so that you can move information toward another method classification (e.g. an ISO standard for example). This action is particularly important when internal information needs must be communicated to an external party.

What could you use a folk taxonomy for?

• As a basis for formalising naming conventions for documents in a document management system
• As a basis for structuring the site and navigation for an intranet (not an internet)
• Encouraging tagging (remember Web 2.0 ?) because everyone knows, understands and accepts those terms

Let me at it!

I think folk taxonomies are cool, particularly from a change management perspective. There's nothing better than having good take-up and low resistance and using a classification scheme that's embedded in the social fabric of an organisaiton - it will certainly deliver benefits. Even the organisation you work for will probably have their own folk taxonomy to classify something of what it does (I often wonder whether public servants have their own language for the work they do).

Yes, I can hear you. You want to make one now? You want to use one now? Just remember that by its very nature you can't create a folk taxonomy. You can describe one, though (you might use a mind map) or use matrices to join the elements of a folk taxonomy to an existing classification scheme (a data thesaurus or dictionary).

Also remember, that because folk taxonomies are based on social psychological conditions and group dynamics, they require a critical mass of acceptance before new terms or changes in terms are universally accepted. Furthermore, no one outside the group will understand the implied meaning of the terms. They may understand the word, but the usage within the group is what gives it real meaning. This is the very reason why May [1] used the folk taxonomy to help fisheries management in the context of Indonesia. Rather than use the scientific terms in communications, the study showed that their management strategies would work best if they used the local’s terms.

Next bat time - taxonomies.

M

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[1] May, D. 2005. Folk taxonomy of reef fish and the value of participatory monitoring in Wakatobi National Park, southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia. SPC Traditional Marine Resource Management and Knowledge Information Bulletin #18 – August 2005