#4 Dynamic Taxonomies

[Dave Fuller]

Rather than having a static taxonomy, how about having
the ability to extend/modify taxonomies. To go along
with this, have the ability to move a meme from one
category to another. This would allow for a taxonomy
to grow with an application without the need to modify
configuration files and restart the server.

[Jaron Collis]

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Because memes are local, they can be moved into new
categories. However, if user A has created a category that
user B does not have, then some reconciliation needs to
occur. I've got this on my to-do list.

Would be nice if there was a central server people could
seend their taxonomy changes to, and which did the
reconcilation automatically, but I've leave an endeavour of that
scale to the semantic web people!

[Al Brown]

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Would this be possible by adding a taxonomy table to the
database. The table would just be a list of the available
categories and a cat_id (#) and could be added to by users.

A second table of user_categories would be just a vector list
of user_id (#) and the cat_id (#) for each category that the
user wants as part of their list of categories.

As part of user configuration the user would select from the
categories available or add a new one to their list of
categories the new ones would be availalbe categories to all
users.

Just a thought.

[Jaron Collis]

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Yes, the taxonomy could easily be stored in the database.

The key issue here is the old ontology problem of semantic
equivalence, i.e. how to tell whether two categories refer to
the same subject matter.

I think the solution will involve a small, centrally managed
ontology (hopefully maintained by the W3C), to which users
can add their own categories.

If the meme is imported by a user who does not have the user-
defined category, they would have the option of creating it, or
putting the meme in the most specific 'common' category of
the shared ontology.

I'm going to do some work on this in the summer when I get
the chance to see what progress the Semantic Web projects
have made.