Facets, Not Outlines:
A while back I wrote about why hierarchies are bad for organizing information. A found a good expression of that idea in an article titled “After the Dot-Bomb” in a recent issue of First Monday (another quality online pub I forgot about; where’s my head these days?!?):
“When classifications are used in Internet databases, it is hierarchical classifications that are almost invariably used. These are in the conventional ‘tree’ shape, a broad area subdivided, then subdivided again and again, with each possible category contained within the one above. Librarians invented a better kind of classification decades ago, that is called faceted classification. It is too involved to explain in this brief article, but a good analogy is to say that faceted classification is to hierarchical classification as relational databases are to hierarchical databases. Most system designers would not dream of using hierarchical files these days, so why are hierarchical classifications of information content still being used?”
Bingo. That’s why I’m so puzzled over the Userland crowd’s orgasmic devotion to outliners. I use them as a writing tool, but hierarchical information architecture pales in comparison to relational architectures. That’s why Google is so much better than the Yahoo or DMOZ directories.
My opinion on this has only solidifed since I’ve been playing with ZWiki, a Zope-based WikiWikiWeb, on a local machine. It’s fun and mirrors the thought process (mine at least) way better than the linearity of blogs or the hiearchical nature of outlines. Next area of investigation: the blending of Wiki and weblog.