Folksonomological Reification

The gap between formal ontologies and folksonomies is identified, and termed the “Ontology-Folksonomy Divide”. This is explored through the application of sociological and psychological models of identity, which are examined and applied to the phenomena of online social networking, using a specially developed analysis framework based on activity theory. Descriptions of roles present in online communities and how they relate to an individual’s digital identity are explored and a taxonomy of roles is proposed. The methods, technologies, and theory lead to the idea of Folksonomological Reification. Introduction: Why Folksonomological Reification? “The positive development of a society in the absence of creative, independently thinking, critical individuals is as inconceivable as the development of an individual in the absence of the stimulus of the community” – Albert Einstein. There exists an inherent divide between the Web2.0 community and the knowledge representation / Semantic Web community. There are a large number of Internet services and tools, collectively termed Web2.0, that empower individuals to use their creative powers which, as a consequence, builds up a community knowledge base. This form of communal knowledge base, created by the individual actions of many people is termed a folksonomy. There is also a formalised approach to knowledge representation, called ontology, which can be utilised by computers in intelligent comparisons and inferences. This latter option is problematic due to the difficulty of developing ontologies. This is particularly true in scenarios where many people are involved, and thus this method is being under-utilised. It would be both interesting and beneficial if these two approaches could be connected, so that the semantics that are created in folksonomies could be utilised in computational semantic tools. This kind of technology does not yet exist, and this is why we have coined the “Ontology-Folksonomy Divide” (Figure 1) to explain this lack of interoperability. This chapter explores the issues with pursuing this line of enquiry, and investigate the roles and identities which individuals can take when doing so. Figure 1 Ontology-Folksonomy Divide Ontologies and FolksonomiesOntology “Ontology” has multiple definitions relating to different domains, although they are related. It is the study of being, but it is also used in a more technical regard as being the study of things and their relationships, and it is also used as a noun to mean a formal specification of a domain (Figure 2). As a noun it defines and specifies the different classes of individuals that form the domain, the actual individuals and the properties (relationships) of the individuals (Horridge, et al., 2004)