Re: Getting it OUT!

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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 2044

Posted by srdiamond15
2004-07-11 13:45:47

Daly mentioned facet analysis, an approach developed by library scientists to solve this problem. Two personal programs implement this approach, MDE InfoHandler and Sycon Idea! (Exclamation point part of name, not my emphasis.)InfoHandler is more systematic but requires more work to implement. Idea! accomplishes this end with less formality, and can be used to construct ordinary hierarchies too. (Karteset and NoteLens are also suitable for implementing a personal facet approach.)

Facet analysis is hierarchical but the hierarchy doesn’t pertain to the objects classified as such but to aspects of the objects. You try to sketch out a system of aspects (facets) of the objects you want to classify such that the system is exhaustive but NOT mutually exclusive. For many domains this won’t be possible, but you try to approximate the ideal.

Here’s how it works. Say you want to classify animals, so that you can recognize an xanthu when you see one, even though you forgot you ever heard of one. You would put in place a facet system in which the facets related to observable characteristics of the animal. One facet might be size, and under it you would have the alternatives: small, medium, and large. Another might be speed of locomation: fast, medium, slow. Another might be means of locomotion: wings, two legs, four legs, many legs. When you have a database with objects cross-classified in a rich set of facets, when you encounter the traits, you can pinpoint the animal.

Perhaps the purest example of facet analysis is the periodic table of the elements, wherein the elements are classified based on facets of their atomic structure. Contrast this with the Linneaus’classification of organisms, which works in the manner of an ordinary hierarchy.
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I would like to propose that this thread be continued with suggestions for functions/capabilties that a perfect information storage and retrieval program should have. Not a program for writing…just for getting useful information in and out,including getting info out that we might not know or remember is in there.

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