Should a tag namespace be a top-down taxonomy or a bottom-up folksonomy? My answer is: both. In recent months, as I curate calendar hubs for selected cities, I’ve been working toward an approach that harmonizes the two styles.
Principle: Top-down and bottom-up
In the elmcity context, the most important taggable object is the calendar feed. That’s because when you can characterize a whole feed with a tag, all the events in that feed inherit the tag. The primary sources of taggable feeds are Eventful, Upcoming, Facebook, Meetup, and EventBrite. I call them taggable because, while some of these services tag individual events, none tag feeds based on venues (Eventful, Upcoming) or Pages (Facebook) or groups (Meetup) or organizers (EventBrite). Assigning feed-level tags is an editorial exercise for the curator.
To these sources I add as many standalone iCalendar feeds as I can find. For Boston and Seattle, the results add up to lists of over 600 tagged iCalendar feeds. Here’s a table of the current list of tags for Boston, the current list for Seattle, and the intersection of the two lists.
| Boston |
| adoption |
1 |
| african |
1 |
| animals |
28 |
| arabic |
1 |
| architecture |
38 |
| art |
222 |
| asian |
30 |
| astronomy |
13 |
| baseball |
94 |
| basketball |
78 |
| berklee |
285 |
| boating |
7 |
| books |
160 |
| boston |
7 |
| boston.com |
1020 |
| boston.gov |
395 |
| boston-latin-hs |
109 |
| bpl |
153 |
| bu |
101 |
| business |
191 |
| cathedral-hs |
15 |
| children |
73 |
| church |
469 |
| climbing |
23 |
| comedy |
174 |
| comics |
1 |
| community |
883 |
| conferences |
96 |
| confernces |
1 |
| conflict-resolution |
7 |
| cycling |
21 |
| dance |
156 |
| dining |
4 |
| diving |
18 |
| dorchester |
4 |
| east-boston-hs |
17 |
| education |
365 |
| english |
7 |
| environment |
12 |
| european |
4 |
| eventbrite |
452 |
| eventful |
2692 |
| facebook |
436 |
| family |
79 |
| fashion |
4 |
| film |
194 |
| finance |
2 |
| fitness |
2 |
| food |
115 |
| football |
1 |
| french |
3 |
| games |
33 |
| german |
3 |
| government |
42 |
| green-technology |
2 |
| harvard |
11 |
| health |
206 |
| highschool |
142 |
| hiking |
44 |
| hispanic |
1 |
| history |
156 |
| hockey |
35 |
| indian |
4 |
| irish |
1 |
| islamic |
15 |
| italian |
13 |
| japanese |
50 |
| jazz |
70 |
| language |
83 |
| law |
5 |
| lectures |
304 |
| lgbt |
1 |
| library |
378 |
| martial-arts |
47 |
| massart |
10 |
| meditation |
10 |
| meetup |
975 |
| mensa |
46 |
| museum |
94 |
| music |
2023 |
| nature |
91 |
| networking |
105 |
| northeastern |
167 |
| performing-arts |
222 |
| philanthropy |
1 |
| philosophy |
6 |
| photography |
53 |
| poetry |
10 |
| politics |
153 |
| polyamory |
10 |
| portuguese |
8 |
| pub-crawl |
4 |
| recreation |
201 |
| running |
59 |
| sailing |
7 |
| science |
151 |
| seminars |
10 |
| simmons |
15 |
| social-justice |
89 |
| softball |
1 |
| south-boston-hs |
1 |
| spanish |
1 |
| spirituality |
106 |
| sports |
590 |
| statistics |
2 |
| suffolk |
2 |
| support |
46 |
| surfing |
2 |
| swimming |
29 |
| synagogue |
5 |
| technology |
320 |
| theater |
90 |
| tourism |
43 |
| tours |
90 |
| travel |
3 |
| umass |
9 |
| university |
599 |
| upcoming |
212 |
| visual-arts |
72 |
| volunteer |
46 |
| women |
25 |
| writing |
17 |
| ymca |
4 |
| yoga |
27 |
|
|
Seattle
| africa |
4 |
| animals |
26 |
| aquarium |
13 |
| art |
563 |
| arts-and-crafts |
14 |
| ballet |
4 |
| basketball |
31 |
| beer |
1 |
| boating |
9 |
| books |
201 |
| business |
62 |
| business-and-technology |
31 |
| charity-and-volunteer |
10 |
| children |
302 |
| chinese |
28 |
| church |
399 |
| circus |
23 |
| cleveland-high |
9 |
| climbing |
16 |
| coffee |
4 |
| comedy |
47 |
| comics |
1 |
| community |
574 |
| conferences |
65 |
| cooking |
3 |
| dance |
151 |
| diving |
8 |
| dogs |
3 |
| education |
103 |
| environment |
123 |
| eventbrite |
139 |
| eventful |
1996 |
| facebook |
216 |
| fairs-and-festivals |
13 |
| film |
136 |
| finance |
22 |
| fitness |
243 |
| food |
40 |
| food-and-dining |
26 |
| games |
114 |
| garfield-high |
12 |
| german |
13 |
| government |
145 |
| gradeschool |
17 |
| green-technology |
1 |
| health |
192 |
| highschool |
35 |
| hiking |
74 |
| history |
4 |
| ingraham-high |
1 |
| insurance |
1 |
| italian |
3 |
| japanese |
17 |
| jazz |
46 |
| knitting |
35 |
| language |
153 |
| latin-american |
30 |
| lectures |
101 |
| lgbt |
21 |
| library |
190 |
| martial-arts |
1 |
| meetup |
1107 |
| museum |
77 |
| music |
1223 |
| native-american |
20 |
| nature |
32 |
| networking |
54 |
| nonprofit |
4 |
| nscc |
1 |
| opera |
2 |
| pacific-science-center |
609 |
| performing-arts |
337 |
| philosophy |
2 |
| photography |
12 |
| police |
11 |
| politics |
31 |
| real-estate |
1 |
| recreation |
195 |
| roosevelt-high |
4 |
| running |
108 |
| science |
174 |
| sculpture |
1 |
| seattle.gov |
449 |
| seattlepi |
347 |
| seattleu |
12 |
| seminars |
23 |
| skiing |
2 |
| spanish |
19 |
| spirituality |
29 |
| sports |
151 |
| storytelling |
1 |
| sustainability |
5 |
| swedish |
73 |
| synagogue |
4 |
| technology |
98 |
| teens |
94 |
| theater |
166 |
| tourism |
11 |
| town-hall-seattle |
54 |
| transportation |
87 |
| travel |
9 |
| trumba |
296 |
| university |
390 |
| upcoming |
66 |
| uw |
366 |
| vegan |
4 |
| visual-arts |
89 |
| volunteer |
48 |
| walk-bike-ride |
3 |
| walking |
41 |
| wallingford |
159 |
| wine |
9 |
| witches |
13 |
| women |
26 |
| writing |
42 |
| yoga |
21 |
| youth |
105 |
|
|
| Common Tags |
| animals |
| art |
| basketball |
| boating |
| books |
| business |
| children |
| church |
| climbing |
| comedy |
| comics |
| community |
| conferences |
| dance |
| diving |
| education |
| environment |
| eventbrite |
| eventful |
| facebook |
| film |
| finance |
| fitness |
| food |
| games |
| german |
| government |
| green-technology |
| health |
| highschool |
| hiking |
| history |
| italian |
| japanese |
| jazz |
| language |
| lectures |
| lgbt |
| library |
| martial-arts |
| meetup |
| museum |
| music |
| nature |
| networking |
| performing-arts |
| philosophy |
| photography |
| politics |
| recreation |
| running |
| science |
| seminars |
| spanish |
| spirituality |
| sports |
| synagogue |
| technology |
| theater |
| tourism |
| travel |
| university |
| upcoming |
| visual-arts |
| volunteer |
| women |
| writing |
| yoga |
|
Among the dynamics in play here, we can see the general and specific principle at work. For a general tag like university there are city-specific instantiations: bu and northeastern for Boston, uw and seattleu and nscc for Seattle. Likewise for the general tag highschool there are specific tags like boston-latin-hs and cathedral-hs for Boston, garfield-high and ingraham-high for Seattle.
These city-specific tags are top-down in the sense that I, as curator of the hub, have assigned them and made them part of the hub’s core tag vocabulary. But they are also bottom-up in the sense that they represent discoverable sources that are providing enough event flow to warrant such treatment.
These core hub vocabularies are fluid. As I move from hub to hub I’ve been keeping an eye on the common core and refactoring all the hub vocabularies as I go along. I also use these evolving hub vocabularies as templates against which to match vocabularies from other sources.
Mechanism: Tag matching
Some of the source services, notably Eventful and EventBrite, include per-event tags. When one of these tags matches a tag in the (evolving) core vocabulary for that hub, the elmcity service adds that tag to the event’s list of tags which it inherited from its feed.
There are also tables for each foreign service that map tags used there to tags in the hub’s core vocabulary. So, for example, the Eventful tag movies_film and the EventBrite tag movies both map to the core tag film.
As we saw in Portable tags, some iCalendar feeds use the CATEGORIES property of the iCalendar format to express per-event tags. Managing these tags is trickier because, well, they’re unmanaged. Until recently I was suppressing them. Now I’m experimentally allowing them to appear, but segregating them from the core vocabulary. If you check the tags for Boston or Seattle or another city you’ll see that the list divides into two sections. The first presents managed tags: the core vocabulary. The second presents unmanaged tags from iCalendar feeds, enclosed in squiggly brackets to differentiate them from the core vocabulary.
Here’s the current set of unmanaged tags for Boston and Seattle:
| Boston |
| {academics} |
10 |
| {adams street} |
4 |
{air pollution control
commission hearings} |
1 |
| {alumni relations} |
6 |
| {athletics} |
6 |
| {bikes} |
1 |
| {blc} |
3 |
| {boston home center} |
2 |
| {boston main streets} |
1 |
| {boston public library} |
3 |
| {brighton} |
2 |
| {central library} |
84 |
| {charlestown} |
2 |
| {city clerk} |
15 |
| {city council} |
8 |
{college of arts &
sciences} |
10 |
{college of business
administration} |
1 |
{college of computer
& information science} |
13 |
| {college of engineering} |
13 |
| {commercial} |
1 |
| {connolly} |
12 |
| {dnd} |
1 |
| {dudley literacy center} |
11 |
| {dudley} |
19 |
| {east boston} |
9 |
| {egleston square} |
3 |
| {elderly commission} |
1 |
| {election} |
1 |
| {faneuil} |
2 |
| {fields corner} |
11 |
| {group exercise} |
4 |
| {grove hall} |
11 |
| {honan- allston} |
11 |
| {hyde park} |
10 |
| {jamaica plain} |
7 |
| {licensing} |
1 |
| {lower mills} |
5 |
| {massart events} |
1 |
| {mattapan} |
15 |
| {north end} |
11 |
| {ongoing} |
33 |
| {orient heights} |
5 |
| {other} |
90 |
| {parker hill} |
10 |
| {performing/visual arts} |
60 |
| {president} |
1 |
| {public event} |
139 |
{public health
commission} |
1 |
| {roslindale} |
8 |
| {social} |
6 |
| {south boston} |
18 |
| {south end} |
6 |
| {student affairs} |
2 |
| {student development} |
9 |
| {uphams corner} |
2 |
| {washington village} |
4 |
| {west end} |
13 |
| {west roxbury} |
4 |
|
|
| Seattle |
| {animal shelter} |
23 |
{athletics/varsity
sports/men} |
3 |
{athletics/varsity
sports/women} |
4 |
| {athletics} |
6 |
{boards &
commissions} |
32 |
| {bothell} |
29 |
| {built environments} |
3 |
| {career management} |
1 |
| {city council} |
88 |
| {community centers} |
29 |
| {community outreach} |
10 |
| {community technology} |
18 |
| {concerts} |
17 |
| {continuing education} |
20 |
| {diversity} |
2 |
| {eastside } |
58 |
| {emergency} |
12 |
| {engineering} |
13 |
| {environmental learning} |
3 |
| {exhibits} |
97 |
| {farther afield} |
10 |
| {forums} |
8 |
| {global health} |
1 |
| {health sciences} |
18 |
| {hearing examiner} |
12 |
| {hr-benefits} |
1 |
{jackson school of
international studies} |
6 |
| {libraries} |
1 |
| {meetings} |
5 |
| {north sound} |
19 |
| {office of the mayor} |
2 |
| {other} |
1 |
| {panel discussions} |
2 |
| {parks} |
2 |
| {performing/visual arts} |
29 |
| {psychology} |
4 |
| {ptsa} |
6 |
{public outreach and
engagement} |
68 |
| {public} |
23 |
| {readings} |
1 |
| {research} |
1 |
| {sales} |
1 |
| {school of art} |
92 |
| {school of business} |
22 |
| {schoolof art} |
1 |
| {seattle area} |
188 |
| {seattle fire department} |
2 |
{seattle youth
commission} |
11 |
| {south sound} |
21 |
| {special events} |
16 |
| {sports/spirit} |
1 |
| {student activities} |
6 |
| {tacoma} |
3 |
| {technical communication} |
8 |
{the center for wooden
boats – south lake union} |
9 |
| {tours} |
27 |
| {training} |
13 |
| {urbanization} |
1 |
| {vst} |
1 |
| {walk bike ride} |
3 |
| {workshops} |
6 |
|
When one of these tags matches a tag in a hub’s core vocabulary I promote it — that is, I treat it as part of the managed core and it no longer shows up in squigglies. That’s a top-down approach. But there’s a complementary bottom-up approach. As I scan the unmanaged tags, both within and across hubs, it can become clear that an unmanaged tag belongs in the managed core. To accomplish that I simply use the unmanaged tag somewhere in the managed core. From then on, occurrences of the unmanaged tag are promoted into the core.
A logical next step is to enable curators to edit per-hub maps so that, for example, Seattle’s {central library} and Boston’s {libraries} will be promoted to simply library. I haven’t built this mapping feature yet but it’s on the todo list.
I’m still exploring the interplay between the top-down and bottom-up approaches. But it definitely feels like the right way to handle common vocabularies augmented by different (and regionally-varying) vocabularies.
(This series: elmcity tagging principles.)
Like this:
Like Loading...
