Authority
Below is a translation of the article by Peter Morville, one of the authors of the book Information Architecture on the Internet, the leader and founder of SemanticStudios. The author discusses what authority has become in today's Internet world. Article 2005, but it seems to me quite relevant.
I have a problem with authority. And the point is not that I am self-willed, independent and do not listen to anyone. I really am, but it's not about that. It bothers me that all sorts of bloggers, wikipedians, folksomonisty and other social Internet activists are increasingly abusing this word.
In the good old days, not so long ago, the term "credibility" was used as a criterion for evaluating print publications, most often by librarians. In addition to the reliability, objectivity and relevance of the source, its credibility was assessed. Who is author? What is publishing? What is known about their prestige, competence and reputation? Was the book edited? Has she been reviewed? Can it be considered an authoritative source?
')
But then the concept of “credibility” fell into the clutches of Technorati users, where it quickly lost its original meaning, lost in the thick mess of authenticity, popularity, power, reliability and relevance. In the tumult of semantic anarchy, these words were scattered to the right and left.
Connoisseurs of hierarchy and hypertext have a cause for concern. Fortunately, before the tag clouds completely obscured the sun, a new source of radiance and authority appeared in the sky.
There was a fear that no one could control this process. But the largest, most accessible and most popular encyclopedia in the world appeared, which showed that everything controls the process.
This is a step from evolution to the theory of intelligent design: the accuracy, objectivity and relevance of the result are pleasantly surprising. By the way, the article about authority also did not disappoint:
The article describes three types of authority according to Max Weber (traditional, rational-legal, charismatic) and contains references to related concepts: law, power and trust. Or at least it was when I last visited the page. Since then, she could change.
But although this variability is extremely inconvenient when quoting, it does not make the source less reliable. Old school librarians may argue that Wikipedia articles are not authoritative sources due to their pseudo-anonymity and a considerable number of authors. But this opinion is wrong. Their authority is based on the structure of information, the design and management of the site, the Wikipedia brand and the widespread belief in intellectual integrity and the power of collective intelligence.
Of course, it happens that the so-called trolls specifically distort information, it happens that non-professionals add erroneous information; but before you throw stones at Wikipedia, you should reconsider your belief in the authority of traditional print media. After all, even in the respectable encyclopedia "Britannica" there are errors, not to mention the small but indisputable distortions caused by subjective opinion and corporate correctness.
Any reader of newspapers, books, or academic journals will tell you that things are getting worse. This industry is experiencing a crisis of fierce competition in the context of falling demand. For the traditional publishing business, it is time for mistakes. Spelling and punctuation are just insignificant losses in this war of survival, in which all attempts at verifying the facts have long ago died a death for the brave.
In this desperate situation, the emergence of Wikipedia - the brainchild of joint categorization and publishing from the bottom-up (along with the relatively minor successes of de.licio.us and Flickr) - inspired enthusiastic anarchists, antitaxonists and folksonomy fetishists so much that they immediately began to predict the death of not only the traditional printing systems, but also the hierarchy itself.
Although Folksonomy was born on the basis of an information architecture, it was quickly appropriated by Technorati. Dave Sylphrey believes that:
Do not misunderstand me. I admire tags no less than their most ardent apologist. And I like the revolutionary ideas of free tagging. But even if Tim O'Reilly, who publishes books with lemurs and polar bears on the covers, begins to predict the death of the taxonomy, this means that it is time to clarify the situation.
After all, tags are only visible, superficial symbols of much deeper revolutionary processes affecting questions of search and authority. Wikipedia is more popular than Britons, not because its authors are better. It is more popular because search is more convenient in it. Such success is impossible without structure. In fact, Wikipedia has a traditional information architecture (with a strictly established design and a fixed left navigation panel) and a traditional management model (Jimbo Wells and the board of trustees are absolute corporate power).
Of course, Wikipedia is just a pawn in this revolution, started by Google. In the end, Larry and Sergey were the first to decide to make money on folksonomy in 1990, with the advent of PageRank algorithm that uses links to determine credibility and relevance. In this sense, Google was the first to master free tagging. And he taught us a few lessons:
Google costs about $ 90 billion, because Google helps to find what you need. And Google has developed a highly efficient search engine by using many algorithms that use:
And although the famous Googlebombs clearly showed us that sometimes the authority of the masses can override the relevance of an object, as a rule, the search result quite accurately matches the query. Folksonomy systems such as Flickr or del.icio.us, perfectly demonstrate the principle, but when it comes to the actual search, they do not compare with Google, Google Images, Google Desktop.
Herbert Simon was clearly overly optimistic when he claimed that we satisfy our needs with the principle of bounded rationality. Anyone who has dealt with the decision-making process knows that human behavior rather fits into the framework of unlimited irrationality. The following psychological traps are best described:
Now comes the amazing power of Google, Wikipedia and other information resources with an effective search engine that influence what we are looking for, who we trust and how we make decisions.
Of course, we must also recognize the power of each individual, given to him by the open information space — the power to choose our sources and our news. In today's Google-economy, we are increasingly becoming our own authority.
But the real rebellion is still to come. A generation of schoolchildren is growing up (and their teachers and librarians) who are trying to reconcile traditional notions of education, objectivity and credibility, with a constructivist network of collective truths and a collective mind, where folksonomy flourishes and truth has many facets. Can not wait.
Long live the revolution!
Other articles about where to roll this web, you can look at our website Nomagic.ru
I have a problem with authority. And the point is not that I am self-willed, independent and do not listen to anyone. I really am, but it's not about that. It bothers me that all sorts of bloggers, wikipedians, folksomonisty and other social Internet activists are increasingly abusing this word.
In the good old days, not so long ago, the term "credibility" was used as a criterion for evaluating print publications, most often by librarians. In addition to the reliability, objectivity and relevance of the source, its credibility was assessed. Who is author? What is publishing? What is known about their prestige, competence and reputation? Was the book edited? Has she been reviewed? Can it be considered an authoritative source?
')
But then the concept of “credibility” fell into the clutches of Technorati users, where it quickly lost its original meaning, lost in the thick mess of authenticity, popularity, power, reliability and relevance. In the tumult of semantic anarchy, these words were scattered to the right and left.
Connoisseurs of hierarchy and hypertext have a cause for concern. Fortunately, before the tag clouds completely obscured the sun, a new source of radiance and authority appeared in the sky.
Wikipedia
There was a fear that no one could control this process. But the largest, most accessible and most popular encyclopedia in the world appeared, which showed that everything controls the process.
This is a step from evolution to the theory of intelligent design: the accuracy, objectivity and relevance of the result are pleasantly surprising. By the way, the article about authority also did not disappoint:
People obey authority out of respect, just as they obey authorities for fear ... Authority should not be rational or consistent, it is accepted as a source of truth, prohibitions and permissions.
The article describes three types of authority according to Max Weber (traditional, rational-legal, charismatic) and contains references to related concepts: law, power and trust. Or at least it was when I last visited the page. Since then, she could change.
But although this variability is extremely inconvenient when quoting, it does not make the source less reliable. Old school librarians may argue that Wikipedia articles are not authoritative sources due to their pseudo-anonymity and a considerable number of authors. But this opinion is wrong. Their authority is based on the structure of information, the design and management of the site, the Wikipedia brand and the widespread belief in intellectual integrity and the power of collective intelligence.
Of course, it happens that the so-called trolls specifically distort information, it happens that non-professionals add erroneous information; but before you throw stones at Wikipedia, you should reconsider your belief in the authority of traditional print media. After all, even in the respectable encyclopedia "Britannica" there are errors, not to mention the small but indisputable distortions caused by subjective opinion and corporate correctness.
Any reader of newspapers, books, or academic journals will tell you that things are getting worse. This industry is experiencing a crisis of fierce competition in the context of falling demand. For the traditional publishing business, it is time for mistakes. Spelling and punctuation are just insignificant losses in this war of survival, in which all attempts at verifying the facts have long ago died a death for the brave.
Folksonomy hyperbole
In this desperate situation, the emergence of Wikipedia - the brainchild of joint categorization and publishing from the bottom-up (along with the relatively minor successes of de.licio.us and Flickr) - inspired enthusiastic anarchists, antitaxonists and folksonomy fetishists so much that they immediately began to predict the death of not only the traditional printing systems, but also the hierarchy itself.
Although Folksonomy was born on the basis of an information architecture, it was quickly appropriated by Technorati. Dave Sylphrey believes that:
Tags are a simple but powerful innovation of the social internet. Today, millions of people freely include metadata in their notes and conversations. Unlike taxonomic schemes that are unpopular because of their inflexibility, tags help to easily organize personal information and get its social assessment. Naturally, this leads to the widespread development of the folksonomy. Information is provided by real people to make it easier for others to search. With a well-chosen search and navigation system, the folxonomy will give a hundred points ahead to any structured approach.
Do not misunderstand me. I admire tags no less than their most ardent apologist. And I like the revolutionary ideas of free tagging. But even if Tim O'Reilly, who publishes books with lemurs and polar bears on the covers, begins to predict the death of the taxonomy, this means that it is time to clarify the situation.
After all, tags are only visible, superficial symbols of much deeper revolutionary processes affecting questions of search and authority. Wikipedia is more popular than Britons, not because its authors are better. It is more popular because search is more convenient in it. Such success is impossible without structure. In fact, Wikipedia has a traditional information architecture (with a strictly established design and a fixed left navigation panel) and a traditional management model (Jimbo Wells and the board of trustees are absolute corporate power).
Of course, Wikipedia is just a pawn in this revolution, started by Google. In the end, Larry and Sergey were the first to decide to make money on folksonomy in 1990, with the advent of PageRank algorithm that uses links to determine credibility and relevance. In this sense, Google was the first to master free tagging. And he taught us a few lessons:
- Effective search first!
- The revolution has many algorithms.
Google costs about $ 90 billion, because Google helps to find what you need. And Google has developed a highly efficient search engine by using many algorithms that use:
- Full text. Comparison of words in the query and content.
- Information architecture. Analysis of the structure of internal links and manually entered website metadata.
- Free tagging. Follow links to other sites.
And although the famous Googlebombs clearly showed us that sometimes the authority of the masses can override the relevance of an object, as a rule, the search result quite accurately matches the query. Folksonomy systems such as Flickr or del.icio.us, perfectly demonstrate the principle, but when it comes to the actual search, they do not compare with Google, Google Images, Google Desktop.
Free authority
Herbert Simon was clearly overly optimistic when he claimed that we satisfy our needs with the principle of bounded rationality. Anyone who has dealt with the decision-making process knows that human behavior rather fits into the framework of unlimited irrationality. The following psychological traps are best described:
- Engagement. When making a decision, we are most affected by the information obtained first.
- The confirmation. Selective perception makes us unwittingly seek information. which would confirm our point of view, and avoid evidence to the contrary.
Now comes the amazing power of Google, Wikipedia and other information resources with an effective search engine that influence what we are looking for, who we trust and how we make decisions.
Of course, we must also recognize the power of each individual, given to him by the open information space — the power to choose our sources and our news. In today's Google-economy, we are increasingly becoming our own authority.
But the real rebellion is still to come. A generation of schoolchildren is growing up (and their teachers and librarians) who are trying to reconcile traditional notions of education, objectivity and credibility, with a constructivist network of collective truths and a collective mind, where folksonomy flourishes and truth has many facets. Can not wait.
Long live the revolution!
Other articles about where to roll this web, you can look at our website Nomagic.ru
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/38122/
All Articles