Public SourceMage Discussion List

["Jeremy Blosser (emrys)" <jblosser-smgl AT firinn.org>]

On Apr 05, Seth Alan Woolley [seth AT positivism.org] wrote:
> So far the main arguments against our proposal are:
> 
> 1) difficulty searching by category in filesystem
...
> For point 1, I'm philosophically opposed to the very "idea" that a 
> heirarchical classification system can be made close to any general 
> ideal.  They can only be made to specific ideals, and there's no way 
> we'll be able to all agree on our ideals.  So I think it's better to 
> break us from the restriction of attemtpting to make a coherent 
> directory classification system intended for general audiences and 
> instead focus on one that allows gurus to be assigned to one or more 
> directories, which is the specific use with which we actually use the 
> directories for.

The point is not to have a completely perfect ideal taxonomy.  As you've
noted, taxonimists and information architects gave up on that kind of thing
some time ago.  The point is to have something that is both consistent and
meaningful, supplanted where it isn't perfect by documentation and (if
absolutely necessary), other tools.  Anything that is presented to users
needs some kind of taxonomy so they at least have a place to start.  This
applies to websites and is why the unix world has (and sourcemage generally
supports) the LFS, desktop file spec, etc.

Guru assignment is indeed what *we* use directories for, but users will
have their own uses, some of which we probably don't even know about.  The
maintainer info is generally not worth two shits to users, so there's no
point in forcing that view of the grimoires on them.  Those that want it
should be able to get it if they need it, but the rest shouldn't have to
bend to our needs.  Please keep in mind Social Contract provision #4.

There are still ways to have our cake and eat it too, though; see my other
mail in this thread for some proposals.

Attachment: pgpPi1_FIUgch.pgp
Description: PGP signature