There are many ways to classify the essays, and that is the basic problem. Different people will classify the same essay in different categories. This makes it hard for someone that is looking for a particular essay. The searcher will assume that the essay should be in a specific category, but the person that categorized the essay put it in a different category. This is always a problem when categorizing complex objects like essays.
The "secret" is to realize that a specific essay may belong in *several*categories simultaneously. Different people will try to find the same essay, looking in different categories. In addition, different people have different ideas about what set of categories cover the whole spectrum of essays. The trick is determining what all the categories should be, and then determining which essays go in which categories (multiple categories for a specific essay are fine). Relying on a single "category expert" to do categorization of the essays will always have problems. No matter how expert the person is, they will invariably have a worldview that will differ from others who will be searching for essays. What you need is a collaborative mechanism that pulls in the views of many people who are familiar *and unfamiliar* with the essay's subjects. Non-experts can be as valuable as experts in this process, as non-experts will also be searching for the essays. This gives you the best chance for a successful categorization effort. The easy way to do this is to build a group-categorizing wiki, which lets any forum member create categories and place the essays in it. There can be as many categories as forum members choose, and any specific essay can be in as many categories as the forum members choose. The categorization wiki should automatically alphabetize the contributed categories on the home page, and keep the links pages for each of the categories up-to-date. If you want a truly useful essay categorization, this is the way to do it. Of course, this requires the efforts of a wide range of users to participate. To jump-start the categorization effort, you can insert a question with each essay, asking the reader if the essay was in the right category, and if not, what should the category be. That answer could automatically add that essay to the new category. Having a parallel discussion forum on the categorization effort could help keep things in order. The J Software crew would be the final arbiter of the category list, helping to combine similar categories, and dealing with low-volume categories. Skip On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 11:42 AM, Howard Peelle <[email protected]>wrote: > I agree, especially if one doesn't know precisely what to look for (via > search) or would like to see related essays. How would you classify the > essays? > HAP > > > Quoting Murray Eisenberg <[email protected]>: > > The list at > http://www.jsoftware.com/**jwiki/Essays<http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Essays>is > now quite long -- so long as on the way to becoming useless to find >> something unless you know somewhat precisely what you're looking for. Any >> chance of classifying the essays by category/categories? >> >> Just a thought (not a stepping forward, unfortunately). >> >> -- >> Murray Eisenberg [email protected] >> Mathematics & Statistics Dept. >> Lederle Graduate Research Tower phone 413 549-1020 (H) >> University of Massachusetts 413 545-2859 (W) >> 710 North Pleasant Street fax 413 545-1801 >> Amherst, MA 01003-9305 >> ------------------------------**------------------------------** >> ---------- >> For information about J forums see >> http://www.jsoftware.com/**forums.htm<http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm> >> >> > > ------------------------------**------------------------------**---------- > For information about J forums see > http://www.jsoftware.com/**forums.htm<http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm> > -- Skip Cave Cave Consulting LLC Phone: 214-460-4861 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
