Like a Wiki Diamond

I want to make a tool for creating websites based on faceted classification. This is basically what I do for work, but I want to make a simple version that emphasizes ease of use over feature set. This would be targeted at self-publishing (ala Movable Type) and community-publishing (ala Wiki).

Faceted classification is a technique that lets you categorize "things" into multiple overlapping hierarchies. For example a Madonna CD might be categorized under "Artists / Madonna" as well as "Format / Compact Disc" and "Price / $10 - $15". The advantage of this is that it doesn't force a dominant decomposition upon the user (to borrow a phrase from Aspect Oriented Programming). For example, one user might restrict themselves to cheap CD's first, while another user might want everything Madonna, cost be damned.

I don't have time to work on this idea quite yet, but I've been thinking about it for a few weeks so I wanted to post my current conception of it. Here's a quick list of the requirements I'm envisioning:

  • Web-based administration and editing.
  • Multiple navigation paradigms:
    • linear -- previous and next links
    • hierarchical -- children and parent links
    • web -- links between nodes, possibly bi-directional
    • feed -- every combination of categories has its own RSS feed
    • search -- all text is keyword searchable
    • refinements -- automatically suggests sub-categories to narrow the search
  • Automatic tagging of author and date -- this would make weblog-style sites relatively easy to create.
  • Permissioning -- restrict which users can create new items, change categorizations, etc.
  • Comment facility -- this affects the permissioning system.
  • Publically-editable categorization -- this also affects the permissioning system.
  • Database backed -- this kind of site simply has too many pages to use static pages.
  • Easy to install -- perhaps CGI?

What kind of site would this system be useful for? Well I could use it for my history idea, for one. It would also be useful for catalog sites like freshmeat. And it might encourage a weblog-wiki hybrid that people might find useful.

The underlying assumption I'm making is that if you make software that structures information differently, then it will find its own unique uses. Think of the difference between web pages (one-way links, read-only), weblogs (single author, public comments, chronological), newsgroups (subject categories, threaded discussions), wiki (interlinked, publically editable), and instant messages (immediate, point-to-point).

Followups to Like a Wiki Diamond:

Posted on July 31, 2003 10:36 PM
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Comments

I included hierarchical faceted classification (and RSS feeds for each combination of categories) as one of my requirements for The Ultimate Weblogging System.

For ease of use, you wouldn’t need to set up any categories when first starting your site. But once you had more than about 20 entries, the main page would have a section reading something like:

You have a lot of entries now. If you like, you can put them into categories to make them easier to find. ( Organize Categories… )

Similarly, when an existing category accumulated over 20 entries, you’d get:

The category “Cat pictures” has a lot of entries now. If you like, you can put them in subcategories to make them easier to find. ( Organize Subcategories… )

For some facets (e.g. “Topic”) hierarchy would be appropriate, whereas for others (e.g. “Mood”) it would not.

I would be delighted if this feature was added to an existing Free CMS with non-crufty URIs, rather than having to wait for an entire new system to be developed before I could use it. :-)

Posted by: mpt at August 2, 2003 07:32 PM

A follow up:

http://www.dehora.net/journal/archives/000338.html#000338

but essentially a Wiki will do most of what you're asking for.

(This looks like an MT blog; consider turning trackback on)

Posted by: Bill de hÓra at August 3, 2003 07:54 AM

Working on parts of this already (currently from a rich client point of view, though the server side will follow). Your list is appreciated, as are any other feature requests.

http://ideagraph.net

Posted by: Danny at August 3, 2003 11:36 AM

I like the multi-categorization idea since I am looking for a new library system to easily organize all my bibtex entries for papers and books I have read....

Posted by: Wisp at August 4, 2003 01:56 PM

XFML is an XML-based markup for faceted metadata. Seems like it might be useful for this project.

Posted by: kim at August 4, 2003 07:40 PM

Here is a list of weblog/wiki combinations.

Posted by: kim at August 7, 2003 03:51 PM

Don't forget some of the systems which already use faceted classification, including sourceforge, and epinions.

Posted by: David Jeske at August 14, 2003 11:47 PM

Sounds to me like you either want: oddmuse (http://www.oddmuse.org) a very flexible wiki system that supports heirchies, multi-user settings, page clusters and trails, etc. It's my tool of choice for damn near anything right now - my wiki homepage is http://wiki.greywulf.net. Mail me if you'd like a to set up a wiki of your own to try it out on my space.

Or, you want blosxom (http://www.blosxom.com) and a lot of the plugins to do what you need. That's an SRME (solution requiring more effort), but would give you the chance to get your hands dirty devising the solution you want.

Personally, I'd use oddmuse as it covers pretty much all your technical criteria. The organization and structure is up to you.

Posted by: greywulf at August 23, 2004 08:44 AM

what about social network theory?

Posted by: me at May 7, 2006 09:47 PM
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