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Emilee Rader

Associate Professor @ the University of Wisconsin-Madison

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Influences on Tag Choices in del.icio.us

by: Emilee Rader and Rick Wash

Abstract

Collaborative tagging systems have the potential to produce socially constructed information organization schemes. The effectiveness of tags for finding and re-finding information depends upon how individual users choose tags; however, influences on users’ tag choices are poorly understood. We quantitatively test competing hypotheses from the literature concerning these choices, using data from del.icio.us (a collaborative tagging system for organizing web bookmarks) and a computer model of possible tag choice strategies. We find evidence that users choose tags in a pattern consistent with personal information management goals, rather than as a result of social influence.

Reference

Emilee Rader and Rick Wash. “Influences on Tag Choices in del.icio.usProceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). San Diego, CA. November 2008.

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