Understanding how users choose tags can help researchers better understand how tagging systems can be used and how to design better tagging systems for the future. We developed a simulation of del.icio.us, a popular social bookmarking tool, that allowed us to simulate users choosing tags using one of four possible strategies for tag choice found in the literature. We then compared the resulting tag choices with empirical data retrieved from del.icio.us to determine which tag choice strategies would result in choices most similar to those seen in the real world. We were able to rule out three of the strategies as unlikely to be the primary means by which tags are chosen on del.icio.us.

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