not "a failure", btw, but "failure" ... something that i don't think we talk about enough.

This reminded me that tags take their meaning not just from what they say, but from the position they occupy between people and their interests.

My tags are liminal objects, staking out a boundary between me and stuff out there that i care about. That boundary isn't fixed, but variable. And it's that variablility in the boundary condition that makes tag analysis as challenging as it is. Sometimes the ties are strong, sometimes they're weaker ... sometimes i invest a lot in tagging, sometimes it's quick and done...

studying tag vocabulary is a window into what people notice. it's interesting as much for the aggregate (what many people notice) as for the outlier (what's noticed only by one).

/jt