I just saw a tweet asking how to measure how “well” a topic map organized information? In other words, what is the payoff of new topics and associations?
Well, yes, but you have to define what you mean by “well” organized.
Two quick examples but I need to return to this topic fairly soon.
Example 1.
You are writing a topic map about George W. Bush, one of the celebratory kind about how he pursued terrorists, etc.
Would you include a topic and association about Switzerland not being on his travel agenda because of outstanding warrants for his arrest as a suspected war criminal? http://www.schweizmagazin.ch/news/schweiz/5627-Sommaruga-will-Bush-verhaften.html
Would inclusion of that information make your topic map better organized? More complete?
Example 2.
You are contributing to a public topic map about gene mappings.
Due to internal research, you know that while accurate, a proposed association will lead to no where in terms of drug research. And that it is very likely your competitors will think you slipped by posting it and run off to pursue it.
Do you post less information than you know about the subject? Doesn’t make the information you do post inaccurate.
Has that lessened the organizational value of the topic map?
The question is a complicated one.
I think Sam Hunting would say it is a matter of contract. What sort of information was warranted to be in the map, what degree of completeness, accuracy, etc.? That gets more difficult when we start talking about public topic maps.
It is something that I think merits a lot of exploration.