Is there an average incidence of merging?
I know the rhetoric well enough, discover new relationships, subjects, cross domain or even semantic universe boundaries, etc., but ok, how often?
Take for example the Opera and CIA World Fact Book topic maps. When they merge, how many topics actually merge?
One expects only the geographic locations, which is useful but what percentage of the overall topics does that represent? In either map?
Questions:
- Is incidence of merging a useful measurement? Yes/No, Why?
- Is there something beyond incidence of merging that you would measure for merged topic maps?
- How would you evaluate the benefits of merging two (or more) topic maps?
- How would you plan for merging in a topic map design?
(Either of the last two questions can be expanded into design projects.)