WiserEarth Area of Focus Suggestions

Hello Heather,

Though I'm not involved in establishing the current AoF taxonomy, enclosed below is a Q&A between me and Camilla a year ago that may help answer that. The origional discussion is here: Developing a top level taxonomy for the 46 different Areas of Focus"? Q&A no. 6 is most relevant to your question here, which states that merging two AoF has never been done before.

There is also a comment by Angus in Simplify AOF Categories which states that: "AOFs are too complicated (379 categories rolled into 46 top levels) for users, hinder globalization (too much to translate), and are not very scientific (i.e. not exhaustive and mutually exclusive)."

I hope we can soon revisit and reconsider every critic/proposal/idea/suggestion that's been made to date related to the Areas of Focus and sum things up to see just what are the most important issues to address and how to do so (if not already concluded or done).

Thanks for bringing this up. Any further thoughts?

~Bowo

Note: Questions are mine, answers are Camilla's.

1. What is the general policy (guideline) of the taxonomy design? (i.e. How did the current taxonomy came into being and how will this guideline determine the development of the taxonomy in the future?)

It was driven by the content that was found through researching the 100,000 organizations that populate the organizations database. We had about 100 people all over the world (including staff, volunteers, interns) who inputted the data and helped to develop the taxonomy based on their research (if the work of an organization didn't fit with any of the existing AOFs, a new area was created. A naturalist also helped to consult on the AOFs and many of his recommendations were integrated into the list.

2. Will there be a cap on the numbers of Sub AoF? (this will relate to JTHESSERT's concern of too many links)

No, I don't think there will be a cap, however, I don't imagine there will be more than a handful of additions - WE didn't presume to have covered all areas of focus, so this has purposely been left open for discussion and feedback. E.g. Men and Violence was added more recently as this had not been included and a number of community members felt very strongly about its addition to the taxonomy.

3. What are the parameters in deciding that a particular issue be given the status of Sub AoF and given a corresponding portal page? (i.e. at what level of detail will an issue be given the status of Sub AoF, instead of a sub-topic within a Sub AoF)

The way for deciding whether a sub AoF should exist or not...is based on whether the existing AoFs are broad enough that they will include a number of organizations, but not too specific that it covers just one or two organizations. At the moment, the additions of the new AOFs was based on feedback from a number of members of the community - they justified the inclusion/addition of the new sub AoFs based on their expertise in the area. We wrote the new definitions/portals with the help of the community and then added these.

4. Will the taxonomy be limited to three levels of Top AoF, Main AoF and Sub AoF? or will there be a fourth to accommodate the growing numbers of Sub AoF (some of which might also be too detailed/specific to be given the status of Sub AoF)?

Either a 3 level or 4 level taxonomy would work given the current number of AoFs - it is up to the editors group to decide which would enhance the user experience the most.

5. If in the end we have, say, 1000 Sub AoF and 1000 corresponding portals, will this be OK? In other words, regardless of the difficulty in reading a list of 1000 topics to choose from, was the original intention of the taxonomy design to accommodate collaboration on as many issues as possible in so many Sub AoF portals? Or is it expected that this will be solved by "simplify[ing] the AOF page and the AOF selection box" as Camilla mentioned? For example, by using a tree-like collapsible/expandable list of AoF (as MichaelK suggested in another discussion) while maintaining 1000 sub AoF and portals?

I don't believe we will ever have 1000 sub AoFs - again, we are not trying to grow the AoFs actively since this would be too many categories for anyone to navigate through. However, we may find that this list needs to extend a bit to include all the great work that is being done out there to address the issues of the day. In terms of collaboration, the current list of 379 AoFs is already long - I think we really need to improve the tools for collaboration (and usability) rather than increase the number of issue areas covered (which I don't think is an issue for users).

6. Is merging/deleting Sub AoF a possibility? or an absolute no?

Indeed, this could happen....we haven't done this yet, so not sure how it would be approached from a technical perspective.

7. Currently there seems to be a cap of 60 Sub AoF that a user can select (and perhaps any other WiserEarth entities such as orgs, resources, events, etc.). Why 60 instead of 10 for example? Is this number changeable? What role did this cap was intended to play in the first place? What are the advantages and disadvantages of assigning this cap ?

This is now unlimited.

8. Other than the difficulty/impossibility of deleting/merging Sub AoF, I noticed that the design of the current taxonomy is actually quite flexible for change. This is because, WiserEarth entities can only be assigned Sub AoF (not the Main AoF, and seemingly not the Top AoF we are trying to find in this discussion), which means that the Main AoF is quite flexible for change (creating new, deletion, or merger some) without affecting the current assignment of Sub AoF to WE entities. Is this observation of mine agreeable? or the Main AoF, like the sub AoF are not changeable (no deletion/merger)?

Absolutely....as a result I think we could implement this new high level taxonomy relatively easily as long as the main and sub AoFs are kept in place.

9. At the level of Sub AoF with our 8000 or so user base, there seems to be discrepancies or anomalies which could be hints in developing/changing the current taxonomy. For example:
Popular ones:
- Human Rights Protection (10116 organizations) (300 users)
- Environmental Education (13176 organizations) (1007 users)
Not-so-popular ones:
- Aquarium Trade (3 organizations) (24 users)
- Male Circumcision (9 organizations) (24 users)
- Shrublands (11 organizations) (35 users)
This facts relates to question no. 3 above, in the way that, isn't "Aquarium Trade" an issue too specific/detailed to be put in the same level with "Environmental Education" within the taxonomy?
While dedicating a portal to a deep and broad issue like "Environmental Education" makes a lot of sense, won't dedicating a portal page for a specific issue like "Male Circumcision" an overkill? Isn't it better to put issues such as this as "sub-topics" within Sub AoF?
Or are these facts just caused by our too-small user base?
Or are all of these facts OK in the sense that "the original intention of the taxonomy design was to accommodate collaboration on as many issues as possible in so many Sub AoF portals"? (refer to question no.5)

Again we want to be able to be as inclusive as possible, but without being too broad. The question is 'what is too broad' and 'what is too inclusive'. For example, the community member who suggested male circumcision was very passionate about the reason why this new sub-area should be included - he made a very good case for inclusion and so it was added. But by adding it retrospectively, it does not have many orgs tagged with that AoF.

In terms of Aquarium Trade, there are organizations that work in this area and it would be too broad to put them in 'global trade' or 'fish', so for people who are specifically looking to address this area, Aquarium Trade really does describe the work being done.

10. Some Sub AoF seems alike or are about similar issues. For example, in "(Main AoF) Sub AoF" format:
(Business and Economics) Ecological Economics
(Business and Economics) Natural Capitalism
(Greening of Industry) Industrial Ecology
(Sustainable Development) Sustainable Development

When a portal (such as the on adam is designing at the moment) is assigned to each sub AoF, "Discussions" on a topic, say "Calculating Earth's carrying capacity" may happen across four portals simultaneously. Is this ok?

It is tricky avoiding cross-over in any categorization, especially given the extent of the fields of work that the social justice and environmental movement are involved in. Any Aof page can be linked to any sub-portal (and the same for sub-portals) , so that the issue of cross-over will be addressed.

11. Some Sub AoF can seemingly be put under more than one Main AoF. For example:
- (Sustainable Design) Sustainable Materials Sub AoF--> "Sustainable Design" and "Greening Industry" Main AoF.
- (Greening of Industry) Life Cycle Assessment Sub AoF --> "Sustainable Design" and "Greening Industry" Main AoF.

Yes, they can....again, this cross-over is bound to happen. Over time, however, we hope to be able to minimize this redundancy as we improve the AoFs further.