Schmetadata 2: Judgment Day

Think of it as the Revenge of the Empiricists.

A few days ago my earlier post about metadata, with the conclusion that “we don’t need metadata,” caught the attention of Daniel Tunkelang. It just so happens that Daniel is the chief scientist at Endeca, a prominent enterprise information company. You know, like, he knows what he’s talking about.

Long story short, Daniel commented on my post here and then, after I responded, mirrored our discussion in Does Metadata Matter, a new thread at The Noisy Channel, his blog that hosts vigorous discussions of search design and other enterprise information issues way above my pay grade. Daniel and others there critically but constructively took me to task because of the empirically unsupported general conclusion that metadata is not needed, and the specific failure to make clear the anecdotal basis for our conclusion about metadata on this project. As you can see from the discussion at Daniel’s blog, they killed me on the empirical point. In response, I better explained there than I did in my original post why our conclusion about not needing metadata on this project makes sense.

The discussion there ended on Christopher’s grace note, something that the TIG program and others within the legal services community will appreciate:

I also want to applaud your project which I should have done before, the mission your team has set is very admirable. It’s gratifying to see technology being put to use to help people who may not otherwise be able to have access to the same advances we do.

If you’re interested in enterprise search, you should consider paying The Noisy Channel a visit.