Deane Barker has a knack for getting at the heart of interesting problems. Here, in the space of a single tweet, he gets at the fundamental nature of content and taxonomy.
So, I used this an example earlier, but let me just ask this directly: should categories or taxonomy nodes be full-blown content objects, just like the content they organize? Should a category assignment just be a link between two content objects then?
— Deane Barker (@deane_barker) July 2, 2019
At bottom, this is a CMS question: How do you decide whether a particular set of things counts as a set of categories (a taxonomy) or as a distinct content type? It’s a question that vexes content strategists regularly.
Here’s where we get to the conflation part.
Content is like a work of art. (Yes, I know this analogy may make authors even more precious about what they do. But bear with me.) A piece of content is like a painting—it’s a single, discrete thing that makes a particular point.
Taxonomy, on the other hand, is a work of curation. It’s the connective tissue that binds particular pieces of work into specific exhibits. Sometimes those taxonomies can be quite general (e.g., a gallery map that shows that French impressionists are in rooms 345–349 on the 6th floor). Other times, the taxonomy can be very specific (e.g., a sign explaining that the sketch you are seeing is the 4th draft of Hopper’s sketch for Nighthawks).
That work is likely to take on several different forms. Some of it will be editorial, building bespoke mixes by hand. Some of it will be via API design, writing rules or creating taxonomies for combining modules into longer collections. In the coming years, some of it may be designing the machines that go on to learn user preferences.