Order Out of Nothingness: Tagging 101

“I’m organized but not overly so. I mean, I kept my books in alphabetical order as a kid, but I didn’t think of it as an early indicator of the career path I’d take. But I do appreciate order, so when I import a CD into iTunes and iTunes assigns metadata to my lovely new tunes via its Gracenotes system (which compiles user-generated and submitted data), it’s a relief to me, when the provided data has been entered with, you know, some semblance of order. Often, it isn’t. In reviewing this data over time, I noticed users make certain mistakes consistently when tagging their music. These mistakes then, reveal principles, and though they happen to apply to music in my iPod, in practice, they also apply to tagging other digital files.” (Robert Stribley – Scatter/Gather)

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