<firstpart> Semantic web & folksonomies </firstpart> <secondpart> Folksonomies & Legal information management </secondpart> <thirdpart> Folksonomies, law & transparency </thirdpart> <conclusion> Folksonomies! Transparency? </conclusion>

1. Internationales Rechtsinformatik Symposion
IRIS 2014
#Folksonomies:
the next step forward to transparency?
Federico Costantini
Dipartimento di Scienze Giuridiche
Università degli Studi di Udine
[name].[surname]@uniud.it
Freitag, 21. Februar 2014
Rechtswissenschaftliche Fakultät
Universität Salzburg
Churfürststraße 1 5010 Salzburg
Rechtsinformation IV
Vorsitz / Chaired by Christine Kirchberger
14:00 - 15:30
Hörsaal 208

2. <index>
<FirstPart>
Semantic web & folksonomies
</FirstPart>
<SecondPart>
Folksonomies & Legal information management
</SecondPart>
<ThirdPart>
Folksonomies, law & transparency
</ThirdPart>
<Conclusion>
Folksonomies! Transparency?
</Conclusion>
</index>
2

3. <FirstPart>
Semantic web & folksonomies
3

4. <FirstPart>
Semantic web & folksonomies
Folksonomies are today the most advanced tool to achieve transparency on the
Internet.
They can be fruitfully used in legal information management.
To support this assumption, firstly I wish to:
(1) provide some preliminary notions of semantic web
(2) define folksonomies and describe their main features
(3) understand their practical implications
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5. <FirstPart>
Semantic web & folksonomies
(1) Preliminary notions of semantic web
World Wide Web -> Semantic Web
Unstructured Data -> Metadata
NOTE:
(1) Metadata are description of the URI (Uniform Resource Identifier)
(2) Metadata are associated to URI by users according to their own preferences
(3) Collective tagging systems are tools to easily associate metadata to resources.
Berners-Lee, Tim, Tim Bray, Dan Connolly, Paul Cotton, Roy Fielding, Mario Jeckle, Chris Lilley, et al. "Architecture
of the World Wide Web." Geneva: W3C, 2004.
Halpin, Harry. Social semantics. The search for meaning on the Web. Semantic Web and Beyond. New York:
Springer, 2013.
5

6. Semantic web & folksonomies
<FirstPart>
(1) Preliminary notions of semantic web
On the internet
(Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram)
At home
(«salt», «p
epper»)
At work
(«invoices»,
«bank account»,
«payments»)
Tagging
is a
#natural
activity
By tagging we:
(1) describe the contents of an
object
(2) label the item freely
(3) use any lexical expression, even
belonging to natural language
(4) allocate many tags to an object
(5) assign the same tag to different
objects
(6) share or recommend our
6
choices and preferences

7. <FirstPart>
Semantic web & folksonomies
(2) define folksonomies and describe their main features
FOLKSONOMIES = semantic patterns resulting from the use of tags. They consist
of sets of associations among three elements: (1) the users (people who actually
place the tagging), (2) the tags themselves, and (3) the resources being tagged.
Folksonomy = Folk + Taxonomy
Vander Wal, Thomas, You down with folksonomy.
http://www.vanderwal.net/random/entrysel.php?blog=1529 (2004).
Hotho, Andreas/Jäschke, Robert/Schmitz, Christoph/Stumme, Gerd, Information retrieval in folksonomies:
Search and ranking. In: Sure Y, Domingue J (Hrsg.), The semantic web: research and applications, 4011,
Springer, Berlin Heidelberg, S. 411-426 (2006).
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8. <FirstPart>
Semantic web & folksonomies
(2) define folksonomies and describe their main features
Empirical features of
folksonomies
(1) Immediacy. It’s easy to
tag objects
(2) Spontaneity. Nobody is
forced, but people do it
(3) Language. Describing
reality is a «linguistic
game»
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical
investigations. Oxford: Blackwell, 1953.
Vander Wal, Thomas, Explaining and showing broad and narrow folksonomies.
http://www.vanderwal.net/random/entrysel.php?blog=1635 (2005).
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9. <FirstPart>
Semantic web & folksonomies
(3) understand their implications
KEY FEATURE:
In folksonomies an implicit agreement typically
arises among users in the choice of tags, thus
creating a stable and consistent core of meaning
which may be suitable as a classification scheme
for the resources.
HUMANS TAG, MACHINES COLLECT
Folksonomies -> “human computation systems”:
«intelligent systems that organize humans to carry out the process of computation»
Law, Edith, and Luis von Ahn. Human Computation. Synthesis Lectures on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
edited by Ronald J. Brachmann, William W. Cohen and Thomas Dietterich San Rafael: Morgan & Claypool Publishers,
2011.
</FirstPart>
9

10. <SecondPart>
Folksonomies & legal
information management
10

11. <SecondPart>
Folksonomies & Legal information management
In folksonomies individual activity (tagging) performed separately is aggregated by
a system in a consistent pattern which can be analyzed to gain information about
the whole community of users.
In order to consider how this tool can be applied to legal information
management, we should:
(1) clarify briefly how legal data are processed by automatic
systems and what are the issues
(2) evaluate how folksonomies can be introduced in this
context and if they could be useful to reduce/solve the
difficulties
(3) understand what are the theoretical implications of this
scenario
11

12. <SecondPart>
Folksonomies & Legal information management
(1) legal information management and its key issues
Legal information retrieval
Legal artificial reasoning
Bottom up approach
Top down approach
From legal terms to legal concepts
From conceptual representation to document
classification
KEY ISSUES
Openness
Knowledge
Define the boundaries of the domain
Define the rules
Define inferential patterns
Apply rules to legal documents
Process retrieved data
Adapt rules to changing environment
COMMON ISSUE
sharing information among different systems
Palmirani, Monica, Tommaso Ognibene, and Luca Cervone. "Legal rules, text, and ontologies over time." In
RuleML2012@ECAI Challenge, at the 6th International Symposium on Rules, edited by Hassan Aït-Kaci, YuhJong Hu, Grzegorz J. Nalepa, Monica Palmirani and Dumitru Roman, 61-78. Montpellier: CEUR-WS, 2012.
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13. <SecondPart>
Folksonomies & Legal information management
(2) evaluate the impact of folksonomies on legal information management
Legal information retrieval
Legal artificial reasoning
Openness of
legal domain
Adaptation of
legal ontology
Folksonomies
Legal information retrieval
Sharing information
Legal artificial reasoning
Openness of
legal domain
Interaction among
different systems
Adaptation of
legal ontology to
the domain
-> different methods to integrate bottom-up population with top-down standardization
Dotsika, Fefie. "Uniting formal and informal descriptive power. Reconciling ontologies with folksonomies. International Journal
13
of Information Management 29, no. 5 (Oct 2009): 407-415.

14. <SecondPart>
Folksonomies & Legal information management
(3) theoretical implications
FEATURES::
(1) the possible combinations of tags is virtually infinite
(2) metadata may refer not only to the resources, but also to the way they
interact with their environment
(3) the descriptions may refer to the individual attitude towards the resources
IMPLICATIONS:
(1) Legal information retrieval -> widen legal domain
Analyze different documents, not properly belonging to the theory of the sources of law (mainly: literature,
judicial sentences and administrative rulings
(2) Legal artificial reasoning -> shape semantic connections
Ontologies can be improved and modified according to the links among tagged texts
(3) Multilayering (legal domain <-> legal folksonomies <-> legal ontologies)
Tags can create a intermediate level of interaction among systems ( -> fuzzy logic?)
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15. <SecondPart>
Folksonomies & Legal information management
(3) theoretical implications
KEY
FEATURE:
Folksonomies
develop “lattice”
structures
(“decentralized”
pattern)
Decentralized «lattice» structure from
http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/faculty/healey/tweet_viz/tweet_app/
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16. <SecondPart>
Folksonomies & Legal information management
(3) theoretical implications
Bottom up
Top down
Decentralized network
Human
brain
Human
interactions
Computer
network
Legal
informatics
Baran, Paul. "On Distributed Communications Networks." In RAND Corporation papers: RAND, 1962.
</SecondPart>
16

17. <ThirdPart>
Folksonomies, law &
transparency
17

18. <ThirdPart>
Folksonomies, law & transparency
Having introduced how folksonomies work and how they can be applied to legal
information management, now we can tackle the issues arising with transparency.
In ordet to it, we should:
(1) define transparency from a theoretical perspective
(2) deepen the meaning of transparency in Legal informatics
(3) describe the resulting perspective
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19. Folksonomies, law & transparency
<ThirdPart>
(1) theoretical background
Transparency can be claimed as the synthesis of theroetical quarrels or
perspectives at different levels:
Ontology
• Natural Order
• Modern System
Epistemology
Philosophy of
law
Legal
information
management
• Experience
• Knowledge
• Sources of law
(legal domain)
• Legal concepts
(Legal
ontology)
• Legal
information
retrieval
• Legal artificial
reasoning
19

20. Folksonomies, law & transparency
<ThirdPart>
(1) theoretical background
From an ontological and epistemological perspective, transparency is not
a quality of the «system» in itself, but a specific view of it
SCEPTICISM
Perspectivism
(nichilism)
Natural
Order
(Reality)
Transparency
Opacity
Modern
System
(Rationality)
SCIENTISM
Philosophy of
Information
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21. Folksonomies, law & transparency
<ThirdPart>
(1) theoretical background
In philosophy of law, «opacity» of legal system tend to be overruled by a
formalistic perspective.
German Civil
Code
(legal
concepts)
Legal ontology
French Civil
Code
(sources of
law)
Legal domain
Natural
Law
(«Ordo
juris»)
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22. Folksonomies, law & transparency
<ThirdPart>
(1) theoretical background
Transparency concerns a model of legal system in which structure and
function are unified in a perpetuous process of codification of reality
X
Ordo
juris
(Nature)
Legal ontology
(legal concepts)
X
Legal
System
(Rationality)
Transparency
(codification)
Knowledge
(as a process)
Legal domain
(sources of law)
Autopoiesis
of the system
Openness
of the system
Experience
(as a process)
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23. Folksonomies, law & transparency
<ThirdPart>
(2) transparency and legal informatics
(1) Transparency is the
goal of maximum
efficiency and
effectiveness of legal
information’s processes
(2) Transparency
means that it should be
considered as a
substitute of reality
(3) Transparency
means that everything
(also individuals and
ethics) are elements of
the whole process
Legal
system
Institutions
NO
BARRIERS
Ethics
Individuals
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24. <ThirdPart>
Folksonomies, law & transparency
(3) perspectives of folksonomies and transparency
There are two perspectives on the relationship between folksnomies and
Transparency:
(1) empirical
(2) theoretical
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25. <ThirdPart>
Folksonomies, law & transparency
(3) main issues of folksonomies and transparency
From an empirical point of view, folksonomies are a common tool already in use.
ES: in Italy:
Linee guida per i siti web delle pubbliche
amministrazioni 29 luglio 2011, pag. 20
«tassonomie create dagli utenti (folksonomie)»
Background:
- Decreto Legislativo 7 marzo 2005, n. 82, Codice dell'amministrazione digitale.
(GU n.112 del 16-5-2005 - Suppl. Ordinario n. 93 )
- Art. 4, Direttiva 26 novembre 2009 n. 8 Ministro per la pubblica amministrazione e
l’innovazione
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26. <ThirdPart>
Folksonomies, law & transparency
(3) main issues of folksonomies and transparency
From an epistemological perspective, folksonomies could be considered as a
syntesis between «perspectivism» and «philosophy of information»
Philosophy of
Information
«What is tagged must
be real!»
Perspectivism
«what I tag is always
true!»
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27. Folksonomies, law & transparency
<ThirdPart>
(3) main issues of folksonomies and transparency
In terms of philosophy of law, folksonomies could be considered as a context of
metadata representing the sharing of «codification» processes performed by users
Citizens
Academics
Institutions
</ThirdPart>
Lawmakers
Judges
Students
Lawyers
27

28. <Conclusion>
Folksonomies! Transparency?
28

29. <Conclusion>
Folksonomies! Transparency?
(3) main issues of folksonomies and transparency
(1) Can a tag be considered as a piece of «knowledge» (justified true belief)?
-> tagging is a kind of emotional activity…
(2) Is tagging related to a legal competence?
-> We should separate experts / non experts to make it affordable
(3) Is tagging dependent by a technical skill?
-> Not every jurist can interact with computers, and applications are not easy to use
(4) Could tagging be really useful in legal information management?
-> how could folksonomies interact with Legal information retrieval or artificial reasoning systems?
(technical question)
(5) Are legal folksonomies dangerous for citizens?
-> freedom of expression + privacy -> freedom to tag?
(6) Are folksonomies at least useful for building a “self digital legal
environment”
-> Can users finally organize their own legal material classifying heterogeneous texts and documents?
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30. <Conclusion>
X
</Conclusion>
Folksonomies! Transparency?
?
X
30

31. Many #thanks for your #time,
#patience & #attention
Federico Costantini
Dipartimento di Scienze Giuridiche
Università degli Studi di Udine
[name].[surname]@uniud.it
31