Emergence of terminological conventions as an author-searcher coordination game

All information exchange on the Internet ? whether through full text, controlled vocabularies, ontologies, or other mechanisms ? ultimately requires that that an information provider and seeker use the same word or symbol. In this paper, we investigate what happens when both searchers and authors are dynamically choosing terms to match the other side. With each side trying to anticipate the other, does a terminological convention ever emerge, or do searchers and providers continue to miss potential partners through mis-match of terms? We use a game-theoretic setup to frame questions, and learning theory to make predictions about whether and which term will emerge as a convention. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.3.3 [Information Search and Retrieval]: Query formulation; H.3.1 [Content Analysis and Indexing]: Indexing methods General Terms Experimentation, Human Factors, Standardization Keywords Game theory, Learning, Manual indexing

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: WWW
• Authors: David Bodoff, Sheizaf Rafaeli
• Keywords: Internet Technology, Manual Indexing, Standardization Keywords Game, Terminological Convention, WWW 2008