One definition of best practices are those things that if followed guarantee a higher degree of success.
A less complimentary definition has it that best practices are “the crap we got away with last time”.
When any methodology is taken out of its originating context and/or applied without thought, there is a recipe for disaster - bad things happen. The taxonomic categorisation system of Taxonomy/Folk Taxonomy/Folksonomy is a classic example - there is a Web 2.0-driven fantasy that because folksonomies are cool, they are the best practice for categorisation/browse systems. Wrong wrong wrong! Folksonomies are good for adding personal value to strict taxonomies. Folksonomies are good for deriving folk taxonomies that add value to strict taxonomies. In and of themselves, folksonomies are not the total solution to anything, let alone any sort of best practice. The real best practice, if there is one, is to consider folksonomies holistically as part of a total solution and to assess their impact in context of organisational culture and the task at hand, because it all depends.
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