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Archive 1 |
I just noticed that photos I have been uploading recently contain metadata, but I can't find anything about this upgrade. Should I re-upload my old photos so that they contain metadata? Please direct me to the discussion of this new Wikipedia feature. Cacophony 01:49, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
While I did not insert the formal definition originally, I did find it relevant. I am inclined to restore it, but would welcome other views. RayGates 02:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Since desktop search programs such a Google Desktop catalog metadata from files on one's computer then I would suggest that they be mentioned somewhere in the article just as Spotlight and WinFS are. -- Cab88 22:33, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I added my definition at the beginning, along with those of Bracket, Marco, and Tannenbaum under "Warehouse metadata".
--DaveHay 22:15 (CST) 23 March, 2006. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Dave Hay (
talk •
contribs) 04:17, 24 March 2006
I have added much and merged few. Someone do that for me, I have no more time at the moment. -- Θ~ 17:44, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I have rewritten the Enterprise Metadata section and incorporated it under General IT metadata. It had some good points once I was able to get past some of the grammatical issues. Apologies for my initial reactiveness.
Charles T. Betz 00:24, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Although the majority of computer scientists see metadata as a chance for better interoperability, there are some critic voices whose main arguments must be taken seriously:
The above sounds like weasel words too me-- Greasysteve13 07:24, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
This page seems to me to be suffering, relatively speaking, but I'd like other inputs before trying to improve the whole (especially because I'm a wikipedia newbie). I see a lot of detail that takes away from the whole (partly just because it's detailed, and partly because it's not consistently written and presented). For example:
Many other comments, but mostly more minor. I'd appreciate seeing feedback on whether they see the same issues, and what the best way for me to contribute to addressign them is (fell swoop or piecemeal or...?).
-- Metajohng 21:34, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Note: Metadata is not a trademark in France, neither in many other countries where the term is used. Please, Mr. Metadata Company, do not internationalize yourself wherever "metadata" are used in Wikipedia pages, which are not US pages, but international pages. Thank you. Jeansoulin 15:33, 7 February 2007 (UTC) University Marne La Vallee, France.
Before adding my own comments, I moved the zip code discussion to the end of the document (consistent with Wikipedia guidance for Talk pages) and made a few other tweaks, hopefully considered minor. Apologies if anyone is vexed. -- Metajohng 18:58, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
I removed a couple of links that were pointing directly to a specific metadata removal tool from the "Document Metadata" category, changed around some of the wording and added a link to E-Discovery. Not sure what you guys think of that, but it seemed like the iScrub links were blatant advertising. I'm not sure if the document-metadata.com links should be removed too. Any thoughts? -- TheDude813 19:55, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
..that The European Library has a handbook and it gives open access to the Metadata Registry it is developing?
greetings, 82.156.209.165 21:28, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
It would be very helpful if someone knowledgeable added a section on html metadata. I was very surprised that a quick scan of the article seemed to find no reference to web searching. Soler97 ( talk) 22:45, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Just one question, whoever that put Documentation Metadata Library, are you referring to DLL? -- Ramu50 ( talk) 23:03, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
The 'criticisms' section links to a piece by Shirkey, ostensibly discussing why metadata is "too expensive, time-consuming, subjective" and context-dependent. But in fact Shirkey's piece argues almost the opposite: supporting metadata-based folksonomies over rigid classification systems.
I think the article is worthwhile, but not useful in this section. Also, the criticism section needs an overhaul; it's certainly not written in encyclopedic style.
CRGreathouse ( t | c) 17:02, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
I've flagged it for expert attention because I believe that it needs to be tightened up, not that I think it is a poor article.
I think the style needs to be brought out of original research phrasing and into line with an article that is an encyclopaedic report. If this were just a matter of copyediting I could do that myself, but there is a real risk of losing content if a non expert handles this. Fiddle Faddle ( talk) 09:49, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
"metadata about a title would typically include a description of the content..." - "title" can be a piece of metadata, so using the word "title" here instead of "book" or even "information object (such as a book)" is needlessly confusing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.216.164.187 ( talk) 18:49, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure that it is used in Television. TiVo uses metadata when finding shows. The DVB standard has metadata. I'm pretty sure that it is in many other standards too. -- Matthew Bauer ( talk) 19:38, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Confirmed and added. metaJohnG ( talk) 23:55, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
I addressed a lot of the individual topics/concerns above in a recent edit, it's been a week and no one's complained (yay).
Now here's the deal: The article is waaaay too long. How would people feel if most of it after Levels went away? I would keep Uses (edited) and Criticisms, get rid of Definitions, Types, Risks, Lifecycle, Storage, Types (again!), all the IT section, Digital Library Metadata (which is actually a list of Types again!), Image metadata, Geospatial metadata, and metametadata.
In most cases I consider the content either redundant, too detailed, or highly arguable. (Many of the characterizations of metadata and metadata practices are at best specific to certain circumstances, and others are just wrong.) Key points from those sections could be integrated with existing sections if necessary.
I think we're all pretty shy about editing each other's work but my sense is we need to bite the bullet and do major surgery. I'll give this comment a few weeks to address attention (though presumably you're watching this page if you care) and then sometime after that may dig in.
metaJohnG ( talk) 00:29, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
The there have been robust central (IT systems) metadata "repository" (same as "registry" as far as I know) products around since the early 1970s. The enterprise (as opposed to single/few applications) success rate of these efforts has been about 5% (if one wants to be generous).
Please to offer how this "new" metadata registry is going to be any different?
Also... using the analogy of book libraries... the ones I know of all work off a distributed model. The directory (card catalog) of a library consortium appears to be central (e.g. you can search the entire catalog at one swell foop, but the physical collections (librarians speak of "collections" not books) are obviously distributed across multiple locations. Basic reality... when I'm in Location A, I'm most concerned with my collection, not the stuff over in Location B. Virtually merging the index/directory makes it appear to a "customer" that collections A & B are essentially one.
So let us not speak of A metadata registry, but multiple metadata registries. (Always with the caveat of... "if such things actually exist." Plus gently stepping around the thorny issue of will they be managed as an enterprise rather than local resource.) DEddy ( talk) 15:10, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
I just added a legal section, which I hope others will expand upon. Thanks. Gautam Discuss 01:33, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
In the Book description it says things like author, publication date, ISBN, etc. are metadata. Why are these things not just regular ol' attributes (data elements, columns, etc)? DEddy ( talk) 22:27, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
I have just uploaded a complete revision of the metadata page. Much of the technical stuff has been removed in favour of a holistic approach to the topic. Please feel free to re-add things that I took out in this revision and if you don't like it at all please revert to old version although given that there have been so many comments about what needs changing I would suggest that we update this new version as we go along rather than revert back. What do others think?. SallyRenee ( talk) 01:07, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Speaking as a newcomer to the article, I'm afraid that I must say that I consider the version before the above-mentioned change [1] to be very much better than the current one; mainly because the "technical stuff" has been removed, but also because it's now written like an essay or thesis rather than an encyclopaedia article. The most obvious departure from our usual style is the use of questions for section headings, and the consequent frequent use of "Metadata" in the headings, which is in contradiction to the MOS - "Section names should not explicitly refer to the subject of the article." (see WP:HEAD). The second sentence of the lead ("Metadata is an emerging practice") is meaningless ("The use of metadata" would be better), and the lead as a whole doesn't tell the reader what metadata _is_. There's virtually no discussion of the actual types of metadata found in computer files in the real world; the reader might come away with the idea that it's some arcane metaphysical system used by librarians, rather than an integral part of their digital photos and web pages. I would recommend a wholesale reversion to the December 23rd version, and that that version be used as the basis of subsequent development. Tevildo ( talk) 20:57, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. I've updated the headings and changed the second sentence of the lead as per your suggestions. As for the technical information the article is now lacking, if you read the rest of the discussion page you will find that there has already been discussion about whether the very specific technical information belongs in a 'general-interest' encyclopaedia article. SallyRenee ( talk) 09:23, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
"As for most people the difference between data and information is merely a philosophical one of no relevance in practical use, other definitions are:"
I believe this phrase is at least short sighted and should be rephrased. There is huge difference between information content and data and this has incredible impact on practical applications, probably the most common and practical being compression. Dpser 10:14, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
This article is mostly concerned with highly technical IT industry metadata. is should be renamed, a general metadata category created, and related articles on metadata created to cover broad areas.
Sections 8 through 8.12 are heavilly skewed to the IT industry.
StephenDeGabrielle ( talk) 21:14, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
It does not only need attention, it is a complete catastrophy from beginning to end. I will return and delete it in its entirety, because it fails to correctly define what metadata is. Metadata is one of two basic components of all information systems. Metadata have three functions: indexing, description and process support. Metadata is what makes a system a system, they create order and make efficient management of data possible. Metadata are to a system what an engine is to a car. They are embedded in and defined by the system requirements and system architecture. In other words, there is metadata in every system, which makes it unnecessary to list different examples of metadata. In such usages, documentation and standards are conflated with the more general and correct concept of metadata. And, professor Bo Sundgren at statistics sweden coined the term, and attempts to copyright it have failed after legal action from him, so in that case this article is simply a lie. [[[Special:Contributions/79.136.76.102|79.136.76.102]] ( talk) 18:51, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
This is the first I have heard of Bo Sundgren but there seems to be a lot of information out there about his contributions to metadata. I would be interested to read some more about the legal action around copyright of the term if you have any references. I revised this article based on older versions of the article which pointed to the Metadata company but agree with you that this needs to be changed. SallyRenee ( talk) 09:18, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
Most of the information presented leaves the impression that metadata (whatever it is) is maybe 10 years old, primarily has relevance to things like library books, photo images & HTML pages, and has no/minimal relevance to information systems. Seems pretty lame. DEddy ( talk) 00:47, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Anyone know who did this first? I ask because I suspect my development team may have. Way back when NOMAD was a cutting-edge 4GL database engine running on VM/CMS, I ran a development team that created an enterprise directory management application for centralizing and publishing user and email directory information for some 60 different email sub-systems used in our corporation. Everything from, MS Mail, SMTP, X-400, mainframe and desktop. Nightly we would accept updates and republish directories in all the needed formats. I contend that this application was the inspiration for Active Directory after we showed it to Microsoft but that is another story. And you might wonder where Outlook came from while you're at it. I know where the file extensions .ost and .pst come from. ;)
Anyway, we were well into the use of this when we realized we were spending too much time redesigning the schema - then we had a collective lightbulb moment. We embarked upon a project to describe the schema of our Enterprise Directory in its own database. If we wanted to redesign the directory, all we did was update the directory schema database that contained the metadata, and our process would go through the steps of transforming the directory into a new master, building the schema according to the updated metadata in the schema db. This automation was a great timesaver and greatly excited the Dunn and Bradstreet account management we shared our work with.
So much so that we were awarded a D&B Innovator's Award at their yearly user conference - well, we were mailed it as our mgmt would not fund the trip. However, I understand that the CEO or VP someone made a big deal of describing our work to the session and presenting it in absentia. I still have it somewhere - little grey marble tablet but the best award I ever received.
So there's a short history story - I'm certain someone will correct me about the origins. And to tell you the truth, we never used the term "metadata". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xtss33 ( talk • contribs) 00:46, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
The usage of the term recommended by this article is so broad as to render the term 'metadata' useless. When it started gaining traction in the 70s, the meaning was confined to data that constrained or organized attributes of entities (E. F. Codd coined the term relational database in 1970, so there was no practical implementation of a relational schema back then). Saying that a library card contains metadata seems highly suspect as librarians have a terminology for the descriptors of their books that was developed long before 'metadata' was coined.
It's disappointing to see that this article has grown to ensconce the prolific use of 'metadata' to include annotations of photographs. It's Jack Meyers' word, though his company doesn't seem to have the chutzpah to follow through on threats of trademark infringement suits. If we're appropriating someone's invention, it seems it should be because there is not a better (or perhaps adequate term) available.
The deep need was (is) for a term that denotes the information that must be present in order to have a definition of the properties of some entity. In the case of a library system, metadata stored would include the string 'title' to name the property of a book by which we call it, the string 'call number' to name the property used to locate the book, 'author' to name the person credited with the book, etc. The point is that the call number is not an example of metadata. The term becomes useless if the one can choose some particular entity and then decide that some of its properties are data and some are metadata. The author is a property of a book. Of course, to be useful in a computing system, metadata must include more than just the name of a property: the metadata should encompass the domain and range of the property (characters with a maximum length of 100) or more elaborate datatype representations if appropriate.
As mentioned in the article, data and document schemata constitute metadata stores as do ontologies, and this is the area in which the term metadata fills a real need. When it's claimed that the term should be applied to things like document properties that are stored and changed with the file (as in the section of 'Important Issues'), it loses value. The application creates property fields in the file for its own purposes (or for no good reason in the case of MS Word); why should those properties be called metadata? Those properties may have little to do with the 'real' content of the file or may be an innate part of the content and in either case can often be removed without any effect on the usefulness of the file.
In the section of 'Important Issues' we find another interesting example regarding digital photography: the need to include interesting properties along with the image data. The term 'metadata' would be most useful in identifying the data needed in order to recognize and separate (parse) or locate the various properties of the image in the image file. The exposure settings, date and time of the event are attributes that may be attached to the image in a number of ways - why should we apply the term metadata to these attributes? The terms 'properties', 'descriptors' and 'attributes' can be applied more meaningfully. On the other hand, the data need to find these properties lacks a term if 'metadata' means the properties themselves. In the case of JPEG images files, the metadata includes the JFIF format rules and possibly the information about the location and format of descriptors such as the date, etc.
I think it's not too late to hold the line. The Metadata Company registered the trademark 'metadata' in 1986. Maybe the wikipedia community can help it retain some meaning so that it doesn't become just another synonym for 'property', 'descriptor' or 'attribute'. JWBito ( talk) 06:51, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't want to be overly critical but the section about libraries here is inaccurate. DDC is not about small 5x3" cards and is not an alphanumeric system. I would change it myself but am unfamiliar with protocol here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Therestlesskaiser ( talk • contribs) 00:06, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
hello, i have today tried to elucidate the concepts of metadata and metacontent in an attempt to provide some basis for the remediation of this page which is, and has for the last two years or so, been chaotic. please dont just delete my contribution without trying to think it through. thanks. info. otto. imom. bicycle repairman and many other epithets which are mine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.245.193.93 ( talk) 20:01, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
You have asked for an expert, and here i am. please carefully consider your own status. the key to the whole introduction is exactly "semantic" ie. about "meaning" and if you don't think meaning is important, and you cannot see how meaning is useful then i am at a loss. the point is that this page has been a battle ground for years because the term is "ambiguous", it is one term for two different concepts, and as long as this, the most important aspect of the term is not understood, then the word will never be of use to anyone and the fruitless battles between those who think it is one thing and those who think it is the other will continue endlessly. i would appreciate it if you would focus on things you know something about and let some other more knowledgable contributor comment. note that on this most volatile of pages the intro has stood unchanged for a surprising length of time. this is the first systematic definition of the meaning of the two concepts represented by the single term that has appeared on this page. the reason the intro starts "The term Metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts" is because IT IS !!! i do not understand your ?!?! as if there is something surprising or incoherent about pointing out this most important fact. i have no real interest in rewriting the whole page to untangle all the different strands which are hopelessly interwoven but the intro should set the scene for others who can see the point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.183.39.190 ( talk) 13:43, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Since you care very much about this article, I hope you will take the time to integrate my suggestions into an introduction that is readable, enlightening and accurate. I hope you will restore the specific examples (admittedly related to the "data about data" conception, as this strikes me as more relevant to the lay reader than the more technical definitions) that I took great care to present in a reader-friendly way, while also presenting the alternative usages to your satisfaction. Please try to avoid original research (such as neologisms). The intro you have restored does not seem neutral, either. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you that there are competing definitions, here. I just think the intro should calmly present that fact, rather than forcefully argue for a viewpoint. My addition of a high-level summary of fields in which metadata are prominent was also removed, and I do not understand why. The intro should orient the reader, and I don't believe you disagree with this:Metadata is information about other information or information systems. The precise meaning of the term is controversial. Though a common definition of metadata is that it is "data about data", in technical disciplines the term is used to describe data structures and systems which contain data, rather than the data itself. Thus it may also refer to "data about data structures" or "data about database systems".
Why did you just trash everything I added? That's the easy option for you, but it doesn't sit well with me, when it took quite a bit of effort to craft good prose. See this comment? It's long. That's easy to write. The concise intro I wrote took much more effort. __ø(._. ) Patrick("\(.:...:.)/")Fisher 02:17, 8 May 2011 (UTC)Metadata is a central concern in information science and database design. It is widely used on the World Wide Web for search engine optimization and the Semantic Web.
I don't feel qualified to fix this, but the first sentence of this section seems awkward. Maybe "a manifold" and "where there" might be a better alternative? Or "fields of application:" ? Gcbound ( talk) 22:24, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
Reference to IT: "Metadata" is an IT term - it does not clarify anything to say that the concept existed for 10000 years. The term has arisen out of the need to formally describe digital resources. Bill Inmon, et al, in the book "Business Metadata" provides a history of metadata, and it is clear there that the context is always IT. He sums up with: "Metadata is very valuable to the business and helps facilitate proper understanding of the enterprise data assets. Without this understanding, the data would be relatively useless."
More confusion: The discussion about books and trees highlights the confusion which is also pervasive throughout the IT industry. Metadata started out as being data about data, and then all of a sudden it jumps to be data about objects, and then to be an alias for "description". With this kind of thinking it means that every word is metadata because every word describes something. I doubt that anybody would regard a dictionary as being an organised collection of metadata. If we take a library index as being a collection of metadata then we should regard a department store's catalog as also being a collection of metadata, similarly a telephone book, an organisation's list of personnel, its list of customers, the Oxford English Dictionary, my shopping list, wikipedia itself, news bulletins, and so on. I don't think it has occurred to anybody that any of these things can be regarded as metadata - they are merely lists or registries or catalogs of descriptions.
A better definition Adrienne Tannenbaum, in the book "Metadata Solutions" leaves it until page 90 before attempting a definition. It begins with:
Adrienne then continues, but first she defines instance data, as data on its own is too generic, and suffers from the "sliding window" problem mentioned above. She says:
(I would add "user" to the list of receivers). And then, she says:
Perhaps, some may find simpler the following definition from Informatica's white paper Manage Your Metadata to Better Manage Your Business:
Here are two even better definitions - they are more general, even though they were developed in different subject areas:
Big gap Whilst the page provides many examples of usages of metadata, it does little to describe how it works, ie the theory behind it. Unfortunately this is again in the IT field, but it cannot be avoided. The biggest obvious gap, perhaps, is the lack of a reference to the OMG's MOF - this is probably the most thorough work available about what makes metadata work. MetaWorker ( talk) 00:32, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
Wiki vandalism I noticed above a comment that the 23 December 2009 page was more informative. I have just looked at it and I concur that a lot of information has been lost. It is not good enough to say that one can easily reinstate it - there have been hundreds of edits and it is not feasible to go through all the edits to see if something significant was dropped. I just hope that editors who remove content do it from a position of understanding the content and be absolutely sure that it is not needed either because it is irrelevant or because it is covered in some other way. For example, these discussions, which to me seem very relevant even though they are heavily IT oriented, have been dropped: data dictionaries, CMDB, ITIL, OMG, and particularly bad is the removal of most category tags and all tags related to software engineering. This is gross vandalism. Here is a different organization's entry on metadata which has a lot of text copied verbatim from the December 2009 page.
Dead Link I noticed that under the "Metadata Syntax" section of the article that the sentence containing "whether for indexing or finding, is endorsed by ISO-25964" that the link within to the PDF document citing " ISO-25964," is dead. Chrisbear68 ( talk) 17:51, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
I am new as an author, but I would still like to make a contribution, because the subject is important:
Metadata are defined as "(1) data about (0) data", (0)- the data which are described and (1) the data which describe. Therefore the (1) and (0) define the role of the data in the definition.
An example: (1) Exif-Data describe a (0) Picture. if you want to store Exif-Data in a database you need a description (Create table or so) to describe the structure of the Exif-Data. Among these data there is also the ISO-Speed-Attribute. Of course we need a description of the ISO-Speed-Attribute (textual description, Valid Numbers, Purpose).So we have now several levels where each level describes the level below, the upper level being the "metadata" and the lower level the "data".
This seems to be an endless recursion, the same problem OMG was facing when they started to describe -> UML (the unified modeling language). After lengthy discussions they settled to a 4-level model (-> Meta Object Facility MOF).
The same idea of levels of abstraction can also be applied in a more general way to data
Example: Ms Jane Windfield own the dog charly
Level (0) contains the data about Jane Windfield (Jane;Windfield;F;1985-08-09;Dublin;...), the doc Charly and the ownership ownership is especially interestin, because it describes the relationship between Jane and Charly. The data of the relationship: eg. since date; only or joint owner etc.
Level (1) contains the description of the data Firstname=String:40;Lastname=String:40;Gender=String:1;..
Level (2) contains the description of the Attributes of (2): Gender: The meaning of Gender is ..., Values M/F/D (in France Demoiselle!), Determination of the value.., Representations (M..Male;Männlich;Masculino) etc.
Level (3) most abstract level describes generic properties of Entities, Relationships and Attributes.
To resolve the problem we can (and should) stick to the most common definition of metadata as beeing "data about data".
Then we should introduce the concept of "role" and "level of abstraction".
We define metadata as being "data about data". In this definition we distinguish implicitely between two roles of the data - the role of data being described and the role of the data which describe. Describing data in a given context are themselves "described data" on a higher level of abstraction. Levels of abstraction are important to reduce complexity.
Metadata are especially important for automatic processing of data:
In the old days programs contained data in the data section. (Basic).
Then the data were removed to file and the programs contained data descriptions.
Then parts of the data descriptions were removed and stored in the catalog of a relational database.
(The program contains and SQL-command which "knows" about the relationships)
Model / data driven systems remove even more information about data - e.g. the presentation, the validation rules etc.
We are dealing with increasing masses of data: To manage and control them - we need deep structures of Metadata.
THis is just a talk page and I would be happy to receive any comments or elaborate on a subject. I wrote much more in the homepage of my company. I am not sure about the rules - I am prepared of course to disclose the information and I look forward to get a feedback....
Metasafe
Metasafe (
talk)
16:46, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
Folks,
I'm unsure of the impact this thinking may have on the definition of metadata but it would be helpful to look at other concept definitions that participate in the metadata world as well. The question of whether a thing is data or metadata resides in the relationship between the two. The ISO 2382-1 01.01.02 defines data as "A reinterpretable representation of information in a formalized manner suitable for communication, interpretation, or processing." Data in this respect has a few fundamental qualities "representation" and "reinterpretation" amongst them. Representation seems pretty straight forward - some physical manifestation. The reinterpretation quality however seems more a mechanism or set of rules that enable the representation to be understood. It is descriptive. To that extent metadata can be considered a reinterpretation mechanism or set of rules that exposes the semantics of a representation. It also constrains the meaning particularly when used with controlled vocabulary. Much of the reinterpreation mechanism related to representation is inherent from our cultural context so the rules are internalized. But this is not always the case particularly where disambiguity is required. I think that the notion can be extended to an explanation of the representation as well, which would provide for metadata in lifecycle management of the representation or transformation from one representation to another (human to machine readable, French to English sentences) or the integration of a number of representations to create progressively enriched information structures. By approaching metadata as the reinterpretative mechanism of an information representation it may help with the definition.
Cecil Somerton
198.103.161.1 (
talk)
17:46, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
The first paragraph refers to "the application", without establishing any context. It's pretty bad form for an encyclopaedia article to talk in terms of implicit context or make assumptions about the readers awareness of such.
In fact, the first paragraph is rather a mess as a whole. It reads like it's been hacked together by 10 different authors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.145.165.125 ( talk) 00:30, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
Seems odd that the ISO 23081 series of metadata standards is not referenced, also though the metamap might have been linked to as well.
Stephen — Preceding unsigned comment added by Steffclarke ( talk • contribs) 03:42, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
This article has suffered from people adding their own external links which don't do a good job of providing further information on the topic. Remember that Wikipedia is not a web directory. If anyone should know the difference, it's metadata people. So here's a review of all the external links. Feel free to disagree with my assessments.
rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 20:11, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
The following chunk makes no sense to me and I think it should be deleted. -- LeeHunter 21:23, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The example of metadata given looks more like a symbolic link.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.150.98.169 ( talk) 14:27, 26 September 2004
120.16.36.147 ( talk) 09:47, 13 August 2010 (UTC)From Shaq 120.16.36.147 ( talk) 09:47, 13 August 2010 (UTC) That information is correct and is in the easiest form of HTML Meta Data. But it should be titled under Meta Data (Search Engine Optimization)
The january 12th issue of computable contains a column by Rick van der Lans about the meta-data article, which criticizes this article:
(The quotes attributed to Rick van der Lans are my crappy translations)
85.144.113.76 10:53, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
The solid-state drive article mentions "file system metadata", which I assume is referring to file system#Metadata.
Is that something this metadata article should mention in Wikipedia:Summary style, with a link to the details? -- DavidCary ( talk) 19:51, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
In the first sentence in the brackets it is stated that "metadata" comes from greek meta=after ....
But meta can also mean "about",
and I think "metadata" is much more "about information" then "after information".
— Preceding
unsigned comment added by
193.170.82.198 (
talk) 11:56, 21 August 2006
Meta in Greek means after. Just that. About is not a correct translation. I noted that this was written in the Meta article as well so I corrected it. Another issue we should consider is if metadata is plural or singular. Data is plural for datum (latin). So my opinion is that the word metadata should be plural as well. Information is singular for different reasons. Metadata are different from information. Share your thoughts on this.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.192.38.242 ( talk) 09:48, 3 November 2006
In the first sentence in the brackets it is stated that "metadata" comes from greek meta=after ....
But meta can also mean "about",
and I think "metadata" is much more "about information" then "after information".
— Preceding
unsigned comment added by
193.170.82.198 (
talk) 11:56, 21 August 2006
Another issue we should consider is if metadata is plural or singular. Data is plural for datum (latin). So my opinion is that the word metadata should be plural as well. Information is singular for different reasons. Metadata are different from information. Share your thoughts on this.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.192.38.242 ( talk) 09:48, 3 November 2006
Besides "after," "meta" can mean "next to" and "beyond," e.g., the word, metastasis, a deposit of a cancer from cells that have migrated from a primary tumor elsewhere in the body, is comprised (both components from the Greek) of "meta," beyond, and "stasis," the [original] location. "Metadata" can be thought of as "next to the data," e.g., the phone numbers from conversations of millions of people collected by the National Security Agency are "next to" the actual conversations. Stubbycat ( talk) 18:41, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
I added a reference to how Wikipedia uses metadata. I know this may seem to violate WP:SELF, but since it's a common example to readers of the site, I thought it was worth including. Timtempleton ( talk) 13:42, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
I think the French, Spaniards, and Italians are calling it Metadato.
Data in my language means date (like the date on a calendar,or the date of an event like the sun has 1 trillion years of life left).I think the Greeks say imerominia for date. ime Rominia means something to me. Could you please fire up your Super Computer and run some numbers for me.
Computers were made to compute. Compute means to make a Mathematical calculation, or computation. What calculations has your Super Computer made with all the information, about information it has collected about people. Does it have a simulator.
Can we talk about conflict:- an incompatibility of dates or events.
Blagoja73 ( talk) 03:26, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
I had hoped to use this article to help clarify metadata concepts but the initial sentence and opening paragraph are immediately confounding.
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts (types).
Don ( talk) 01:39, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
I agree. The intro is barely comprehensible, particularly to someone who doesn't know much about the topic. 93.96.236.8 ( talk) 13:11, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
I was unclear. "Zip Code" is a metadata label that identifies data 12345. Two parts. The label & the data. A perfectly good metadata label could be M0435 (as soon as you memorize it, it's meaningful). Everything in a computer is labeled even if it's by base+displacement notation. DEddy ( talk) 14:17, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
A data definition such as "ZIP Code" in the cited text is hardly a useful (first!) example of metadata. What is basically a column name is either edge-case metadata or arguably not metadata at all. Metadata does not exist to give data meaning; rather, it exists to describe data. Meaning is derived: from metadata, context, presentation, personal bias... whatever.
Metadata is easier to explain in unstructured data contexts. An article titled "Solar Power Generation Today" might be assigned the metadata, "alternative energy," with a metadata categorization of, say "subject." On the other hand, if "12345" must be chosen as our, then a nice made-up metadata might be "Processing Center assigned 1987" or something like that.
I'd suggest the first of those two. And, in any case, the ZIP Code example should be archived. (Status:Deprecated) ;-)
67.149.104.192
02:14, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Please to be more explicit as to why/how 12345/Zip Code (I'm happy with Aus Postal code example too) is a bad example? If it's no good, please to provide a suitable substitute. I was attempting to offer a beginners example from the systems perspective. Your "Solar Power Generation Today" comment is from the world of publishing (I think). As far as I know, neither the systems domain, nor the publishing domain can claim exclusive ownership of metadata... it rather depends on one's perspective/context/experience.
DEddy
02:46, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
I think the Zip Code example is perfectly good. The name and definition associated with a data element are the most important items of metadata. RayGates 21:54, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Ray - Thanks for the vote of support for "my" simple definition/example of metadata. I'm sure I copied this example from someone else 10-15 years ago, & I've yet to see anything that comes remotely close to giving a view into how metadata fits into helping represent the real world via data. Total agreement that a good name goes a long way to resolving lots of metadata ambiguity. DEddy 00:52, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Not sure why we are making this personal and defensive. It wasn't meant that way. I disagree with the example, I feel that it is not terribly illustrative (since nearly everyone already knows about data element names), and I disagree that there is any domain-specific definition of "metadata." I suggested some alternatives. None of these are personal attacks. 66.93.3.210 20:24, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
With all due respect, I too feel that the Zip Code example is inappropriate. This is because "zip code" tells us what 12345 means. It completes the statement "12345 is a ________", effectively turning a string of numbers (data) into information. This is almost the definition of that object within a specific context. Metadata should provide peripheral information about an object - information that is (generally) not critical to the existence/interpretation of the object.
Also, I'm confused as to why we need another example when we can stay with and explore the very good example provided earlier on in the article - the digital camera JPEG. The JPEG metadata stores the timestamp, shutter speed and aperture among other things. It does not try to store the fact that "This is a picture file". We derive that fact from the structure of the file or the extension of the file-name, both of which contribute to defining the context within which we look at the file. Both are also critical to the existence of the file. If there was absolutely no way of knowing what type of file it was, the only thing one can do with that object is destroy it. Ulric 16:43, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
The reason why I think the ZIP code is a bad example the way it is now is the heart of the sentence "12345" is data, and with no additional context is meaningless. I am only a computer engineer, not a computer science theorist, but to me data has meaning; if it does not have meaning, then I call it a string of characters or bits or I call it garbage, or a cryptographic challenge (as you might try to decode meaning just by looking at the shape of data.) There's no difference between 12345 and ABCDE if I don't have any clue about what it means. A field name is what turns a string into data. Clearly, for me the field name isn't metadata, but what qualifies the string as data. Your mileage may vary. So, data has meaning, and metadata extends what I know about the data and may help me work it better. For instance, you may keep the example and make it less US-centric by saying that the Postal Code field may have the value 12345, and metadata about it would be that it refers to a USA ZIP code. So we already had a meaning for the field (it's a postal code), but we're extending it by knowing it's not a French postcode (which it could be). We can work with it better, because we won't try to validate it against a Portuguese postcode mask (9999-999), or Australian (AAA 9999), South African (9999), whatever. – Tintazul msg 10:00, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree column name and description are metadata. They are extra information that is used to understand the data stored in the column. I disagree with the view that metadata doesn't extend information. For example, a column of data might contain date & time . The column name or definition could tell you whether the date/time is UTC or local. Tonyjkent ( talk) 22:37, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
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Hello to all interested in Metadata!
I'm here as part of a Wikipedia edit-a-thon, entering info on Library and Information Science.
I feel as though there are a few sections in the definitions at the top that could be moved down to Metadata Usage. I've gone ahead and moved the Libraries section down to Library and Information Science.
I'll then be adding to that section specifically. Wish me luck and let me know if you have any comments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Binnorie ( talk • contribs) 20:33, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
I added some citations to the top of the article and I removed an old citation needed warning form 2010 that seemed to have been overtaken by events. There are some reasonable citations in that section (they could be better but they aren't terrible) and so I removed the warning. If anyone has an issue with that - let me know or fix it. Thank you! Alex Jackl ( talk) 15:43, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
I had done a cleanup of the page and pluralized all the references to metadata. It is common practice to treat data as a plural. It was also discussed on this talk page (see above) and it seemed clear that the consensus (albeit limited) was for us to treat it as a plural. Someone went through an made all the verbs singular again. Unless someone objects I am going to reverse that and make it consistent. Alex Jackl ( talk) 15:00, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
There is a lot of controversy on the acquisition and retention of metadata by governments and government organizations. I moved an unsourced statement about that out of the opening paragraph into the paragraph on history and then added a citation supporting it. Alex Jackl ( talk) 17:20, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
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Under the Creation header, include the following
Some metadata is produced during the creation of a resource, some is added after creation, some is provided manually, and some can be automatically generated. [1] Hectorlopez17 ( talk) 23:58, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
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To the best of my knowledge there are precious few PhD's in Library Science that have made it to publication. Worth having a look. DEddy ( talk) 00:31, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
@ DEddy:, I reverted your latest addition and am about to do so again as it is based on one primary source,i.e., there are no reliable third-party sources establishing the notability of your addition. You need to provide high-quality third-party sources, then your addition can stay. There is no excuse for edit warring and you have edited here enough to know that primary sources do not establish notability and therefore cannot be used to justify the addition of a new section. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 10:17, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
Oh!
BTW... I did not add that reference.
Giving the appalling "quality" of the metadata page, you prefer to reject a PhD thesis on one facet of the complex topic of metadata? DEddy ( talk) 01:42, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
There used to be lengthy history comments. Where have they gone? DEddy ( talk) 19:16, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
The article treats "metadata" as a singular form, but isn't "data" plural? FinalForm ( talk) 22:16, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
Data is a Mass noun. In this article [3] they quote Oxford Dictionary as saying: 'In Latin, data is the plural of datum and, historically and in specialized scientific fields , it is also treated as a plural in English, taking a plural verb, as in the data were collected and classified . In modern non-scientific use, however , despite the complaints of traditionalists, it is often not treated as a plural. Instead, it is treated as a mass noun, similar to a word like information, which cannot normally have a plural and which takes a singular verb. Sentences such as data was (as well as data were ) collected over a number of years are now widely accepted in standard English.' BildadtomyPeleg ( talk) 08:33, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
With the evolution of the media supply chain, media metadata has become a popular area of curiosity. I figured I'd try my hand at creating a section for it within this article. Please discuss this section here prior to making edits on the page. Thanks. Tedi0usMarrking ( talk) 14:15, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
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Can this reference be added? It contains a concise description of metadata based on various sources performed by experts in the field. [1] Pndt ( talk) 23:13, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
References
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
I just noticed that photos I have been uploading recently contain metadata, but I can't find anything about this upgrade. Should I re-upload my old photos so that they contain metadata? Please direct me to the discussion of this new Wikipedia feature. Cacophony 01:49, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
While I did not insert the formal definition originally, I did find it relevant. I am inclined to restore it, but would welcome other views. RayGates 02:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Since desktop search programs such a Google Desktop catalog metadata from files on one's computer then I would suggest that they be mentioned somewhere in the article just as Spotlight and WinFS are. -- Cab88 22:33, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I added my definition at the beginning, along with those of Bracket, Marco, and Tannenbaum under "Warehouse metadata".
--DaveHay 22:15 (CST) 23 March, 2006. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Dave Hay (
talk •
contribs) 04:17, 24 March 2006
I have added much and merged few. Someone do that for me, I have no more time at the moment. -- Θ~ 17:44, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I have rewritten the Enterprise Metadata section and incorporated it under General IT metadata. It had some good points once I was able to get past some of the grammatical issues. Apologies for my initial reactiveness.
Charles T. Betz 00:24, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Although the majority of computer scientists see metadata as a chance for better interoperability, there are some critic voices whose main arguments must be taken seriously:
The above sounds like weasel words too me-- Greasysteve13 07:24, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
This page seems to me to be suffering, relatively speaking, but I'd like other inputs before trying to improve the whole (especially because I'm a wikipedia newbie). I see a lot of detail that takes away from the whole (partly just because it's detailed, and partly because it's not consistently written and presented). For example:
Many other comments, but mostly more minor. I'd appreciate seeing feedback on whether they see the same issues, and what the best way for me to contribute to addressign them is (fell swoop or piecemeal or...?).
-- Metajohng 21:34, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Note: Metadata is not a trademark in France, neither in many other countries where the term is used. Please, Mr. Metadata Company, do not internationalize yourself wherever "metadata" are used in Wikipedia pages, which are not US pages, but international pages. Thank you. Jeansoulin 15:33, 7 February 2007 (UTC) University Marne La Vallee, France.
Before adding my own comments, I moved the zip code discussion to the end of the document (consistent with Wikipedia guidance for Talk pages) and made a few other tweaks, hopefully considered minor. Apologies if anyone is vexed. -- Metajohng 18:58, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
I removed a couple of links that were pointing directly to a specific metadata removal tool from the "Document Metadata" category, changed around some of the wording and added a link to E-Discovery. Not sure what you guys think of that, but it seemed like the iScrub links were blatant advertising. I'm not sure if the document-metadata.com links should be removed too. Any thoughts? -- TheDude813 19:55, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
..that The European Library has a handbook and it gives open access to the Metadata Registry it is developing?
greetings, 82.156.209.165 21:28, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
It would be very helpful if someone knowledgeable added a section on html metadata. I was very surprised that a quick scan of the article seemed to find no reference to web searching. Soler97 ( talk) 22:45, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Just one question, whoever that put Documentation Metadata Library, are you referring to DLL? -- Ramu50 ( talk) 23:03, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
The 'criticisms' section links to a piece by Shirkey, ostensibly discussing why metadata is "too expensive, time-consuming, subjective" and context-dependent. But in fact Shirkey's piece argues almost the opposite: supporting metadata-based folksonomies over rigid classification systems.
I think the article is worthwhile, but not useful in this section. Also, the criticism section needs an overhaul; it's certainly not written in encyclopedic style.
CRGreathouse ( t | c) 17:02, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
I've flagged it for expert attention because I believe that it needs to be tightened up, not that I think it is a poor article.
I think the style needs to be brought out of original research phrasing and into line with an article that is an encyclopaedic report. If this were just a matter of copyediting I could do that myself, but there is a real risk of losing content if a non expert handles this. Fiddle Faddle ( talk) 09:49, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
"metadata about a title would typically include a description of the content..." - "title" can be a piece of metadata, so using the word "title" here instead of "book" or even "information object (such as a book)" is needlessly confusing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.216.164.187 ( talk) 18:49, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure that it is used in Television. TiVo uses metadata when finding shows. The DVB standard has metadata. I'm pretty sure that it is in many other standards too. -- Matthew Bauer ( talk) 19:38, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Confirmed and added. metaJohnG ( talk) 23:55, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
I addressed a lot of the individual topics/concerns above in a recent edit, it's been a week and no one's complained (yay).
Now here's the deal: The article is waaaay too long. How would people feel if most of it after Levels went away? I would keep Uses (edited) and Criticisms, get rid of Definitions, Types, Risks, Lifecycle, Storage, Types (again!), all the IT section, Digital Library Metadata (which is actually a list of Types again!), Image metadata, Geospatial metadata, and metametadata.
In most cases I consider the content either redundant, too detailed, or highly arguable. (Many of the characterizations of metadata and metadata practices are at best specific to certain circumstances, and others are just wrong.) Key points from those sections could be integrated with existing sections if necessary.
I think we're all pretty shy about editing each other's work but my sense is we need to bite the bullet and do major surgery. I'll give this comment a few weeks to address attention (though presumably you're watching this page if you care) and then sometime after that may dig in.
metaJohnG ( talk) 00:29, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
The there have been robust central (IT systems) metadata "repository" (same as "registry" as far as I know) products around since the early 1970s. The enterprise (as opposed to single/few applications) success rate of these efforts has been about 5% (if one wants to be generous).
Please to offer how this "new" metadata registry is going to be any different?
Also... using the analogy of book libraries... the ones I know of all work off a distributed model. The directory (card catalog) of a library consortium appears to be central (e.g. you can search the entire catalog at one swell foop, but the physical collections (librarians speak of "collections" not books) are obviously distributed across multiple locations. Basic reality... when I'm in Location A, I'm most concerned with my collection, not the stuff over in Location B. Virtually merging the index/directory makes it appear to a "customer" that collections A & B are essentially one.
So let us not speak of A metadata registry, but multiple metadata registries. (Always with the caveat of... "if such things actually exist." Plus gently stepping around the thorny issue of will they be managed as an enterprise rather than local resource.) DEddy ( talk) 15:10, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
I just added a legal section, which I hope others will expand upon. Thanks. Gautam Discuss 01:33, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
In the Book description it says things like author, publication date, ISBN, etc. are metadata. Why are these things not just regular ol' attributes (data elements, columns, etc)? DEddy ( talk) 22:27, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
I have just uploaded a complete revision of the metadata page. Much of the technical stuff has been removed in favour of a holistic approach to the topic. Please feel free to re-add things that I took out in this revision and if you don't like it at all please revert to old version although given that there have been so many comments about what needs changing I would suggest that we update this new version as we go along rather than revert back. What do others think?. SallyRenee ( talk) 01:07, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Speaking as a newcomer to the article, I'm afraid that I must say that I consider the version before the above-mentioned change [1] to be very much better than the current one; mainly because the "technical stuff" has been removed, but also because it's now written like an essay or thesis rather than an encyclopaedia article. The most obvious departure from our usual style is the use of questions for section headings, and the consequent frequent use of "Metadata" in the headings, which is in contradiction to the MOS - "Section names should not explicitly refer to the subject of the article." (see WP:HEAD). The second sentence of the lead ("Metadata is an emerging practice") is meaningless ("The use of metadata" would be better), and the lead as a whole doesn't tell the reader what metadata _is_. There's virtually no discussion of the actual types of metadata found in computer files in the real world; the reader might come away with the idea that it's some arcane metaphysical system used by librarians, rather than an integral part of their digital photos and web pages. I would recommend a wholesale reversion to the December 23rd version, and that that version be used as the basis of subsequent development. Tevildo ( talk) 20:57, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. I've updated the headings and changed the second sentence of the lead as per your suggestions. As for the technical information the article is now lacking, if you read the rest of the discussion page you will find that there has already been discussion about whether the very specific technical information belongs in a 'general-interest' encyclopaedia article. SallyRenee ( talk) 09:23, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
"As for most people the difference between data and information is merely a philosophical one of no relevance in practical use, other definitions are:"
I believe this phrase is at least short sighted and should be rephrased. There is huge difference between information content and data and this has incredible impact on practical applications, probably the most common and practical being compression. Dpser 10:14, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
This article is mostly concerned with highly technical IT industry metadata. is should be renamed, a general metadata category created, and related articles on metadata created to cover broad areas.
Sections 8 through 8.12 are heavilly skewed to the IT industry.
StephenDeGabrielle ( talk) 21:14, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
It does not only need attention, it is a complete catastrophy from beginning to end. I will return and delete it in its entirety, because it fails to correctly define what metadata is. Metadata is one of two basic components of all information systems. Metadata have three functions: indexing, description and process support. Metadata is what makes a system a system, they create order and make efficient management of data possible. Metadata are to a system what an engine is to a car. They are embedded in and defined by the system requirements and system architecture. In other words, there is metadata in every system, which makes it unnecessary to list different examples of metadata. In such usages, documentation and standards are conflated with the more general and correct concept of metadata. And, professor Bo Sundgren at statistics sweden coined the term, and attempts to copyright it have failed after legal action from him, so in that case this article is simply a lie. [[[Special:Contributions/79.136.76.102|79.136.76.102]] ( talk) 18:51, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
This is the first I have heard of Bo Sundgren but there seems to be a lot of information out there about his contributions to metadata. I would be interested to read some more about the legal action around copyright of the term if you have any references. I revised this article based on older versions of the article which pointed to the Metadata company but agree with you that this needs to be changed. SallyRenee ( talk) 09:18, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
Most of the information presented leaves the impression that metadata (whatever it is) is maybe 10 years old, primarily has relevance to things like library books, photo images & HTML pages, and has no/minimal relevance to information systems. Seems pretty lame. DEddy ( talk) 00:47, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Anyone know who did this first? I ask because I suspect my development team may have. Way back when NOMAD was a cutting-edge 4GL database engine running on VM/CMS, I ran a development team that created an enterprise directory management application for centralizing and publishing user and email directory information for some 60 different email sub-systems used in our corporation. Everything from, MS Mail, SMTP, X-400, mainframe and desktop. Nightly we would accept updates and republish directories in all the needed formats. I contend that this application was the inspiration for Active Directory after we showed it to Microsoft but that is another story. And you might wonder where Outlook came from while you're at it. I know where the file extensions .ost and .pst come from. ;)
Anyway, we were well into the use of this when we realized we were spending too much time redesigning the schema - then we had a collective lightbulb moment. We embarked upon a project to describe the schema of our Enterprise Directory in its own database. If we wanted to redesign the directory, all we did was update the directory schema database that contained the metadata, and our process would go through the steps of transforming the directory into a new master, building the schema according to the updated metadata in the schema db. This automation was a great timesaver and greatly excited the Dunn and Bradstreet account management we shared our work with.
So much so that we were awarded a D&B Innovator's Award at their yearly user conference - well, we were mailed it as our mgmt would not fund the trip. However, I understand that the CEO or VP someone made a big deal of describing our work to the session and presenting it in absentia. I still have it somewhere - little grey marble tablet but the best award I ever received.
So there's a short history story - I'm certain someone will correct me about the origins. And to tell you the truth, we never used the term "metadata". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xtss33 ( talk • contribs) 00:46, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
The usage of the term recommended by this article is so broad as to render the term 'metadata' useless. When it started gaining traction in the 70s, the meaning was confined to data that constrained or organized attributes of entities (E. F. Codd coined the term relational database in 1970, so there was no practical implementation of a relational schema back then). Saying that a library card contains metadata seems highly suspect as librarians have a terminology for the descriptors of their books that was developed long before 'metadata' was coined.
It's disappointing to see that this article has grown to ensconce the prolific use of 'metadata' to include annotations of photographs. It's Jack Meyers' word, though his company doesn't seem to have the chutzpah to follow through on threats of trademark infringement suits. If we're appropriating someone's invention, it seems it should be because there is not a better (or perhaps adequate term) available.
The deep need was (is) for a term that denotes the information that must be present in order to have a definition of the properties of some entity. In the case of a library system, metadata stored would include the string 'title' to name the property of a book by which we call it, the string 'call number' to name the property used to locate the book, 'author' to name the person credited with the book, etc. The point is that the call number is not an example of metadata. The term becomes useless if the one can choose some particular entity and then decide that some of its properties are data and some are metadata. The author is a property of a book. Of course, to be useful in a computing system, metadata must include more than just the name of a property: the metadata should encompass the domain and range of the property (characters with a maximum length of 100) or more elaborate datatype representations if appropriate.
As mentioned in the article, data and document schemata constitute metadata stores as do ontologies, and this is the area in which the term metadata fills a real need. When it's claimed that the term should be applied to things like document properties that are stored and changed with the file (as in the section of 'Important Issues'), it loses value. The application creates property fields in the file for its own purposes (or for no good reason in the case of MS Word); why should those properties be called metadata? Those properties may have little to do with the 'real' content of the file or may be an innate part of the content and in either case can often be removed without any effect on the usefulness of the file.
In the section of 'Important Issues' we find another interesting example regarding digital photography: the need to include interesting properties along with the image data. The term 'metadata' would be most useful in identifying the data needed in order to recognize and separate (parse) or locate the various properties of the image in the image file. The exposure settings, date and time of the event are attributes that may be attached to the image in a number of ways - why should we apply the term metadata to these attributes? The terms 'properties', 'descriptors' and 'attributes' can be applied more meaningfully. On the other hand, the data need to find these properties lacks a term if 'metadata' means the properties themselves. In the case of JPEG images files, the metadata includes the JFIF format rules and possibly the information about the location and format of descriptors such as the date, etc.
I think it's not too late to hold the line. The Metadata Company registered the trademark 'metadata' in 1986. Maybe the wikipedia community can help it retain some meaning so that it doesn't become just another synonym for 'property', 'descriptor' or 'attribute'. JWBito ( talk) 06:51, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't want to be overly critical but the section about libraries here is inaccurate. DDC is not about small 5x3" cards and is not an alphanumeric system. I would change it myself but am unfamiliar with protocol here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Therestlesskaiser ( talk • contribs) 00:06, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
hello, i have today tried to elucidate the concepts of metadata and metacontent in an attempt to provide some basis for the remediation of this page which is, and has for the last two years or so, been chaotic. please dont just delete my contribution without trying to think it through. thanks. info. otto. imom. bicycle repairman and many other epithets which are mine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.245.193.93 ( talk) 20:01, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
You have asked for an expert, and here i am. please carefully consider your own status. the key to the whole introduction is exactly "semantic" ie. about "meaning" and if you don't think meaning is important, and you cannot see how meaning is useful then i am at a loss. the point is that this page has been a battle ground for years because the term is "ambiguous", it is one term for two different concepts, and as long as this, the most important aspect of the term is not understood, then the word will never be of use to anyone and the fruitless battles between those who think it is one thing and those who think it is the other will continue endlessly. i would appreciate it if you would focus on things you know something about and let some other more knowledgable contributor comment. note that on this most volatile of pages the intro has stood unchanged for a surprising length of time. this is the first systematic definition of the meaning of the two concepts represented by the single term that has appeared on this page. the reason the intro starts "The term Metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts" is because IT IS !!! i do not understand your ?!?! as if there is something surprising or incoherent about pointing out this most important fact. i have no real interest in rewriting the whole page to untangle all the different strands which are hopelessly interwoven but the intro should set the scene for others who can see the point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.183.39.190 ( talk) 13:43, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Since you care very much about this article, I hope you will take the time to integrate my suggestions into an introduction that is readable, enlightening and accurate. I hope you will restore the specific examples (admittedly related to the "data about data" conception, as this strikes me as more relevant to the lay reader than the more technical definitions) that I took great care to present in a reader-friendly way, while also presenting the alternative usages to your satisfaction. Please try to avoid original research (such as neologisms). The intro you have restored does not seem neutral, either. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you that there are competing definitions, here. I just think the intro should calmly present that fact, rather than forcefully argue for a viewpoint. My addition of a high-level summary of fields in which metadata are prominent was also removed, and I do not understand why. The intro should orient the reader, and I don't believe you disagree with this:Metadata is information about other information or information systems. The precise meaning of the term is controversial. Though a common definition of metadata is that it is "data about data", in technical disciplines the term is used to describe data structures and systems which contain data, rather than the data itself. Thus it may also refer to "data about data structures" or "data about database systems".
Why did you just trash everything I added? That's the easy option for you, but it doesn't sit well with me, when it took quite a bit of effort to craft good prose. See this comment? It's long. That's easy to write. The concise intro I wrote took much more effort. __ø(._. ) Patrick("\(.:...:.)/")Fisher 02:17, 8 May 2011 (UTC)Metadata is a central concern in information science and database design. It is widely used on the World Wide Web for search engine optimization and the Semantic Web.
I don't feel qualified to fix this, but the first sentence of this section seems awkward. Maybe "a manifold" and "where there" might be a better alternative? Or "fields of application:" ? Gcbound ( talk) 22:24, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
Reference to IT: "Metadata" is an IT term - it does not clarify anything to say that the concept existed for 10000 years. The term has arisen out of the need to formally describe digital resources. Bill Inmon, et al, in the book "Business Metadata" provides a history of metadata, and it is clear there that the context is always IT. He sums up with: "Metadata is very valuable to the business and helps facilitate proper understanding of the enterprise data assets. Without this understanding, the data would be relatively useless."
More confusion: The discussion about books and trees highlights the confusion which is also pervasive throughout the IT industry. Metadata started out as being data about data, and then all of a sudden it jumps to be data about objects, and then to be an alias for "description". With this kind of thinking it means that every word is metadata because every word describes something. I doubt that anybody would regard a dictionary as being an organised collection of metadata. If we take a library index as being a collection of metadata then we should regard a department store's catalog as also being a collection of metadata, similarly a telephone book, an organisation's list of personnel, its list of customers, the Oxford English Dictionary, my shopping list, wikipedia itself, news bulletins, and so on. I don't think it has occurred to anybody that any of these things can be regarded as metadata - they are merely lists or registries or catalogs of descriptions.
A better definition Adrienne Tannenbaum, in the book "Metadata Solutions" leaves it until page 90 before attempting a definition. It begins with:
Adrienne then continues, but first she defines instance data, as data on its own is too generic, and suffers from the "sliding window" problem mentioned above. She says:
(I would add "user" to the list of receivers). And then, she says:
Perhaps, some may find simpler the following definition from Informatica's white paper Manage Your Metadata to Better Manage Your Business:
Here are two even better definitions - they are more general, even though they were developed in different subject areas:
Big gap Whilst the page provides many examples of usages of metadata, it does little to describe how it works, ie the theory behind it. Unfortunately this is again in the IT field, but it cannot be avoided. The biggest obvious gap, perhaps, is the lack of a reference to the OMG's MOF - this is probably the most thorough work available about what makes metadata work. MetaWorker ( talk) 00:32, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
Wiki vandalism I noticed above a comment that the 23 December 2009 page was more informative. I have just looked at it and I concur that a lot of information has been lost. It is not good enough to say that one can easily reinstate it - there have been hundreds of edits and it is not feasible to go through all the edits to see if something significant was dropped. I just hope that editors who remove content do it from a position of understanding the content and be absolutely sure that it is not needed either because it is irrelevant or because it is covered in some other way. For example, these discussions, which to me seem very relevant even though they are heavily IT oriented, have been dropped: data dictionaries, CMDB, ITIL, OMG, and particularly bad is the removal of most category tags and all tags related to software engineering. This is gross vandalism. Here is a different organization's entry on metadata which has a lot of text copied verbatim from the December 2009 page.
Dead Link I noticed that under the "Metadata Syntax" section of the article that the sentence containing "whether for indexing or finding, is endorsed by ISO-25964" that the link within to the PDF document citing " ISO-25964," is dead. Chrisbear68 ( talk) 17:51, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
I am new as an author, but I would still like to make a contribution, because the subject is important:
Metadata are defined as "(1) data about (0) data", (0)- the data which are described and (1) the data which describe. Therefore the (1) and (0) define the role of the data in the definition.
An example: (1) Exif-Data describe a (0) Picture. if you want to store Exif-Data in a database you need a description (Create table or so) to describe the structure of the Exif-Data. Among these data there is also the ISO-Speed-Attribute. Of course we need a description of the ISO-Speed-Attribute (textual description, Valid Numbers, Purpose).So we have now several levels where each level describes the level below, the upper level being the "metadata" and the lower level the "data".
This seems to be an endless recursion, the same problem OMG was facing when they started to describe -> UML (the unified modeling language). After lengthy discussions they settled to a 4-level model (-> Meta Object Facility MOF).
The same idea of levels of abstraction can also be applied in a more general way to data
Example: Ms Jane Windfield own the dog charly
Level (0) contains the data about Jane Windfield (Jane;Windfield;F;1985-08-09;Dublin;...), the doc Charly and the ownership ownership is especially interestin, because it describes the relationship between Jane and Charly. The data of the relationship: eg. since date; only or joint owner etc.
Level (1) contains the description of the data Firstname=String:40;Lastname=String:40;Gender=String:1;..
Level (2) contains the description of the Attributes of (2): Gender: The meaning of Gender is ..., Values M/F/D (in France Demoiselle!), Determination of the value.., Representations (M..Male;Männlich;Masculino) etc.
Level (3) most abstract level describes generic properties of Entities, Relationships and Attributes.
To resolve the problem we can (and should) stick to the most common definition of metadata as beeing "data about data".
Then we should introduce the concept of "role" and "level of abstraction".
We define metadata as being "data about data". In this definition we distinguish implicitely between two roles of the data - the role of data being described and the role of the data which describe. Describing data in a given context are themselves "described data" on a higher level of abstraction. Levels of abstraction are important to reduce complexity.
Metadata are especially important for automatic processing of data:
In the old days programs contained data in the data section. (Basic).
Then the data were removed to file and the programs contained data descriptions.
Then parts of the data descriptions were removed and stored in the catalog of a relational database.
(The program contains and SQL-command which "knows" about the relationships)
Model / data driven systems remove even more information about data - e.g. the presentation, the validation rules etc.
We are dealing with increasing masses of data: To manage and control them - we need deep structures of Metadata.
THis is just a talk page and I would be happy to receive any comments or elaborate on a subject. I wrote much more in the homepage of my company. I am not sure about the rules - I am prepared of course to disclose the information and I look forward to get a feedback....
Metasafe
Metasafe (
talk)
16:46, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
Folks,
I'm unsure of the impact this thinking may have on the definition of metadata but it would be helpful to look at other concept definitions that participate in the metadata world as well. The question of whether a thing is data or metadata resides in the relationship between the two. The ISO 2382-1 01.01.02 defines data as "A reinterpretable representation of information in a formalized manner suitable for communication, interpretation, or processing." Data in this respect has a few fundamental qualities "representation" and "reinterpretation" amongst them. Representation seems pretty straight forward - some physical manifestation. The reinterpretation quality however seems more a mechanism or set of rules that enable the representation to be understood. It is descriptive. To that extent metadata can be considered a reinterpretation mechanism or set of rules that exposes the semantics of a representation. It also constrains the meaning particularly when used with controlled vocabulary. Much of the reinterpreation mechanism related to representation is inherent from our cultural context so the rules are internalized. But this is not always the case particularly where disambiguity is required. I think that the notion can be extended to an explanation of the representation as well, which would provide for metadata in lifecycle management of the representation or transformation from one representation to another (human to machine readable, French to English sentences) or the integration of a number of representations to create progressively enriched information structures. By approaching metadata as the reinterpretative mechanism of an information representation it may help with the definition.
Cecil Somerton
198.103.161.1 (
talk)
17:46, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
The first paragraph refers to "the application", without establishing any context. It's pretty bad form for an encyclopaedia article to talk in terms of implicit context or make assumptions about the readers awareness of such.
In fact, the first paragraph is rather a mess as a whole. It reads like it's been hacked together by 10 different authors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.145.165.125 ( talk) 00:30, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
Seems odd that the ISO 23081 series of metadata standards is not referenced, also though the metamap might have been linked to as well.
Stephen — Preceding unsigned comment added by Steffclarke ( talk • contribs) 03:42, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
This article has suffered from people adding their own external links which don't do a good job of providing further information on the topic. Remember that Wikipedia is not a web directory. If anyone should know the difference, it's metadata people. So here's a review of all the external links. Feel free to disagree with my assessments.
rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 20:11, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
The following chunk makes no sense to me and I think it should be deleted. -- LeeHunter 21:23, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The example of metadata given looks more like a symbolic link.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.150.98.169 ( talk) 14:27, 26 September 2004
120.16.36.147 ( talk) 09:47, 13 August 2010 (UTC)From Shaq 120.16.36.147 ( talk) 09:47, 13 August 2010 (UTC) That information is correct and is in the easiest form of HTML Meta Data. But it should be titled under Meta Data (Search Engine Optimization)
The january 12th issue of computable contains a column by Rick van der Lans about the meta-data article, which criticizes this article:
(The quotes attributed to Rick van der Lans are my crappy translations)
85.144.113.76 10:53, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
The solid-state drive article mentions "file system metadata", which I assume is referring to file system#Metadata.
Is that something this metadata article should mention in Wikipedia:Summary style, with a link to the details? -- DavidCary ( talk) 19:51, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
In the first sentence in the brackets it is stated that "metadata" comes from greek meta=after ....
But meta can also mean "about",
and I think "metadata" is much more "about information" then "after information".
— Preceding
unsigned comment added by
193.170.82.198 (
talk) 11:56, 21 August 2006
Meta in Greek means after. Just that. About is not a correct translation. I noted that this was written in the Meta article as well so I corrected it. Another issue we should consider is if metadata is plural or singular. Data is plural for datum (latin). So my opinion is that the word metadata should be plural as well. Information is singular for different reasons. Metadata are different from information. Share your thoughts on this.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.192.38.242 ( talk) 09:48, 3 November 2006
In the first sentence in the brackets it is stated that "metadata" comes from greek meta=after ....
But meta can also mean "about",
and I think "metadata" is much more "about information" then "after information".
— Preceding
unsigned comment added by
193.170.82.198 (
talk) 11:56, 21 August 2006
Another issue we should consider is if metadata is plural or singular. Data is plural for datum (latin). So my opinion is that the word metadata should be plural as well. Information is singular for different reasons. Metadata are different from information. Share your thoughts on this.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.192.38.242 ( talk) 09:48, 3 November 2006
Besides "after," "meta" can mean "next to" and "beyond," e.g., the word, metastasis, a deposit of a cancer from cells that have migrated from a primary tumor elsewhere in the body, is comprised (both components from the Greek) of "meta," beyond, and "stasis," the [original] location. "Metadata" can be thought of as "next to the data," e.g., the phone numbers from conversations of millions of people collected by the National Security Agency are "next to" the actual conversations. Stubbycat ( talk) 18:41, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
I added a reference to how Wikipedia uses metadata. I know this may seem to violate WP:SELF, but since it's a common example to readers of the site, I thought it was worth including. Timtempleton ( talk) 13:42, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
I think the French, Spaniards, and Italians are calling it Metadato.
Data in my language means date (like the date on a calendar,or the date of an event like the sun has 1 trillion years of life left).I think the Greeks say imerominia for date. ime Rominia means something to me. Could you please fire up your Super Computer and run some numbers for me.
Computers were made to compute. Compute means to make a Mathematical calculation, or computation. What calculations has your Super Computer made with all the information, about information it has collected about people. Does it have a simulator.
Can we talk about conflict:- an incompatibility of dates or events.
Blagoja73 ( talk) 03:26, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
I had hoped to use this article to help clarify metadata concepts but the initial sentence and opening paragraph are immediately confounding.
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts (types).
Don ( talk) 01:39, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
I agree. The intro is barely comprehensible, particularly to someone who doesn't know much about the topic. 93.96.236.8 ( talk) 13:11, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
I was unclear. "Zip Code" is a metadata label that identifies data 12345. Two parts. The label & the data. A perfectly good metadata label could be M0435 (as soon as you memorize it, it's meaningful). Everything in a computer is labeled even if it's by base+displacement notation. DEddy ( talk) 14:17, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
A data definition such as "ZIP Code" in the cited text is hardly a useful (first!) example of metadata. What is basically a column name is either edge-case metadata or arguably not metadata at all. Metadata does not exist to give data meaning; rather, it exists to describe data. Meaning is derived: from metadata, context, presentation, personal bias... whatever.
Metadata is easier to explain in unstructured data contexts. An article titled "Solar Power Generation Today" might be assigned the metadata, "alternative energy," with a metadata categorization of, say "subject." On the other hand, if "12345" must be chosen as our, then a nice made-up metadata might be "Processing Center assigned 1987" or something like that.
I'd suggest the first of those two. And, in any case, the ZIP Code example should be archived. (Status:Deprecated) ;-)
67.149.104.192
02:14, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Please to be more explicit as to why/how 12345/Zip Code (I'm happy with Aus Postal code example too) is a bad example? If it's no good, please to provide a suitable substitute. I was attempting to offer a beginners example from the systems perspective. Your "Solar Power Generation Today" comment is from the world of publishing (I think). As far as I know, neither the systems domain, nor the publishing domain can claim exclusive ownership of metadata... it rather depends on one's perspective/context/experience.
DEddy
02:46, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
I think the Zip Code example is perfectly good. The name and definition associated with a data element are the most important items of metadata. RayGates 21:54, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Ray - Thanks for the vote of support for "my" simple definition/example of metadata. I'm sure I copied this example from someone else 10-15 years ago, & I've yet to see anything that comes remotely close to giving a view into how metadata fits into helping represent the real world via data. Total agreement that a good name goes a long way to resolving lots of metadata ambiguity. DEddy 00:52, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Not sure why we are making this personal and defensive. It wasn't meant that way. I disagree with the example, I feel that it is not terribly illustrative (since nearly everyone already knows about data element names), and I disagree that there is any domain-specific definition of "metadata." I suggested some alternatives. None of these are personal attacks. 66.93.3.210 20:24, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
With all due respect, I too feel that the Zip Code example is inappropriate. This is because "zip code" tells us what 12345 means. It completes the statement "12345 is a ________", effectively turning a string of numbers (data) into information. This is almost the definition of that object within a specific context. Metadata should provide peripheral information about an object - information that is (generally) not critical to the existence/interpretation of the object.
Also, I'm confused as to why we need another example when we can stay with and explore the very good example provided earlier on in the article - the digital camera JPEG. The JPEG metadata stores the timestamp, shutter speed and aperture among other things. It does not try to store the fact that "This is a picture file". We derive that fact from the structure of the file or the extension of the file-name, both of which contribute to defining the context within which we look at the file. Both are also critical to the existence of the file. If there was absolutely no way of knowing what type of file it was, the only thing one can do with that object is destroy it. Ulric 16:43, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
The reason why I think the ZIP code is a bad example the way it is now is the heart of the sentence "12345" is data, and with no additional context is meaningless. I am only a computer engineer, not a computer science theorist, but to me data has meaning; if it does not have meaning, then I call it a string of characters or bits or I call it garbage, or a cryptographic challenge (as you might try to decode meaning just by looking at the shape of data.) There's no difference between 12345 and ABCDE if I don't have any clue about what it means. A field name is what turns a string into data. Clearly, for me the field name isn't metadata, but what qualifies the string as data. Your mileage may vary. So, data has meaning, and metadata extends what I know about the data and may help me work it better. For instance, you may keep the example and make it less US-centric by saying that the Postal Code field may have the value 12345, and metadata about it would be that it refers to a USA ZIP code. So we already had a meaning for the field (it's a postal code), but we're extending it by knowing it's not a French postcode (which it could be). We can work with it better, because we won't try to validate it against a Portuguese postcode mask (9999-999), or Australian (AAA 9999), South African (9999), whatever. – Tintazul msg 10:00, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree column name and description are metadata. They are extra information that is used to understand the data stored in the column. I disagree with the view that metadata doesn't extend information. For example, a column of data might contain date & time . The column name or definition could tell you whether the date/time is UTC or local. Tonyjkent ( talk) 22:37, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
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Hello to all interested in Metadata!
I'm here as part of a Wikipedia edit-a-thon, entering info on Library and Information Science.
I feel as though there are a few sections in the definitions at the top that could be moved down to Metadata Usage. I've gone ahead and moved the Libraries section down to Library and Information Science.
I'll then be adding to that section specifically. Wish me luck and let me know if you have any comments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Binnorie ( talk • contribs) 20:33, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
I added some citations to the top of the article and I removed an old citation needed warning form 2010 that seemed to have been overtaken by events. There are some reasonable citations in that section (they could be better but they aren't terrible) and so I removed the warning. If anyone has an issue with that - let me know or fix it. Thank you! Alex Jackl ( talk) 15:43, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
I had done a cleanup of the page and pluralized all the references to metadata. It is common practice to treat data as a plural. It was also discussed on this talk page (see above) and it seemed clear that the consensus (albeit limited) was for us to treat it as a plural. Someone went through an made all the verbs singular again. Unless someone objects I am going to reverse that and make it consistent. Alex Jackl ( talk) 15:00, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
There is a lot of controversy on the acquisition and retention of metadata by governments and government organizations. I moved an unsourced statement about that out of the opening paragraph into the paragraph on history and then added a citation supporting it. Alex Jackl ( talk) 17:20, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
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Under the Creation header, include the following
Some metadata is produced during the creation of a resource, some is added after creation, some is provided manually, and some can be automatically generated. [1] Hectorlopez17 ( talk) 23:58, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
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To the best of my knowledge there are precious few PhD's in Library Science that have made it to publication. Worth having a look. DEddy ( talk) 00:31, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
@ DEddy:, I reverted your latest addition and am about to do so again as it is based on one primary source,i.e., there are no reliable third-party sources establishing the notability of your addition. You need to provide high-quality third-party sources, then your addition can stay. There is no excuse for edit warring and you have edited here enough to know that primary sources do not establish notability and therefore cannot be used to justify the addition of a new section. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 10:17, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
Oh!
BTW... I did not add that reference.
Giving the appalling "quality" of the metadata page, you prefer to reject a PhD thesis on one facet of the complex topic of metadata? DEddy ( talk) 01:42, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
There used to be lengthy history comments. Where have they gone? DEddy ( talk) 19:16, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
The article treats "metadata" as a singular form, but isn't "data" plural? FinalForm ( talk) 22:16, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
Data is a Mass noun. In this article [3] they quote Oxford Dictionary as saying: 'In Latin, data is the plural of datum and, historically and in specialized scientific fields , it is also treated as a plural in English, taking a plural verb, as in the data were collected and classified . In modern non-scientific use, however , despite the complaints of traditionalists, it is often not treated as a plural. Instead, it is treated as a mass noun, similar to a word like information, which cannot normally have a plural and which takes a singular verb. Sentences such as data was (as well as data were ) collected over a number of years are now widely accepted in standard English.' BildadtomyPeleg ( talk) 08:33, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
With the evolution of the media supply chain, media metadata has become a popular area of curiosity. I figured I'd try my hand at creating a section for it within this article. Please discuss this section here prior to making edits on the page. Thanks. Tedi0usMarrking ( talk) 14:15, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
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Can this reference be added? It contains a concise description of metadata based on various sources performed by experts in the field. [1] Pndt ( talk) 23:13, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
References