D. Grant Campbell and Karl V. Fast
- Resilience theory proceeds from four basic assumptions:
- Eco-systems do not change continuously or chaotically, but through periods of relative stability punctuated by sudden change that reorganizes the entire system;
- Change at all levels is discontinuous, patchy, and non-linear. Consequently, it is difficult to analyze how smaller systems scale up to larger sizes;
- The destablizing forces in ecosystems maintain diversity, flexibility and opportunity, and are therefore as important as stabilizing forces to the system's long-term survival;
- Ecosystems that strive for constant yields, independent of changes in scale and context, attain a false stability that is unable to absorb changes, thereby losing resilience and becoming vulnerable to failure (Redman & Kinzig 2003).
If we adhere to resilience theory assumptions in an information environment, we can expect the following. First, we can expect that collaborative tagging systems may take time to evolve without any serious impact on information architecture practices, but will suddenly produce an influence that will radically change the underlying structure of the information environment. Second, even if tagging has a disruptive or destabilizing force on Web architectures, that very disruptiveness can have positive effects, by increasing the diversity and flexibility of that architecture. And finally, we ignore "mob indexing" at our peril; by refusing to change our methods or our approaches in the face of collaborative tagging systems, we run a serious risk of allowing information architects to become anachronisms in emerging information environments.