Lots of talk going on in the blog community about the need of metadata, specifically from Doug Kaye's Blog.

Lou has posted some interesting rebuttals about the topic.

Even Christina has picked up on the story.

What I think? It's a bunch of misinformation on the value of metadata. Many of us metadata folks don't apply metadata for its own sake...there really are reasons why we do it. In some cases the organization of information is a reason, another is that the user needs ways to search for aspects of a piece of information, and in the case of taxonomies someone out there needs some order to find similarities and differences in understanding a piece of information.

Metadata and taxonomies are representations of the ying and yang. There needs to be harmony between the information and ways of understanding what that information is about.

As for blogs, I think metadata and a taxonomy could help bridge our understanding of each other's thought processes. Without a common vocabulary we disrupt the ying and yang of our communities. We could potentially create conflict where there doesn't need to be one. It's not about creating agreement on what the "truth" is, it's about understanding each other.