Re: Crowdsourcing request: Google People Finder Data as RDF

Hi Stephane,

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 5:39 PM, Stephane Fellah <fellahst@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> I am interested to help for this project.  I have about than 10 years
> experience with semantic web technology and it is my dog food everyday. I
> had the idea of doing it during the Haiti Earthquake. I looked at the People
> Finder Interchange Format (PFIF) that is used by
> google http://zesty.ca/pfif/1.2/ . The problem is XML format is mainly its
> fixed structure and its difficulty to extend it for specific purpose (like
> address).

Great link. I had not found the spec anywhere ;)

> I would be interested to work on developing core ontology that would fix the
> defect of PFIF and then use it as a foundation to develop extensions. There

OK. But at this point we need "something that works"
We don't want to extend the Google service, we want to consume it and
integrate it with other services.

> are other ontologies that could be taken in account such as Sahana
> http://ontology.nursix.org/sahana-person.owl.    I think it is important we
> do it right that just going to a straight conversion from PFIF format. It
> requires some effort but it should pay off in the long term.

Long term is the key word here... we don't have much time ;)
We;re looking for people and guiding rescue teams

> I would appreciate if you can tell me where to start (forum, wiki, code base
> ..etc)

Well all forums are in spanish. There are some small english hubs, for example:
http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/wiki/Chile/2010_2_27_Earthquake

I think a simple RDF converter should be easy. Just don't have the
time for it. Other teams are using the data as-is. Time is critical
that's why we're asking for help.

Thanks!


> Best regards
> Stephane Fellah
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 1:12 PM, Bill Roberts <bill@swirrl.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Aldo - I'd like to help, but I see you posted your mail a few hours
>> ago.  Do you have updated information on what still needs done?  Do you have
>> a wiki or similar to coordinate volunteer programming efforts?
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Bill
>>
>>
>> On 4 Mar 2010, at 14:06, Aldo Bucchi wrote:
>>
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > As most of you heard things were a bit shaky down here in Chile. We
>> > have some requests and hope you guys can help. This is a moment to
>> > prove what we always boast about: that Linked Data can solve real
>> > problems.
>> >
>> > Google provides a prople finder service
>> > (http://chilepersonfinder.appspot.com/) which is right now
>> > centralizing some ( but not all ) of the missing people data. This
>> > service is OK but it lacks some features plus we need to integrate
>> > with other sources to perform analysis and aid our rescue teams /
>> > alleviate families.
>> >
>> > This is serious matter but it is indeed taken a bti lightly by
>> > existing software. ( there is a tradeoff between the amount of
>> > structure you can impose and ease of use in the front-line ).
>> >
>> > What we would love to have is a way to access all feeds from
>> > <http://chilepersonfinder.appspot.com/> as RDF
>> >
>> > We already have some databases operating on these feeds, but we're
>> > still far away a clean solution because of its loose structure ( take
>> > a look and you'll see what I mean ).
>> >
>> > Who wants to take a shot at this?
>> >
>> > Requirements.
>> > - Take all feeds originating from
>> > <http://chilepersonfinder.appspot.com/>
>> > - Generate an initial RDF dump ( big TTL file )
>> > - Generate Incremental RDF dumps every hour
>> >
>> > The transfromation should do its best guess at the ideal data
>> > structure and try not to loose granularity but shield us a bit from
>> > this feed based model.
>> >
>> > We then take care of downloading this, integrating with other systems,
>> > further processing, geocoding, etc.
>> >
>> > There's a lot of work to do and the more we can outsource, the bettter.
>> >
>> > On Friday ( tomorrow ) there will be the first nation-wide
>> > announcement of our search platform and we expect lots of people to
>> > use our services. So this is something really urgent and really,
>> > really important for those who need it.
>> >
>> > Ah. Volunteers are moving all this data into a Virtuoso instance that
>> > will also have more stuff. It will be available soon at
>> > http://opendata.cl/ so stay tuned.
>> >
>> > We really hope we had something like DBpedia in place by now, it would
>> > make all this much easier. But now is the time.
>> > Guys, the tsunami casualties could have been avoided it was all about
>> > mis-information.
>> > Same goes for relief efforts. They are not optimal and this is all
>> > about data in the end.
>> >
>> > I know you know how valuable data is. But it is now that you can
>> > really make your point! Triple by Triple.
>> >
>> > Thanks!
>> > A
>> >
>> > --
>> > Aldo Bucchi
>> > skype:aldo.bucchi
>> > http://www.univrz.com/
>> > http://aldobucchi.com/
>> >
>> > PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION
>> > This message is only for the use of the individual or entity to which it
>> > is
>> > addressed and may contain information that is privileged and
>> > confidential. If
>> > you are not the intended recipient, please do not distribute or copy
>> > this
>> > communication, by e-mail or otherwise. Instead, please notify us
>> > immediately by
>> > return e-mail.
>> >
>>
>>
>
>



-- 
Aldo Bucchi
skype:aldo.bucchi
http://www.univrz.com/
http://aldobucchi.com/

PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION
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addressed and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If
you are not the intended recipient, please do not distribute or copy this
communication, by e-mail or otherwise. Instead, please notify us immediately by
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Received on Friday, 5 March 2010 13:10:41 UTC