Re: Now it's RDF vs Microformats

Lee Feigenbaum wrote:
> Paul wrote on 02/23/2007 09:54:14 AM:
>
>   
>> So, we should be cooperative yes, but everyone needs to realise that 
>>     
> there
>   
>> *is* an element of competition. I don't think it's necessary and I don't
>> like it personally. 
>>     
>
>   
Lee,

> >From where I sit, it seems to be the microformats crowd that has no 
> interest in being cooperative with the RDF crowd. (c.f. recent posts like 
> http://ben-ward.co.uk/journal/fao-rdf/ ) In addition, there seems to be an 
> implicit assumption in much of what I see from the microformat community 
> that RDF is only successful if it marks content up on the Web ala RDFa or 
> eRDF. I know that there is somewhat of a split even within SWEO on the 
> corporate SW vs. SW-on-the-web, but to me comments like "The thing about 
> RDF is that no-one has yet demonstrated any real-world reason to care 
> about it" seem to beg for some SWEO intervention.
>   

Violent agreement :-)

I think we really need to allot some time for this at the next SWEO 
session. That said, I do believe the SWEO Projects and Information 
Gathering efforts set the stage for obliterating this misinformation 
effort. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen for sure!

> I think Danny's response is well-worth reading if you haven't already, 
> though I remain personally unconvinced that the original post is 
> "well-argued". 
>
> In general, I wonder if we'd be better off focusing on promoting the 
> virtues of RDF (on and off the Web) rather than engaging the microformats 
> community directly.
>   
The Microformats community is one of many in the engagement graph 
(IMHO). We should over emphasize or deemphasize their importance :-) 
They are just another connection in the People and Data Network called 
the Data Web (cluster size is of questionable density relative to the 
broader target audience of RDF).

All we need to do is coherently integrate microformat content in our 
demo, tutorials, and related efforts.

Here are some misinformation busting actions we should take:

1. Fix the Layer Cake on Wikipedia (I don't mind doing this if I can get 
a conclusive position re. my Layer Cake revamp effort at the start of 
the SWEO mailing list)
2. Explain RDF along the following lines
    - Data Model
    - N3 / Turtle to explain and demonstrate Triples
    - RDF/XML to demonstrate power of interchange via RDF serialization 
format
    - GRDDL to show RDF can work with anything
    - Show simple best practices for adding nodes to the data web
      - Content Negotiation
      - Linked Data
      - Dereferencable URIs
     
3. Connect SWEO projects to all of the above (which happens by way of 
SWEO project support since the projects illuminate the points above in a 
variety of ways)

4. We all tell the story in our own personal ways via our personal 
communications channels to our respective audiences (all nodes in the 
people and data net work connected to us etc.).

In a nutshell, use the "RDF Force" which is really the same as saying 
"Leverage Network Effects". Since we know the Web is a Graph we should 
simply put this knowledge to use :-)

We need more action and less prose since communities that have gripes 
with RDF will only respond to demos that ultimately force them to 
inquire about the underlying infrastructure. At the end of the day this 
is how each major "Web Frontier" or "Dimension of Interaction" has come 
into being.

> Lee
>  
>
>   


-- 


Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	      Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
President & CEO 
OpenLink Software     Web: http://www.openlinksw.com

Received on Friday, 23 February 2007 22:09:22 UTC