RE: Now it's RDF vs Microformats

"When a new microformat is introduced existing applications may not be able
to store and process them without creating new data structures first."

I didn't know this, thanks.

Paul

> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-sweo-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:public-sweo-ig-request@w3.org]
On
> Behalf Of Uldis Bojars
> Sent: 26 February 2007 02:38
> To: 'Lee Feigenbaum'; public-sweo-ig@w3.org
> Subject: RE: Now it's RDF vs Microformats
> 
> 
> Lee Feigenbaum wrote on Friday, February 23, 2007 9:40 PM:
> 
> >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.
> 
> One of the main principles of microformats "specific solutions to specific
> problems" is also one of the main reasons why (and how) microformats can
> benefit from RDF.
> 
> That is consuming and storing information described with microformats.
There
> are separate microformats for different kinds of information - and the
> software consuming this data has to know how to store and process each of
> them. When a new microformat is introduced existing applications may not
be
> able to store and process them without creating new data structures first.
> This is where RDF may help - it has a generic data model and will be able
to
> store new microformats right away (after they are converted to RDF).
> 
> The next benefit is that RDF has a simple data model in which all
relations
> [between data objects] are made explicit - which helps to clarify the
> implicit interconnections between different mFormats which Paul Walsh was
> writing about:
> 
> "Nothing has smaller units than RDF, nothing is more decentralized than
RDF,
> nothing is more modular than RDF. I've just written a MF-to-RDF converter,
> the implicit interconnections between the different MFs are rather complex
> for both publishers and consumers. They also make up at least 50% of the
> questions on the MF IRC channel (à la "what are the exact semantics of a
> rel-tag in an hreview in an hentry")."
> 
> I can only agree to earlier posts - it makes sense to work together and
> avoid falling into the trap of "us or them" mindset. Even if the
communities
> will not be working together right away there is something that both
> communities want to do and are doing - creating a Web of richer data.
> 
> Within the SIOC project [1] we are generating some RDF data from community
> sites (largest part via the WordPress SIOC plugin [1]) and want to get
more
> RDF data out there. It is [probably] much less than what is generated via
> microformats, but it is a large enough set of useful data. Now we need
more
> applications that can consume this information and show its practical
> applications.
> 
> [1] http://sioc-project.org/wordpress
> 
> One thing that the microfomats is strong at is a strong community
> involvement and spreading the word (marketing). Their message and
principles
> are simple enough and easy to spread. That's what we could learn from and
> what SWEO is now doing - to spread the word and to prepare simple messages
> and good demonstrations.
> 
> Uldis
> 
> [ http://captsolo.net/info/ ]
> 
> 
> 
> 
>

Received on Monday, 26 February 2007 09:29:38 UTC