Re: Fractal communities: Was: Rich semantics and expressiveness

On 9 Mar 2007, at 20:08, Hausenblas, Michael wrote:

> Richard,
>
>> The most common objections are: a) "lo-fi semantic content"
>> such as RSS/Atom, tags, microformats, GRDDL and RDFa are also
>> part of the Semantic Web [...]
>
> Mhm. I wonder where these come from ;)
> Till now I was just lurking around, so please be lenient toward
> me if I missed something ...
>
> Let me please try to clarify an issue that IMHO is important
> in this discussion. One should not compare oranges with apples
> when talking about what is 'in' and what is 'not in' (the SW).
>
> In greater detail, w.r.t. 'lo-fi semantic content' (btw, who
> the heck invented this one):

I did, on the spot, and I put it in quotes for a reason.

>  + RSS/Atom are concrete formats
>  + tags are a paradigm (or a concrete implementation, cf. [1])
>  + microformats [2], eRDF [3], and RDFa [4] are ways to
>    _deploy_ (RDF) metadata
>  + GRDDL [5] is a way to 'uncover' the RDF in non-RDF formats

They're all technologies designed for the delivery of structured  
information over the web. They all have a gentler learning or  
adoption curve than RDF/XML. Of course they are not the same thing,  
but lumping them together made sense in the context of my original  
bullet point.

> So I'd like to conclude that _all_ content, metadata, formats, etc.
> are welcome on the SW. We are not, I repeat, we are _not_ in the
> position to judge on what is a first-class citizen, and what is not.

There are a lot of people out there looking at Semantic Web  
technologies for Solving A Problem, Now. I spend much time  
interacting with them on the mailing lists for our various tools. And  
sorry, but I feel obliged to direct them towards stuff that *works*,  
that is documented and supported and has gained sufficient momentum  
in the marketplace of ideas. There aren't that many solutions in the  
SW area that fit this description. I don't jump onto every new idea,  
and I do not support old ideas that didn't deliver. I highly  
recommend you do the same.

> BTW: Richard - in your opinion - are relational DB systems
>      lo-fi or hi-fi semantic content? ;)

Are cereal boxes lo-fi or hi-fi breakfast food?

Richard


>
> [1] http://microformats.org/wiki/rel-tag
> [2] http://microformats.org
> [3] http://research.talis.com/2005/erdf/wiki/Main/RdfInHtml
> [4] http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/RDFa/
> [5] http://www.w3.org/TR/grddl/
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------
>  Michael Hausenblas, MSc.
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Received on Sunday, 11 March 2007 15:08:53 UTC