DBpedia Lookup RE: Can we lower the LD entry cost please (part 1)?

> dbpedia: wanted Tim again. After clicking on a few web pages, none of
> which
> seemed to provide a search facility, I resorted to my usual method:-
> look it
> up in wikipedia and then hack the URI and hope it works in dbpedia.
> (Sorry to name specific sites, guys, but I needed a few examples.
> And I am only asking for a little more, so that the fruits of your
> amazing
> labours can be more widely appreciated!)

oh, it was my laziness that kept me from announcing it publically yet,
but since Hugh is complaining about the lack of URI search functionality
in DBpedia, here it is:

http://lookup.dbpedia.org

and web service at http://lookup.dbpedia.org/api/search.asmx

KeywordSearch method is for searching full titles, PrefixSearch is for
auto-completion style search. If you want to use that in a productive
system (i.e. putting high load on my server), please drop me a message.

Best,
Georgi 

--
Georgi Kobilarov
Freie Universität Berlin
www.georgikobilarov.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-lod-request@w3.org [mailto:public-lod-request@w3.org] On
> Behalf Of Hugh Glaser
> Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2009 2:24 PM
> To: public-lod@w3.org
> Subject: Can we lower the LD entry cost please (part 1)?
> 
> 
> My proposal:
> *We should not permit any site to be a member of the Linked Data cloud
> if it
> does not provide a simple way of finding URIs from natural language
> identifiers.*
> 
> Rationale:
> One aspect of our Linking Data (not to mention our Linking Open Data)
> world
> is that we want people to link to our data - that is, I have published
> some
> stuff about something, with a URI, and I want people to be able to use
> that
> URI.
> 
> So my question to you, the publisher, is: "How easy is it for me to
> find the
> URI your users want?"
> 
> My experience suggests it is not always very easy.
> What is required at the minimum, I suggest, is a text search, so that
> if I
> have a (boring string version of a) name that refers in my mind to
> something, I can hope to find an (exciting Linked Data) URI of that
> thing.
> I call this a projection from the Web to the Semantic Web.
> rdfs:label or equivalent usually provides the other one.
> 
> At the risk of being seen as critical of the amazing efforts of all my
> colleagues (if not also myself), this is rarely an easy thing to do.
> 
> Some recent experiences:
> OpenCalais: as in my previous message on this list, I tried hard to
> find a
> URI for Tim, but failed.
> dbtune: Saw a Twine message about dbtune, trundled over there, and
> tried to
> find a URI for a Telemann, but failed.
> dbpedia: wanted Tim again. After clicking on a few web pages, none of
> which
> seemed to provide a search facility, I resorted to my usual method:-
> look it
> up in wikipedia and then hack the URI and hope it works in dbpedia.
> (Sorry to name specific sites, guys, but I needed a few examples.
> And I am only asking for a little more, so that the fruits of your
> amazing
> labours can be more widely appreciated!)
> wordnet: [2] below
> 
> So I have access to Linked Data sites that I know (or at least
strongly
> suspect) have URIs I might want, but I can't find them.
> How on earth do we expect your average punter to join this world?
> 
> What have I missed?
> Searching, such as Sindice: Well yes, but should I really have to go
> off to
> a search engine to find a dbpedia URI? And when I look up "Telemann
> dbtune"
> I don't get any results. And I wanted the dbtune link, not some other
> link.
> Did I miss some links on web pages? Quite probably, but the basic
> problem
> still stands.
> SPARQL: Well, yes. But we cannot seriously expect our users to
> formulate a
> SPARQL query simply to find out the dbpedia URI for Tim. What is the
> regexp
> I need to put in? (see below [1])
> A foaf file: Well Tim's dbpedia URI is probably in his foaf file
> (although
> possibly there are none of Tim's URIs in his foaf file), if I can
> actually
> find the file; but for some reason I can't seem to find Telemann's
foaf
> file.
> 
> If you are still doubting me, try finding a URI for Telemann in
dbpedia
> without using an external link, just by following stuff from the home
> page.
> I managed to get a Telemann by using SPARQL without a regexp (it times
> out
> on any regexp), but unfortunately I get the asteroid.
> 
> Again, my proposal:
> *We should not permit any site to be a member of the Linked Data cloud
> if it
> does not provide a simple way of finding URIs from natural language
> identifiers.*
> Otherwise we end up in a silo, and the world passes us by.
> 
> Very best
> Hugh
> 
> [And since we have to take our own medicine, I have added a "Just
> search"
> box right at the top level of all the rkbexplorer.com domains, such as
> http://wordnet.rkbexplorer.com/ ]
> 
> 
> [1]
> Dbtune finding of Telemann:
> SELECT * WHERE {?s ?p ?name .
> FILTER regex(?name, "Telemann$") }
> 
> I tried
> SELECT * WHERE {?s ?p ?name .
> FILTER regex(?name, "telemann$", "i") }
> first, but got no results - not sure why.
> 
> [2]
> <rant>
> I cannot believe just how frustrating this stuff can be when you
really
> try
> to use it.
> Because I looked at Sindice for telemann, I know that it is a word in
> wordnet ( http://sindice.com/search?q=Telemann reports loads of
> http://wordnet.rkbexplorer.com/ links).
> Great, he thinks, I can get a wordnet link from a "proper" wordnet
> publisher
> (ie not me).
> Goes to
>
http://esw.w3.org/topic/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpen
> Data
> to find wordnet.
> The link there is dead.
> Strips off the last bit, to get to the home princeton wordnet page,
and
> clicks on the browser link I find - also dead.
> Go back and look on the
>
http://esw.w3.org/topic/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpenData/Da
> taSet
> s page, and find the link to http://esw.w3.org/topic/WordNet , but
that
> doesn't help.
> So finally, I do the obvious - google "wordnet rdf".
> Of course I get lots of pages saying how available it is, and how
> exciting
> it is that we have it, and how it was produced; and somewhere in there
> I
> find a link: "Wordnet-RDF/RDDL Browser" at
> www.openhealth.org/RDDL/wnbrowse
> Almost unable to contain myself with excitement, I click on the link
to
> find
> a text box, and with trembling hands I type "Telemann" and click
> submit.
> If I show you what I got, you can come some way to imagining my
> devastation:
> "Using org.apache.xerces.parsers.SAXParser
> Exception net.sf.saxon.trans.DynamicError:
> org.xml.sax.SAXParseException:
> White spaces are required between publicId and systemId.
> org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: White spaces are required between
> publicId
> and systemId."
> 
> Does the emperor have any clothes at all?
> </rant>

Received on Saturday, 7 February 2009 15:19:29 UTC