Re: Can we lower the LD entry cost please (part 1)?

Hugh,
I do not understand the notion of "permitting a site to be a member of the
Linked Data cloud".  As I understand it, being a member of the Linked Data
cloud simply involves linking your RDF data to a dataset that is part of the
cloud.  How do you intend to add any governance to this process?  If I am
confused about this, please correct me.

However, I do not agree that there should be any governance to this process.
 Rather, I believe that self-governance is the only possible form of
governance that could work in this system at the scale of the Web.
 Publishers of datasets should make up their own minds about what they will
supply with their datasets.  In time, proper best practices will emerge and
proper incentives to follow those best practices will emerge and all
publishers will have to publish "good" datasets to be successful.

The problem here, which I think several people on this thread have noted
separately , is pretty simple: there are still too few datasets and too few
apps (both for publishers and consumers).  Too few datasets means not enough
competition which means that publishers can get away with sloppy practices.
 Too few apps for consumers means not enough benefit to publishers which
means they have little incentive to follow good practices when publishing.
 Too few apps for publishers means its too hard to publish data which means
publishers are sometimes forced to use sloppy practices.


(product plug)
On the apps for publishers front, part of what we are trying to accomplish
with Knoodl.com <http://www.knoodl.com/ui/home.html> is to deliver a tool
that provides all the necessary functionality to publish a dataset from
scratch, including enabling mapping to other ontologies/datasets, turning it
into a SPARQL endpoint, having search for vocabulary terms, allowing for
rich documentation of terms, etc.  We are still working on many of these
features but they are all on our roadmap.  Of course, we are always glad to
have any feedback regarding the current state of the product or the future
direction.

Mike Lang
Revelytix, Inc. <http://www.revelytix.com>

phone: 410-584-0009 (office)
          443-928-3782 (cell)
skype: michael.allen.lang.jr
aim: MikeJrRevelytix


On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 8:23 AM, Hugh Glaser <hg@ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:

>
> 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/LinkingOpenData
> 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/DataSet
> 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>
>
>
>