Re: Owning URIs (Was: Yet Another LOD cloud browser)

It might be better to say owning the description of an URI.

The Semantic Web allows "anyone can say anything anywhere", so we
cannot stop people adding more descriptions to a URI.  As seen in
Swoogle Term search, many URIs have been defined by many places: the
"official address' indicated by the http namespace of a URI may carry
less description than other sites,  some even being defined as both
class and property.

It is important to track the ownership (further provenance) of the
description of URI. we may want to know who published the definition,
and where the definition is copied from. Being able to connect RDF
triples with authors is an important step towards the social semantic
web.

In web 2.0 era, there may not be just one way to track the ownership.
While we can traditionally buy domain name and own the URI,  people
can collaborate on semantic wiki, for example, to define certain URI.
In Web 2.0 context, the ownership is recorded in semantic annotation
rather and hardwired in the namespace.  One good example is the
wikipedia: I was using merrian-webster online dictionary 10 years ago,
but now I'm using google's definition link or wikipedia for term
definition. Of course, some one also take advantage of Wikipedia's
credibility to do spam or put up wrong stuff, but that is more a
matter to be addressed by reputation system.

Li

>
> I had to pick up in "no-one can own any URI".
> First of all, terms:  URL is not really a term in the architecture of the
> WWW.  I find it best to use "URI".  "URL" does occur in the browser UI, but
> in the specs it has been used for various things, often a derogatory term
> for a URI which might change. How are you using it here? To mean the URI of
> a web page?
> To mean an " http:"  URI?  If not, then why are you dealing with URIs which
> are not HTTP URIs (tch, tch! :-)?  If so, then why don't you think these
> HTTP URIs in the semantic web are owned?
> Why can't the semantic web track 'whois' information of domain ownership,
> and maybe even SLL certificate information, of sites and be aware of the
> social relationships, and use them intelligently? (perhaps more safely than
> a human who will be confused by
> http://www.microsoft.com.1000ripyouoff.crime/ ?) .  It is true that the
> delegation of information within a site is not typically made explicit
> (though it could be with site metadata).  But there is in general a system
> of ownership of URIs, it seems to me, and it is important on the SW in the
> social processes by which different groups get to define what different
> terms mean.  So "no-one can own any URI" set off a red flag for me.
> Tim
>



-- 
Li Ding
http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~dingl/

Received on Monday, 18 May 2009 12:59:54 UTC