Re: Micromodels.org

On 05/02/07, Benjamin Nowack <bnowack@appmosphere.com> wrote:
>
>
> Hi,
>
> Just a short note that DanC recently started to move away from
> the micromodels naming a little, at least as far as GRDDL is
> concerned [1].

As I understand it, Dan feels "micromodels" is too easily associated
with microformats [2]:
[[
I don't want comparisons like "it's just like microformats but..."
]]

I'm afraid I was (am) responsible for micromodels.org. There didn't
appear to be a list of transformations from domain-specific XML to
RDF(/XML) anywhere, it seemed worth collating them, and the collection
needed a name...  (I wasn't aware of RDFizers [3], there's also now
ConverterToRdf [4])

The comparison with microformats as suggested by the coinage was
intentional : "it's just like microformats but...at the model level".
I felt the buzzword might seem more palatable to folks outside the RDF
community than a stack of acronyms, especially the microformats
community whose output has the potential to be a significant
contribution to the Semantic Web (<span class="grumble">if only they'd
sort out some more profile URIs</span>). I believed there was a clear
parallel between expressing domain-specific data in a common format
(HTML) and expressing it in a common model (RDF).  So I snagged the
domain name, pointed it to the Wiki page in lieu of something more
appealing...

Anyhow, the buzzword produced virtually no buzz and I'm not
particularly attached to it - if Dan prefers to use the
CustomRdfDialects page to carry the same information, so be it. (I'm
contemplating refactoring the micromodels.org URI space to point to
live converters).

Incidentally, a page on the microformats Wiki that did seem to produce
an affirmative response from that community was "Microformat FAQs for
RDF Fans" [5] . The intended purpose was exactly as the title
suggests, but there was an unexpected side effect : presenting a
positive view of microformats aimed at RDF people seemed to help
bypass the notion that RDF was somehow a competing technology. Might
be a useful strategy elsewhere.

Oh, and if I understood correctly, then DERI has
> started working on a best practice site for RDF vocabularies
> which is planned to follow the microformats blog+wiki approach.

Cool. I can imagine it working very well for vocabs like SIOC, where
there is a core team to look after direction, maintenance & promotion
(as there is for microformats). Would be interesting to see what it's
like in other cases.

Cheers,
Danny.

> [1] http://esw.w3.org/topic/CustomRdfDialects
[2] http://chatlogs.planetrdf.com/swig/2007-01-31.html#T18-58-10
[3] http://simile.mit.edu/RDFizers/
[4] http://esw.w3.org/topic/ConverterToRdf
[5] http://microformats.org/wiki/faqs-for-rdf


-- 

http://dannyayers.com

Received on Monday, 5 February 2007 18:44:02 UTC