Re: Hacker rally questionnaire draft, take 2

Kjetil Kjernsmo wrote:
> On Thursday 11 January 2007 14:47, Kingsley Idehen wrote:
>   
>> Use blogging and the discussions that emanate from the post to spread
>> the word. That's what would be expected from the Web community.
>>     
>
> Well, I'm just slightly concerned, that if the questionnaire is spread 
> widely as it is now, ideas will pop up, but will be lost to noise very 
> quickly, like on slashdot. Moreover, if some of the questions are bad, 
> that will further drown any good ideas. 
>   
In a sense Noise is good :-) It created the data dump from which we want 
to extract coherence using Semantic Web technology :-) The noise is 
going to take the form of blog posts (RSS or Atom) comments (RSS or 
Atom) that contain in- and out-bound links, tags, and possibly some RDFa 
(hopefully). The goal is to do things naturally (informal and chaotic) 
that provide a the foundation for unraveling the intrinsic value of 
Semantic Web via demos, solutions, and tutorials built atop this base.

>   
>>> I think blogging it now would perhaps spread it beyond the semweb
>>> community before it is, I don't know if that's a good thing or not,
>>> though.
>>>  
>>>       
>> The goal is to spread the conversation beyond the semweb community.
>>     
>
> Sure, but that's the conversation about ideas that we want to spread 
> beyond the semweb community, not necessarily the conversation about the 
> questions. I'd like to know if the questions are good now, and have 
> people discuss the ideas next week.
>
>   
>>> I think that we should absolutely blog it once it is ready, and my
>>>   Opera semweb blog is on planetrdf, but perhaps keep it within
>>> ourselves and near relatives for now. When it is ready, I hope it
>>> can get a w3.org URL, and we can point to it from various sources.
>>>  
>>>       
>> Once you blog there is no concept of control though, a blog post is
>> the basis of open conversation :-) It think we are trying to have a
>> broad conversation that goes something like this: "What do you need
>> to Semantic Web to do for you in order for you to understand the
>> value behind the vision....."
>>     
>
> Yup! But actually, I think that is a rather dangerous thing for hackers. 
> Many good hackers are not motivated by what others need, to the 
> contrary, I know a few who have left the Open Source community because 
> they feel that people demand things of them without compensation, while 
> their own ideas are left unattended. That's what is delicate about 
> this, we need to motivate the hackers, who allready hold a lot of ideas 
> and who actually can realize them. And I really don't want to waste 
> good ideas by drowning them in noise, or push hackers away by badly 
> posed questions.
>   
Starting a conversation is just that. I don't see how the notion of 
"hackers" and their feelings come into play here per se. We just want to 
have a conversation about the relevance of the Semantic Web to Web 
Developers. During this conversation we explore usage scenarios and 
possible solutions or seek: "How would the Semantic Web address this 
problem..." type commentary. This kind of thing happens every other 
second across the blogosphere today. We just need to being SWEO into 
this mix by seeding relevant conversations.


Kingsley
>   
>>> But come to think of it, I should probably chump it on #swig on IRC
>>> after lunch.
>>>  
>>>       
>> Certainly.
>>     
>
> chumped now! :-)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Kjetil
>   


-- 


Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	      Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
President & CEO 
OpenLink Software     Web: http://www.openlinksw.com

Received on Thursday, 11 January 2007 16:02:13 UTC