Re: is this valid to make a named graph in RDFa?

On Monday 10 March 2008 12:50, Story Henry wrote:
> On 10 Mar 2008, at 15:30, Golda Velez wrote:
> [...snip..]
> > since my
> > sites are directed at non-technical audience, and I want them to help
> > annotate the data.
> 
> You are in a bit of a dilemma here. You want a non technical audience  
> to generate RDF directly? 

Well, let me put it this way :  RDF is supposed to be able to represent human 
knowledge.  And yes, I expect a non-technical audience to contribute to some 
areas of human knowledge.

Of course the interface would be clearer and simpler, that is why mentioned my 
approach of using a low-entry-bar presentation and old-fashioned forms to 
guide users to enter data.

But, they would still be annotating specific bits of knowledge that I had in 
mind to represent in RDF. The reason I have for liking RDF for this task is 
not the reasoning aspects, its the namespace and vocabulary bits that help 
share data in a precise way.  

Its not that I want people to discuss opinions or beliefs, but there are lots 
(and lots) of fields of useful knowledge that are not quite factual.  
Actually, I see a huge need for tools that take the 'many eyes' or bazaar 
approach that makes open source software the way to go, and apply it to all 
kinds of 'cultural technology'.  You don't have to use RDF to do this but I 
thought you could.

For example, what about a site discussing the best way to get rid of head lice 
on kids?  There are lots of methods and results but not 'facts' as to what 
works best; and waiting for a properly administered scientific large 
population study is not always practical.  And in this case, there are lots 
of non-technical people with very useful information.  

It may be that RDF is just the wrong data model to use for what I want to do - 
I don't want to waste anyone's time.  Its certainly possible to create a site 
with feedback and discussion of propositions without RDF; the thing is 
without well definited vocabularies the ability to share data across diverse 
sites is limited and eventually you are no better off than full text search 
again.

[ a bit more below]

> That would be working at the wrong level of   
> abstraction: a bit like asking a conusmer desktop user to program in  
> C. True, most programs that the end user writes are written in C, but  
> no one asks the end user to know that fact, let alone be able to work  
> with it. The same argument would of course be made with Java.
> 
> If you want to help them annotate data, then you have to do that in a  
> way that end users understand, by creating simple tools such as say  
> jPhoto, that would be a bit like iPhoto, but allow one to annotate  
> photos anywhere on the web. In that case you can use N3 since you  
> control the output format that the end user never sees.
> 
> Still I don't know of a simple user interface that a non technical  
> user would understand as being a way to express propositional  
> attitudes, other than that he believes the world to be a certain way.  
> I imagine this would make sense in a user interface dealing with  
> historical research.  Clearly such tools will be developed. But to  
> start with those is to start with some of the most difficult problems,  
> as you have to solve the user interface problem, and the complex  
> reasoning problems that come from dealing with this level of  
> abstraction.

I'm not sure you need to do complex reasoning if you are not making assertions 
absolute.  I'll discuss this just a bit more in response to Azamat's post.
 
> As I said previously, it is much better to start out by seeing how far  
> one can go with simple factual assertions.
> 
> Later we can look at propositions such as  "If kangaroos had no tails  
> they would topple over. "
> 
> > Do you think that a tool like Tabulator is necessary to write into the
> > semantic web?   I was envisioning a portal site that presents data  
> > to the
> > user in a very low-entry-bar way, and uses old fashioned forms to  
> > get users
> > to enter annotations in a precise way. This would include making  
> > annotations
> > about other URIs that are not inside the portal, hopefully including  
> > URIs of
> > individual statements or graphs.
> 
> You can write to the Semantic Web using any tool you like.
> FTP, SCP, HTTP PUT, WEbDAV are all good well established protocols  
> your tools can use.
> 
> > If you use Tabulator, can you 'write' data into/onto/about any page  
> > that has
> > RDF in it?
> 
> No, since you don't have write access to every page.
> 
> > Do the original server(s) where the data is stored have to accept
> > the update, or can you write it into some other friendly data  
> > repositories
> > somewhere?
> 
> No of course not. Do people around you have to accept your point of  
> view on the world?

Of course not!  The point is that there is not a single 'right' point of view, 
but it can be useful to collect data on reactions to a given published point 
of view.  Like bug reports.  Suppose we limited the data collection to first 
hand concrete evidence that relates to the proposition.  Is that of no value?

The server with the original data does not have to accept it at all, but 
suppose I set up my own server that collects such notes, in the manner of 
Annotea but with specific types of annotations.   No one is required to 
use/believe or do anything with the data, but I do think that it could have 
some use.  

I was inspired in part by sites such as http://php.net on which the user notes 
are often the most valuable part of the site.  Annotea provided a way to make 
notes on any site anywhere, but it didn't take off in usage, possibly because 
the technology wasn't there yet.  If it becomes very easy to make user notes 
not only related to a page, but related to a specific assertion on a page, I 
think that could accelerate certain types of knowledge development.

Anyway, thanks for answering and letting me take up so much of the list's 
time!

--Golda

> What we could develop btw, which would be RDF friendly, would be  
> simple propositional attitudes towards contents of resources
> such as
> 
> :me dontBelieve :joesFoafFile .
> 
> That would be a little bit like the <a rel="nofollow"  
> href="blahblah" ...> link .
> 
> A simple vocabulary like that would be useable with the new quad  
> stores that are being developed, and may even not require too much  
> work developing.
> 
> 
> > I'll try to read more precisely but I don't want to draw the
> > wrong conclusions and start spreading rumors ;-)
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > --Golda
> >
> 
> 

-- 
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Received on Monday, 10 March 2008 21:26:58 UTC