Re: Use of Content Management Systems, ranking and usage in Semantic Web

Dear Paul,

I used http://www.cmsmatrix.org/ for a comparative review of CMSs.

The Drupal team is now working on enabling semantic web technology for its CMS and I expect to see Plone do the same thing.

It would be nice though to have a web site where one can look up the usage of semantic web in software products and services.

I have seen dozens of long checklists for issues, technologies and tool kits for the Semantic Web in the hundreds of Cfps I received through this mailing list and it should not be to difficult to build a directory site for listing entries.

What would be even better is to have an authoritative Industry Directory for Semantic Technologies, published by a science publisher, and have the same also available on a CD.

The same directory would also a brief overview of semantic web technology and standards, list agencies, professional organizations, standard organizations, industry organizations, academic and technology institutes, pure and applied research institutes, specialized magazines and publishers etc, international research and technology program etc,

Th European Union in the past published this type of directories for the Language Industry and ICT (Language Industry Atlas and IT Atlas, both by IOS Press)

Would the IEEE be willing to propose such a publication and have it endorsed by the W3C, and some other standards bodies and associations, e.g. the International Federation of Library Associations, Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, the European Union and to include the UN either/or UNESCO and FAO?

Plenty of prospective buyers for this guide, I reckon just about every large community, public or university library in the world could use at least one copy of such a guide.

Milton Ponson
GSM: +297 747 8280
Rainbow Warriors Core Foundation
PO Box 1154, Oranjestad
Aruba, Dutch Caribbean
www.rainbowwarriors.net
Project Paradigm: A structured approach to bringing the tools for sustainable development to all stakeholders worldwide
www.projectparadigm.info
NGO-Opensource: Creating ICT tools for NGOs worldwide for Project Paradigm
www.ngo-opensource.org
MetaPortal: providing online access to web sites and repositories of data and information for sustainable development
www.metaportal.info
SemanticWebSoftware, part of NGO-Opensource to enable SW technologies in the Metaportal project
www.semanticwebsoftware.org


--- On Sat, 11/15/08, Paul Gearon <gearon@ieee.org> wrote:
From: Paul Gearon <gearon@ieee.org>
Subject: Re: Use of Content Management Systems, ranking and usage in Semantic Web
To: metadataportals@yahoo.com
Cc: semantic-web@w3.org
Date: Saturday, November 15, 2008, 7:46 AM

2008/11/14 Sw-MetaPortal-ProjectParadigm <metadataportals@yahoo.com>:
> Dear Paola,
>
> Getting back to the root question of CMSs, I am having a hard time
figuring
> out why so little semantic web functionality is built into the current
most
> popular CMSs being used.
>
> The functionality of CMSs resembles to a large extent what intended users
> (web designers and users) expect of them in order to build sites, and
> semantic web issues apparently are not yet high on their agenda.
>
> As a mathematician and global sustainable development activist I had a
hard
> time when I tried to come up with a practical approach based on existing
> infrastructure and ICT technology to see how the UN ICT Task Force tried
to
> envision global empowerment of stakeholders in sustainable development
> through the use of ICT and the internet in particular.
>
> I came up with an obvious shortlist, the internet, open source software
and
> toolkits, and open (internet) access digital repositories of knowledge and
> information.

I notice that the CMS systems you provide as examples (Drupal, Joomla,
etc) are all CMSs with semantic web extensions applied. While not as
popular, systems like Fedora are certainly gaining in popularly and
are built on Semantic Web structures from the outset. (I don't know of
others, but I'm sure they're out there). I hope you are including
these in your assessments.

While these systems may not meet the levels of Semantic Web
integration that you appear to be looking for, Paola has a very good
point in that it is much more important to meet people's needs than it
is to push Semantic Web concepts as far as possible. The Semantic Web
standards enable features to be easily implemented in software. I
don't believe they should be driving the features for the pure sake of
being more in tune with the "Semantic Web".

You might also question why the popular CMSs aren't built on semantic
web technologies, and why you have to look at less well known projects
to find this. I would say that it is due to ignorance about what the
semantic web has to offer. The Semantic Web may have been around when
Joomla was started, but did the developers of Joomla know how to use
the semantic web? Did the users know what kind of functionality would
be readily available if their CMS was built on top of semantic web
technologies?

Obviously these benefits are starting to be recognized now, with
semantic web modules becoming available for the well known systems,
and the lesser known systems like Fedora becoming more popular.

Regards,
Paul Gearon

Disclaimer: while I've never actually run Fedora, I *do* work for them.