Re: Linked Data Mash-a-thon

On 17 Sep 2009, at 14:04, Juan Sequeda wrote:

> I agree with this definition of hacker: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_%28hobbyist%29
>
> On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 6:19 AM, Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com 
> > wrote:
> blumauera@punkt.at wrote:
> kingsley, from a marketing perspective the first question one has to  
> ask: who is the audience?
>
> if you call it mesh-up, many people think: oh, that's a typo.
>
> if you call it hack-a-thon some people feel attracted from outside  
> of the ld-community.
>
> so, who shall he the audience of this event? juan, I think that  
> hackers play a crucial role if we want to see our community growing,  
> great idea!
>
> - andreas
> Andreas,
>
> You are kind of asking the questions in reverse order.
>
>
> I disagree. First question is always "who is the audience". If we  
> want something like this to be successful, we need to know who is  
> attending.  As Giovanni put it, the audience is  "those that instead  
> "would get bored otherwise" usually funnel into these things"  
> because everybody else would be attending the paper sessions.

Yes, absolutely.

> You are supporting the use of "hack" then asking who is the  
> audience. Think about this for a second.
>
>
> No he is not.
>
> I also have no idea as to basis of your theory re. "hackers play a  
> crucial role if we see our community growing...". That's simply not  
> true. Remember, this whole Semantic Web Project has stacks of  
> history behind it, and the periods of tangible progress haven't been  
> intextricably linked to the activities of "hackers".
>
>
> This is not going to be mainstream if my web developer friends (who  
> are hackers... let's not go into defining what a hacker is please)  
> does not get it! I go through this every day!!!! And I have nothing  
> worthy to show anybody because there is basically nothing out there!  
> We need to bootstrap this!

I couldn't agree more.

> You have an event that is right next door to the Federal Govt., an  
> entity that will ultimately be the largest publisher of Linked Data  
> on this planet, and you truly believe that this is about bringing  
> more "hackers" on board?
>
>
> Yes!! Somebody has to do something with the data!!!!!!! Somebody,  
> anybody. But do something. Make it worth it. So how about if all the  
> hackers who are at ISWC get together and do something! And there  
> will be prizes too!
>
> This discussion is proving my point (and of a lot of people I know)  
> that the semantic web community canno
>
> 1) articulate a simple message to developers (or hacker or whatever  
> you want to call them)
> 2) support one another in making the message accessible to regular  
> developers
>
> Reminder: I urge everybody to try to explain what Linked Data and  
> the Semantic Web is 1) web developer 2) CEO 3) VC investors 4) my  
> parents.

I do 1-3 about weekly. It's hard work, but far from impossible. I'll  
leave 4 up to you :)

- Steve

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Received on Thursday, 17 September 2009 13:46:04 UTC