- From: Henry Story <henry.story@bblfish.net>
- Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2018 00:21:15 +0100
- To: thomas lörtsch <tl@rat.io>
- Cc: Antoine Zimmermann <antoine.zimmermann@emse.fr>, Hugh Glaser <hugh@glasers.org>, David Booth <david@dbooth.org>, semantic-web <semantic-web@w3.org>
> On 11 Dec 2018, at 22:50, thomas lörtsch <tl@rat.io> wrote: > > > >> On 11. Dec 2018, at 22:04, Antoine Zimmermann <antoine.zimmermann@emse.fr> wrote: >> >> On 11/12/2018 15:04, thomas lörtsch wrote: >>>> On 10. Dec 2018, at 16:30, Antoine Zimmermann <antoine.zimmermann@emse.fr> wrote: >>>> >>>> But you cannot use Stack Overflow for all legitimate semantic web questions. You cannot use Open Data SE for all semantic web questions. >>>> >>>> Consider for example the question "What are the success stories of the Semantic Web/Linked Data?" asked on 22nd August 2010 on Semantic Overflow. I'd say it is a legitimate semantic web question, but according to Stack Overflow's policy, it would probably get closed there. And it does not relate to open data, so it should be closed too on Open Data SE. >>>> >>>> >>>> I extracted a few questions from the late answers.semanticweb.com, that most likely would not last on SO if they were asked there: >>>> >>>> https://www.emse.fr/~zimmermann/QA/q.html >>>> https://www.emse.fr/~zimmermann/QA/q2.html >>>> https://www.emse.fr/~zimmermann/QA/q3.html >>>> >>>> I would like to see a place where those questions can be asked and answered and stay. >>> Definitely very useful questions and answers. I wonder why you are so convinced that they won’t last on stachexchange. >> >> Not Stack Exchange, where there is no global rules, but Stack Overflow. What is allowed to be asked on Stack Exchange depends on the specific site. Rules on Stack Overflow are quite different from the rules on the Philosophy Stack Exchange site, for instance. > >>> Clearly the semantics are an integral part of the Semantic Web and naturally there arise questions. For comparison I queried stackoverflow for "observer design pattern" and got about 500 results. I think this is a comparable kind of question. >> >> Maybe you're right about these specific questions, but I can point to several questions on Stack Overflow that were asked when answers.semanticweb.com was active, and when users commented that the question is not very relevant/appropriate to SO, while recommending the OP to post on "answers" instead. >> Examples of types of questions that would be deleted on SO: "what ontology(ies) should I use to describe <X>?" or "what tool for doing <Y> on RDF data?". > > I’m a little confused now: aren’t we talking about {semanticweb|webdata|rdf}.stackexchange.com here? > > However as I understood some remarks there it would still seem to be unappropriate to ask question like the one below on success stories as each sub site is _not_ totally free to define what’s appropriate. A certain rene writes there: "Just FYI: the example question "What are the success stories of the Semantic Web/Linked Data?" would be considered opinion based, if not too broad and if Q/A communities govern their content correctly that question would be closed on any SE site. The three linked questions seem reasonable btw. So those might fly on web-data.se, if it goes to beta." [0] I am trying out the philosophy stack exchange and asked the question of the order of questions. This lead me to an article by Luciano Floridi "What is a Philosophical Question", for which I wrote up some highlights in my answer https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/57835/34841 Floridi distinguished between open and closed questions. Closed questions are ones are factual or mathematical, where it does not make really sense to ask the same question again once it has been answered, which would be like buying the same newspaper twice to verify the truth of the first. Open Questions are ones such as "where should we go on holidays?" it is quite normal to have disagreement. I think engineering questions are often of the same type too: there are many ways to build a bridge. In any case this distinction can be helpful to understand the difference between Quora and StackExchange. SE tends to like closed questions to which an answer can be given, and which can then be closed. So I wonder how Philosophy.StackExchange.com works, given that Floridi defined Philosophical questions to be open! > >>> I agree that the other question you cite - "What are the success stories of the Semantic Web/Linked Data?" - is not a good fit to stachexchange. Personally I wouldn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to have a Semantic Web related Q&A sub site on stachexchange just because such questions weren’t appropriate. Generally I’m not a fan of Quora but handling such questions there or anywhere else than stachexchange would be good enough for me. >> >> No, Quora is definitely not a solution for me. It tends to put emphasis on answers that tell stories, that can trigger emotions, that can be illustrated in cool/funny/witty/sexy way (sexy pictures are definitely a must for more views). > > Okay, but I’m just not aware of alternatives. > >>> Regarding Area 51 I’m having some trouble right now: I got 51 reputation points but I’m still not allowed to post questions or comments. Maybe some caching or DB update issues... Anyway, what I wanted to say is: I’d rather stay with the "Semantic Web" moniker as it is an established name and encompasses quite well what we discuss on this list. Granted, "Web Data" is not that bad a choice either and if "Semantic Web" really has to go, "Web Data" is okay with me. But I don’t think dropping the established name will solve any problems or make anything easier. >>> From the description Henry wrote - >>> "Proposed Q&A site for people wanting to read, write and query data linked on the Web, find or develop ontologies, write apps that use technology built on the specs developed at the World Wide Web Consortium (including XML, JSON, JSON-LD, RDF, SPARQL, LDP, OWL, RIF,…)" >>> - I would cut XML and JSON, but add Turtle and reword to "built on the specs developed by the Semantic Web initiative of the W3C". >> >> In any case, JSON has not been developed at the W3C. > > Good catch ;-) indeed :-) I am fine with putting whatever the community wants. Those examples should not be thought of as the final text, just a starting point to tune intuitions. > >>> Regarding Henrys question "Should Web Data be enlarged to cover all W3C and perhaps even IETF standards?" [0] I’d say: no, it shouldn’t. That’s way too much stuff. Semantic Web (or Data Web) is broad enough. Of course any topic or standards it touches, be it by IETF or anyone else, is a legitimate topic. >> >> I don't know how inclusive such a site should be but for me, anything that is specific enough to allow all kinds of questions about the semantic web, regardless of potential for debate. Debatable questions are excluded as much as possible on SO (understandably, given the larger scope) but are interesting for a more focused community, IMHO. > > I agree. I have no experience how these things play out in real life though. Will some SO overlords reign into our moderation? Honestly I doubt it as long as things don’t get out of hand and fact focused Q&A becomes the exception rather than the rule. At least even questions that get closed on SO don’t get deleted so we wouldn't loose much trying. And a certain degree of reservation against all too free wheeling opinion exchange can never hurt ;-) Or would you oppose to use Stack Exchange all together because of the risk that some "opinionated" questions might get closed there? No idea myself. Perhaps some of us should pose some questions on the Open Data Stack Exchange and see what happens there. I don't yet have a good feeling for what the best scope should be. One clearly needs a lot of specialists to get a site going: and so it is impressive that open data already got to beta. > > Thomas > > > [0] https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/28389 - first comment to second answer > > > >>> Thomas >> >> --AZ >> >> >>> [0] https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/28395 >>>> --AZ >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Le 07/12/2018 à 16:18, Henry Story a écrit : >>>>>> On 7 Dec 2018, at 15:08, Hugh Glaser <hugh@glasers.org <mailto:hugh@glasers.org>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I know this was not the intention of the discussion participants, but that is certainly a reasonable view to take away. >>>>>> Maybe this is the wrong forum - is there somewhere else where I would get help? >>>>> Perhaps the trick for more pragmatic answers would be to open >>>>> {rdf/semweb}.stackexchange.com <http://stackexchange.com> >>>>> StackExchange is helpful because it forces people to ask a question clearly, >>>>> and then once the answers are given and voted on, one does not need to >>>>> answer them again. >>>>> https://stackexchange.com/sites# >>>>> A discussion forum such as this one tends to always reopen issues because it is more >>>>> difficult to link to previous answers and there may just be too many of them. >>>>> Henry >>>>> I have found math.stackexchange.com <http://math.stackexchange.com> very useful, and actually posted a semweb >>>>> question on cstheory.stackexchange.com <http://cstheory.stackexchange.com> >>>>> https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/41578/what-does-the-category-of-rdf-models-look-like-in-institution-theory/41613 >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Antoine Zimmermann >>>> Institut Henri Fayol >>>> École des Mines de Saint-Étienne >>>> 158 cours Fauriel >>>> CS 62362 >>>> 42023 Saint-Étienne Cedex 2 >>>> France >>>> Tél:+33(0)4 77 42 66 03 >>>> Fax:+33(0)4 77 42 66 66 >>>> http://www.emse.fr/~zimmermann/ >>>> Member of team Connected Intelligence, Laboratoire Hubert Curien
Received on Tuesday, 11 December 2018 23:21:42 UTC