Re: Namespaces wihtout "#" Was: Few CWM Bugs

Thought I would take this opportunity to introduce myself, first time
that I thought I might be able to offer something. 

I have both a personal and professional interest in this topic as well as
the standardization process in general, particularly in how it relates to
prevention of manipulation, regulation or the lack thereof, competition,
and global economics.

First, to an observer, this debate is really positive, and in fact the
reason why I joined the list... I was very curious to see how/what type
of process was being used to design a semantic web. It's one thing to
design a perfect numerical network like the IP that stays above the fray
of human interpretation, quite another to create a universal system that
drops down into the human abyss to define individual/pieces of documents.
Meta tags work pretty well in part (IMO) because they are user defined
and infinite, allowing the flexibility of human dysfunction in labeling
room to breathe.

Since we've been working in this area for a few years, I could certainly
see how a private product/organization could make definitions (an Oxford,
Word, or a Google), but remain curious how to create a protocol for the
diversity of human crafted documents.  A fair part of the recent
discussion here has been much less to do with programming than knowledge
architecture- "relating to meaning".

For example, Tim's post:

"By analogy, note that, for example, legal concepts are referred to
indirectly through the laws which define them
"A non-profit as defined in Section 501(c)3"
"Road vehicle as definde in Art IIB of section 82.3 of the penal code"
and so on. Documents are documents. They are powerful because (with HTTP
and slew of existing and future languages) we can do a whole lot with
them. We can argue about their contents logically. I don't mind the
semantic web architecture being built on a infrastructure of documents
((and messages))."

Great example, but I'd point out that neither of these are voluntary or
for that matter universal (as in global crossing all cultures and
languages), but rather created by an elected legislative body or a court
and enforced.

One suggestion, if it is not already being done, would be to pro actively
engage knowledge architects and digital librarians. In testing the
predecessor to KYield in our network GWIN Pro, they were the ones who
were working on policy internally, a few of which were also strong in
programming. 

Perhaps the most important single thing I've learned in knowledge system
practice and design is that communities of practice often suffer from the
breadth society has to offer, something that the semantic web could help
alleviate, assuming of course that the breadth will use it.

Would also be interested in hooking up with partners on our project
KYield and help in other ways if I am able.

Thanks for your work.

Founder
GWIN.NET
DBA KYield
montgomerym@cableone.net
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Received on Monday, 26 November 2001 15:06:37 UTC