RE: Semantic mail

Hey, Pat, we get your point. I concur that email <content> really should not
be consider a candidate for semantic tagging. This is for exactly the
reasons you (so strongly point out) below relating to privacy. It is,
however, acceptable to semantically tag the metadata associated with emails.
To a certain degree, emails carry metadata tagging already relating to date,
creator, destination, route, etc. If this were converted to an RDF-esque
format, we could use these tags to search information about a person, the
route the email took, etc. Here the distinction between semantically tagging
email <content> and email <headers> should be noted. 

A side thought: authors of semantically tagged emails should be given the
ability to easily reference parts of the <content> of their mails, if they
feel it would help the recipient or bolster a point they are making (much
the same way as including references to webpages, etc.). 

Another side though: If we think making people write metadata for their
webpages is difficult, then try to get them to use a different style of
email. No way. Any integration of this kind would have to be part of a
specification change. (woops, I shouldn't have said that!) (Flame away!! B-)
).

CraigP
Research
Content Technologies



> -----Original Message-----
> From: pat hayes [mailto:phayes@ai.uwf.edu]
> Sent: Friday, November 10, 2000 11:45 AM
> To: gf@medianet.org
> Cc: www-rdf-logic@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Semantic mail
> 
> 
> >I disagree with your thinking that email should be treated 
> >differently than any other form of content  on the Internet.  Surely 
> >it is the intended use that matters.
> >When your email and my email get posted here...
> >
> >http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-interest/2000Nov/
thread.html
>
>..they turn into web pages.  Are these pages not worthy of "tags" on 
>the grounds that they originated as mail?

Precisely. Once archived they become web pages, and then can be 
marked up, I agree. But the markup should be part of the archiving 
process, not the emailing process.

I consider email a private communication between people, primarily. 
Most of my emails are not a form of content on the internet, and I 
would not use email if they were. You may disagree with my thinking, 
but frankly I do not give a damn about your opinion. Let me take this 
opportunity of warning you that I consider any attempt by you or 
anyone else to access most of my emails to be a form of intrusive 
hacking, and I will take energetic steps to dissuade you from 
accessing them, including all legal electronic means to frustrate you 
should you attempt it. I wish that email could be routinely encrypted 
for privacy. As you say, it is intended use that matters. Most of my 
emails are private communications between individuals or small groups 
of people, so keep your nose out of my business.

Email to an archived site is a more public form of dissemination, but 
even there it seems to me that the primary responsibility for making 
the content publicly available should reside with the proprieter of 
the archive itself.

Pat Hayes

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Received on Friday, 10 November 2000 07:02:32 UTC