Textual semantics aside, we do have a natural geographic hierarchy though it's not necessarily any more readily usable :) I remember when I first hear about http://confluence.org/ - that was fun. I met some guys working on this concept that you might find interesting too: http://www.geotude.com/about/nutshell
Tyler On 2010-10-05, at 5:17 PM, Landon Blake wrote: > I understand there are challenges to what I'm trying to accomplish. However, > I think you could likely tackle the majority of places with the system I > describe, even though it would not be perfect. > > Yes, there are several ways to designate "City of Stockton" or "State of > California". The point of the system I propose is to eliminate some of this > ambiguity by settling on one of the possible names for the URL. Alternative > place names could be listed in the information for the place stored at the > URL. This sort of adheres to the "convention over configuration" concept. > > As a web content provider, I don't really care if the URL ends with > "Stockton" or "City of Stockton". As long as it uniquely identifies the city, > and other people understand this, I get what I want. If everyone creating > place URLS understands you say "Stockton" and not "City of Stockton" or > "California" and not "State of California" I think this could work. > > Once again, I admit there are edge cases that will break the system I > proposed, but I think it could be good for 80% of the world. > > Like I said, I'm not primarily a web guy, and this is new territory for me. > However, most of the semantic web stuff I read is why too difficult to > understand. > > It here was a way to uniquely identify a place with an intelligent URL, I > would be using it in my own web pages today. Perhaps I am in the minority. > > I just thought I'd bounce this crazy idea of the list to see if it could > float. > > I got a little excited when I thought about being able to scrape the web for > population data of major cities using URLS like this. Perhaps I was being a > little naïve in my excitement. > > Thanks, > > Landon > Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268 > Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658 > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org > [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Christopher Schmidt > Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2010 5:12 PM > To: OSGeo Discussions > Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs > > On Tue, Oct 05, 2010 at 05:03:14PM -0700, Michael P. Gerlek wrote: >>> ...it would be easy to determine what the URL for... >> >> Alas, it is not clear to me that, even within the US, there is a universally >> recognized canonicalization of the place name hierarchy, much less the names >> themselves. >> >> For example, you refer to "california", as opposed to "state_of_california", >> and yet you refer to "city of stockton" as opposed to "stockton". Further, >> strictly speaking certain states actually commonwealths (and, similarly, >> counties are parishes). And let's not talk about geographic entities that >> the post office recognizes but the local government does not. > > How about the fact that although some counties contain cities, > some cities exist over the border between multiple counties, and > other counties are *contained* by cities? (Queens, Manhattan, etc.) > > How about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysart_et_al,_Ontario? > > Any effort to turn the real world into a standard hierarchy > will fail, because the world is Fuzzier than you realize. > > -- Chris > >> The mind, alas, boggles. >> >> (But maybe I'm reading more into your proposal than you meant, or I'm taking >> your example too literally?) >> >> -mpg >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org >> [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Landon Blake >> Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2010 4:46 PM >> To: OSGeo Discussions >> Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Representing Places With Intelligent URLs >> >> A talk at the recent Location Business Summit and some reading I've done >> about the semantic web and microformats lately got me to thinking about a >> standard way to represent places, place names, place data on the web. >> (I must admit I'm a desktop software guy, not a web programmer.) >> >> I thought it would be awesome if there was a way to create a unique URL for >> places that was somewhat intelligent to humans. If this URL could point to a >> folder on a server with some basic information about a place, that would be >> even better. >> >> So I took a stab at creating this type of URL for my city, the City of >> Stockton. Here it is: >> >> http://www.standardwebmarkup.org/standard_places/north_america/united_st >> ates_of_america/california/san_joaquin_county/city_of_stockton/ >> >> You can see the URL follows a logical hierarchy, and it would be easy to >> determine what the URL for the City of Sacramento, San Joaquin County, or >> Victory Park in the City of Stockton would be. Obviously the >> continent/country/state/county/city/location URL pattern would have to >> change for other parts of the world. >> >> I put a very simple HTML file with data about the City of Stockton here: >> >> http://www.standardwebmarkup.org/standard_places/north_america/united_st >> ates_of_america/california/san_joaquin_county/city_of_stockton/info.html >> >> The current info.html file is just a skeleton. It's more of a place holder >> right now than anything else. >> >> My thought was to also put a WKT file (place.wkt) representing the location >> of the place and a simple text file (data.txt) with facts about the place at >> this same URL: >> >> http://www.standardwebmarkup.org/standard_places/north_america/united_st >> ates_of_america/california/san_joaquin_county/city_of_stockton/ >> >> Now, if someone wanted to write content about the City of Stockton, they >> could simply do something like this: >> >> <a >> href="http://www.standardwebmarkup.org/standard_places/north_america/uni >> ted_states_of_america/california/san_joaquin_county/city_of_stockton/">S >> tockton</a> >> >> If everyone that was putting web content about Stockton online did the same >> thing, search engine and other tools would be able to link data from this >> web content to a single location. >> >> This becomes even more powerful if we come up with some rules for the >> content of the info.html file, place.wkt file, and the data text file. >> Here are some examples: >> >> (1) Specify that the place.wkt file have both a point and a polygon WKT >> representation, or a linestring representation, of the place when >> appropriate. >> >> (2) Specify that the info.html file use a list with alternate place names. >> This list would be identified with an html class value of >> "alternate_place_names". >> >> (3) Specify that the data.txt file contain a relationships section that can >> contain an optional relationship in the form of: City is the County Seat of >> County. (Stockton is the County Seat of San Joaquin County.) >> >> (4) Standardize the way common place facts are stored in the data.txt file. >> Population and area are examples. >> >> I realize there are some problems with this overall scheme. How do you store >> a city that straddles a state boundary, for example? Or what if you want to >> have a URL for the location of the Pacific Garbage Patch? >> >> However, I think we could use this system to uniquely identify and describe >> a lot of places in the world. We could then work on how to handle the edge >> cases. >> >> Is anyone else interested in ironing out the kinks for a system like this? >> Is there already a system like this in place? (If so, I have just revealed >> my great ignorance to everyone on this mailing list.) >> >> I'm interested in setting something up that could be maintained by a group >> of geospatial professionals, and not by any one company. >> >> I'm not sure how this system I describe would tie in with geonames. My first >> reaction when I stumbled on geonames is I couldn't find a unique and human >> understandable URL for a place. >> >> Still, I'm interested in microformats and place names, and I'd like to see a >> system like this that was "open" and non-proprietary. >> >> Let me know what you think. >> >> The Sunburned Surveyor >> >> >> >> >> Warning: >> Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed against defects >> including translation and transmission errors. If the reader is not the >> intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, >> distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you >> have received this information in error, please notify the sender >> immediately. >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> Discuss@lists.osgeo.org >> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> Discuss@lists.osgeo.org >> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -- > Christopher Schmidt > Web Developer > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss@lists.osgeo.org > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > Warning: > Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed against defects > including translation and transmission errors. If the reader is not the > intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, > distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you > have received this information in error, please notify the sender immediately. > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss@lists.osgeo.org > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
