RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs
Hi Yes it's a blatent simplification, although... semantics... Interesting the association between truth and space, and then there's time regards Geoff From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of P Kishor [punk.k...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, 7 October 2010 10:14 a.m. To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 3:45 PM, Geoff Hay wrote: > Hi > The knowledge you are trying to encode should be represented as associations > between individuals (this place contains that place etc) and concepts (city, > park, post office delivery area, etc) (as in OWL) rather than a URI scheme > (see Geonames). The basic idea is to represent places in a way that allows > inference (make implicit knowledge explicit) i.e. logical consequence > e.g. > Explicit: a country only has only one capital city I am assuming the above is just for illustration, because we have http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_multiple_capitals To make matters worse, we also have http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_spanning_more_than_one_continent and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_that_overlap_multiple_countries and probably more. > Explicit: NZ is a country > Explicit: Wellington is the capital of NZ > Explicit: 'Te Upoko o te Ika a Maui' is the capital of NZ > Implicit: Wellington and 'Te Upoko o te Ika a Maui' are the same place > > - you cant do this nicely with a URL scheme but an OWL reasoner can make such > conclusions - yehar Semantic Web. Actualy there is really no problem with > your URI scheme otherwise. It looks exactly like what you would expect for > REST Web Services URLs - as long as you don't expect your URLs to be the > ultimate and final identifiers - that would break both of the two main > assumptions behind the semantic web and its underlying formal logics. > > regards > Geoff > > From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On > Behalf Of Landon Blake [lbl...@ksninc.com] > Sent: Wednesday, 6 October 2010 12:45 p.m. > 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: > > href="http://www.standardwebmarkup.org/standard_places/north_america/uni > ted_states_of_america/california/san_joaquin_county/city_of_stockton/">S > tockton > > 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 t
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs
On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 3:45 PM, Geoff Hay wrote: > Hi > The knowledge you are trying to encode should be represented as associations > between individuals (this place contains that place etc) and concepts (city, > park, post office delivery area, etc) (as in OWL) rather than a URI scheme > (see Geonames). The basic idea is to represent places in a way that allows > inference (make implicit knowledge explicit) i.e. logical consequence > e.g. > Explicit: a country only has only one capital city I am assuming the above is just for illustration, because we have http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_multiple_capitals To make matters worse, we also have http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_spanning_more_than_one_continent and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_that_overlap_multiple_countries and probably more. > Explicit: NZ is a country > Explicit: Wellington is the capital of NZ > Explicit: 'Te Upoko o te Ika a Maui' is the capital of NZ > Implicit: Wellington and 'Te Upoko o te Ika a Maui' are the same place > > - you cant do this nicely with a URL scheme but an OWL reasoner can make such > conclusions - yehar Semantic Web. Actualy there is really no problem with > your URI scheme otherwise. It looks exactly like what you would expect for > REST Web Services URLs - as long as you don't expect your URLs to be the > ultimate and final identifiers - that would break both of the two main > assumptions behind the semantic web and its underlying formal logics. > > regards > Geoff > > From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On > Behalf Of Landon Blake [lbl...@ksninc.com] > Sent: Wednesday, 6 October 2010 12:45 p.m. > 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: > > href="http://www.standardwebmarkup.org/standard_places/north_america/uni > ted_states_of_america/california/san_joaquin_county/city_of_stockton/">S > tockton > > 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 overa
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs
Allen, You need the Centimeter stuff to realize that something moved over the two years. Besides, that just ends up being a re-projection in the end anyway. :c) bobb >>> Allan Doyle wrote: On Oct 5, 2010, at 9:58 PM, Bob Basques wrote: > All, > > I'm a long time address database creation/maintenance/re-creation fiend > myself. > > I've also been working with the USNG (MGRS) gridding system the last few > years, and need to at least suggest the idea of > using a Gridding system to locate things. This idea is not nbew, but USNG > usage has gained quite a bit of ground the > last couple of years across all level of government, with a large emphasis > placed on using it for disaster response. > > Tying a placeName to a grid location that can describe things down to the > centimeter if needed and still stay unique as > a location is a very good thing. Don't be too sure at the centimeter level. "The average rate of motion across the San Andreas Fault Zone during the past 3 million years is 56 mm/yr (2 in/yr). " -- http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/facts.php I like Chris Schmidt's quote: "The world is fuzzier than you realize". Allan > > bobb > > > > On 10/5/2010 8:52 PM, Landon Blake wrote: >> The geonames ontology looks like it might work for me. I'll read it over >> tomorrow. >> >> Thanks for the suggestion. >> >> Landon >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >> On Oct 5, 2010, at 5:45 PM, "Ian Turton" wrote: >> >>> On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 8:39 PM, Christopher Schmidt >>> wrote: On Tue, Oct 05, 2010 at 05:18:47PM -0700, Paul Ramsey wrote: > "All attempts to construct simple ontologies end up reinventing RDF" . ? That was actually my first thought when I saw this: "Hey look, someone else reinventing RDFa!" :) Seriously, I say this with a bit of knowledge; I mean, after all, I sort of work on making places searchable on maps. For a company with a pretty big set of data about the hierarchy of the world. It's a lot fuzzier than you think :) Also, Landon, I do highly recommend looking into RDF -- specifically, RDFa -- because I think it's heading in a very similar direction to what you're describing, without the need for some all-world-hierarchy to tie it to, which might actually help you get a bit further. >>> >>> You might want to look at http://www.geonames.org/ontology/ which RDFs >>> the GeoNames database. >>> >>> Ian >>> -- >>> Ian Turton >>> ___ >>> 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 -- Allan Doyle Director of Technology MIT Museum | http://web.mit.edu/museum | +1.617.452.2111 ___ 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
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs
On Oct 5, 2010, at 9:58 PM, Bob Basques wrote: > All, > > I'm a long time address database creation/maintenance/re-creation fiend > myself. > > I've also been working with the USNG (MGRS) gridding system the last few > years, and need to at least suggest the idea of > using a Gridding system to locate things. This idea is not nbew, but USNG > usage has gained quite a bit of ground the > last couple of years across all level of government, with a large emphasis > placed on using it for disaster response. > > Tying a placeName to a grid location that can describe things down to the > centimeter if needed and still stay unique as > a location is a very good thing. Don't be too sure at the centimeter level. "The average rate of motion across the San Andreas Fault Zone during the past 3 million years is 56 mm/yr (2 in/yr). " -- http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/facts.php I like Chris Schmidt's quote: "The world is fuzzier than you realize". Allan > > bobb > > > > On 10/5/2010 8:52 PM, Landon Blake wrote: >> The geonames ontology looks like it might work for me. I'll read it over >> tomorrow. >> >> Thanks for the suggestion. >> >> Landon >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >> On Oct 5, 2010, at 5:45 PM, "Ian Turton" wrote: >> >>> On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 8:39 PM, Christopher Schmidt >>> wrote: On Tue, Oct 05, 2010 at 05:18:47PM -0700, Paul Ramsey wrote: > "All attempts to construct simple ontologies end up reinventing RDF" . ? That was actually my first thought when I saw this: "Hey look, someone else reinventing RDFa!" :) Seriously, I say this with a bit of knowledge; I mean, after all, I sort of work on making places searchable on maps. For a company with a pretty big set of data about the hierarchy of the world. It's a lot fuzzier than you think :) Also, Landon, I do highly recommend looking into RDF -- specifically, RDFa -- because I think it's heading in a very similar direction to what you're describing, without the need for some all-world-hierarchy to tie it to, which might actually help you get a bit further. >>> >>> You might want to look at http://www.geonames.org/ontology/ which RDFs >>> the GeoNames database. >>> >>> Ian >>> -- >>> Ian Turton >>> ___ >>> 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 -- Allan Doyle Director of Technology MIT Museum | http://web.mit.edu/museum | +1.617.452.2111 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs
All, I'm a long time address database creation/maintenance/re-creation fiend myself. I've also been working with the USNG (MGRS) gridding system the last few years, and need to at least suggest the idea of using a Gridding system to locate things. This idea is not nbew, but USNG usage has gained quite a bit of ground the last couple of years across all level of government, with a large emphasis placed on using it for disaster response. Tying a placeName to a grid location that can describe things down to the centimeter if needed and still stay unique as a location is a very good thing. bobb On 10/5/2010 8:52 PM, Landon Blake wrote: The geonames ontology looks like it might work for me. I'll read it over tomorrow. Thanks for the suggestion. Landon Sent from my iPhone On Oct 5, 2010, at 5:45 PM, "Ian Turton" wrote: On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 8:39 PM, Christopher Schmidt wrote: On Tue, Oct 05, 2010 at 05:18:47PM -0700, Paul Ramsey wrote: "All attempts to construct simple ontologies end up reinventing RDF" . ? That was actually my first thought when I saw this: "Hey look, someone else reinventing RDFa!" :) Seriously, I say this with a bit of knowledge; I mean, after all, I sort of work on making places searchable on maps. For a company with a pretty big set of data about the hierarchy of the world. It's a lot fuzzier than you think :) Also, Landon, I do highly recommend looking into RDF -- specifically, RDFa -- because I think it's heading in a very similar direction to what you're describing, without the need for some all-world-hierarchy to tie it to, which might actually help you get a bit further. You might want to look at http://www.geonames.org/ontology/ which RDFs the GeoNames database. Ian -- Ian Turton ___ 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
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs
The geonames ontology looks like it might work for me. I'll read it over tomorrow. Thanks for the suggestion. Landon Sent from my iPhone On Oct 5, 2010, at 5:45 PM, "Ian Turton" wrote: > On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 8:39 PM, Christopher Schmidt > wrote: >> On Tue, Oct 05, 2010 at 05:18:47PM -0700, Paul Ramsey wrote: >>> "All attempts to construct simple ontologies end up reinventing RDF" . ? >> >> That was actually my first thought when I saw this: "Hey look, >> someone else reinventing RDFa!" :) >> >> Seriously, I say this with a bit of knowledge; I mean, after all, >> I sort of work on making places searchable on maps. For a company >> with a pretty big set of data about the hierarchy of the world. >> It's a lot fuzzier than you think :) >> >> Also, Landon, I do highly recommend looking into RDF -- specifically, >> RDFa -- because I think it's heading in a very similar direction to >> what you're describing, without the need for some all-world-hierarchy >> to tie it to, which might actually help you get a bit further. > > > You might want to look at http://www.geonames.org/ontology/ which RDFs > the GeoNames database. > > Ian > -- > Ian Turton > ___ > 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
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs
On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 8:39 PM, Christopher Schmidt wrote: > On Tue, Oct 05, 2010 at 05:18:47PM -0700, Paul Ramsey wrote: >> "All attempts to construct simple ontologies end up reinventing RDF" .. ? > > That was actually my first thought when I saw this: "Hey look, > someone else reinventing RDFa!" :) > > Seriously, I say this with a bit of knowledge; I mean, after all, > I sort of work on making places searchable on maps. For a company > with a pretty big set of data about the hierarchy of the world. > It's a lot fuzzier than you think :) > > Also, Landon, I do highly recommend looking into RDF -- specifically, > RDFa -- because I think it's heading in a very similar direction to > what you're describing, without the need for some all-world-hierarchy > to tie it to, which might actually help you get a bit further. You might want to look at http://www.geonames.org/ontology/ which RDFs the GeoNames database. Ian -- Ian Turton ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs
Chris, I'll look into rdfa. Thanks for the suggestion. Landon Sent from my iPhone On Oct 5, 2010, at 5:37 PM, "Christopher Schmidt" wrote: > 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
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs
On Tue, Oct 05, 2010 at 05:18:47PM -0700, Paul Ramsey wrote: > "All attempts to construct simple ontologies end up reinventing RDF" .. ? That was actually my first thought when I saw this: "Hey look, someone else reinventing RDFa!" :) Seriously, I say this with a bit of knowledge; I mean, after all, I sort of work on making places searchable on maps. For a company with a pretty big set of data about the hierarchy of the world. It's a lot fuzzier than you think :) Also, Landon, I do highly recommend looking into RDF -- specifically, RDFa -- because I think it's heading in a very similar direction to what you're describing, without the need for some all-world-hierarchy to tie it to, which might actually help you get a bit further. -- Chris > On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 5:12 PM, Christopher Schmidt > wrote: > > > 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 > > > ___ > 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
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs
On 2010-10-05, at 5:32 PM, P Kishor wrote: > On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 7:17 PM, Landon Blake wrote: >> could be good for 80% of the world. > > I wouldn’t go that far... perhaps for 20% of the world, maybe perhaps. > > I personally know at least a couple of fairly large swaths of this > world where no such (or any) structure would fly. Well one would hope it they would at least fall into /standard_places/planet_earth :)___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs
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 >>
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs
On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 7:17 PM, Landon Blake wrote: > could be good for 80% of the world. I wouldn’t go that far... perhaps for 20% of the world, maybe perhaps. I personally know at least a couple of fairly large swaths of this world where no such (or any) structure would fly. -- Puneet Kishor http://www.punkish.org Carbon Model http://carbonmodel.org Charter Member, Open Source Geospatial Foundation http://www.osgeo.org Science Commons Fellow, http://sciencecommons.org/about/whoweare/kishor Nelson Institute, UW-Madison http://www.nelson.wisc.edu --- Assertions are politics; backing up assertions with evidence is science === ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but if we could just get enough people to all submit data for their own local areas using arbitrary free-form textual tags and maybe provide a voting mechanism for the best submissions, then we could... Oh, wait -- never mind. -mpg -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Paul Ramsey Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2010 5:19 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs "All attempts to construct simple ontologies end up reinventing RDF" .. ? On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 5:12 PM, Christopher Schmidt wrote: > 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 > ___ 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
RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs
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
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] RE: Representing Places With Intelligent URLs
"All attempts to construct simple ontologies end up reinventing RDF" .. ? On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 5:12 PM, Christopher Schmidt wrote: > 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 > ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
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: > > href="http://www.standardwebmarkup.org/standard_places/north_america/uni > ted_states_of_america/california/san_joaquin_county/city_of_stockton/">S > tockton > > 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 th
