Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful
Hi I haven't had time to follow link I expect there is an issue of how to think about a semantic web. I can see Google is about ruthlessly exploiting the atomisation of the Bazaar. Of course from within the walls of their own Cathedral. Recall is in inverse proportion to accuracy. I think web behaviours influence our own (mind) behaviours. We respond to environment. Hints from that environment are assimilated very quickly. The web is an (absorbing for important reasons undiscussed here) environment. I rely on Google very happily. It brings fragments some times random often according to rules I half guess at. This is how it deals with recall/accuracy. SemWeb should be different. It is machine/machine. But there is an ultimate human arbiter of relevance and quality of data for human consumption. SemWeb needs a series of a priories - the ontologies. It seems there are two human arbiter questions. 1. What data would I like to see - describe a coherent package of concepts. 2. Describe an ontology as a package of concepts. In other words concept packages should be able to function independent of attachment to ontology. And there needs a function to translate between them. Ontology is already too low level. It is impossible to characterise what people may be able to agree upon as concept packages - data aims. What people agree on depends on all the mixes of any human situation. Is there a base strata of factors, a common field. I don't know but I'm sure work has been done in the area. At simplest this is relation between beliefs, hopes and desires which can never fully be known and intersect in some group such that an agreed model can be made. Models aspire to this. Groups create rules to facilitate this. This is the responsibility the semweb has. 1. To identify such means of modelling and 2. mediate (show what it takes; what it is like to mediate) the movement between model and some norms. Here I mean behavioural norms. (So they need to be established case by case. WebId to prevent unfriendly crawlers is a good simple example) Not logical rules. It is only with this in mind that anything of interest can be created. Note: this is not creating something in the Bazaar of random market forces. And, as with all heavily patterned behaviour, this is very expensive in effort. It is also without the background data generation of google as we traverse their graph. No gleaning off users. Radically different. Best Adam On 17/06/2011, Henry Story henry.st...@bblfish.net wrote: On 17 Jun 2011, at 19:27, adasal wrote: That said the hacker is a various beast, Indeed, hackers are not angels. But the people on this list should get back to hacking or work together with open source projects to get initial minimal working pieces embedded there. WebID is one; foaf is another, pingback, access control, ... Get the really simple pieces working. and I wonder if this sort of thing can really be addressed without overarching political/ethical/idealogical concerns. It's tough. It all fits together really nicely. I gave a talk on the philosophy of the Social Web if you are interested. http://www.slideshare.net/bblfish/philosophy-and-the-social-web-5583083 Hackers tend to be engineers with a political attitude, so they are more receptive to the bigger picture. But solving the big picture problem should have an easy entry cost if we want to get it going. I talked to the BBC but they have limited themselves to what they will do in the Social Web space as far as profile hosting goes. Again, I'd start small. Facebook started in universities not that long ago. Henry Social Web Architect http://bblfish.net/ -- Sent from my mobile device
Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful
HS: I gave a talk on the philosophy of the Social Web if you are interested. http://www.slideshare.net/bblfish/philosophy-and-the-social-web-5583083 For the specifics of TBL's motto, the web as a philosophical engineering, see Harry's article: http://www.apaonline.org/publications/newsletters/v07n2_Computers_04.aspx Some interesting assertions: we are not analyzing a world, we are building it. We are not experimental philosophers, we are philosophical engineers. ; online intelligence is generated through complex causal interaction in an extended brain-body-environment system; The Web is ...the creation and evolution of external representations in a universal information space. I'd extend: if the the world wide web is a universal information space, the semantic/ontological web is a universal knowledge space. And we need avoid confusing four fields: philosophical engineering, philosophy of engineering, engineering philosophy, and engineering of philosophy. Azamat - Original Message - From: Henry Story To: adasal Cc: Lin Clark ; Bjoern Hoehrmann ; Linked Data community ; Semantic Web Sent: Friday, June 17, 2011 8:48 PM Subject: Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful On 17 Jun 2011, at 19:27, adasal wrote: That said the hacker is a various beast, Indeed, hackers are not angels. But the people on this list should get back to hacking or work together with open source projects to get initial minimal working pieces embedded there. WebID is one; foaf is another, pingback, access control, ... Get the really simple pieces working. and I wonder if this sort of thing can really be addressed without overarching political/ethical/idealogical concerns. It's tough. It all fits together really nicely. I gave a talk on the philosophy of the Social Web if you are interested. http://www.slideshare.net/bblfish/philosophy-and-the-social-web-5583083 Hackers tend to be engineers with a political attitude, so they are more receptive to the bigger picture. But solving the big picture problem should have an easy entry cost if we want to get it going. I talked to the BBC but they have limited themselves to what they will do in the Social Web space as far as profile hosting goes. Again, I'd start small. Facebook started in universities not that long ago. Henry Social Web Architect http://bblfish.net/
Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful
On 6/18/11 7:13 AM, AzamatAbdoullaev wrote: HS: I gave a talk on the philosophy of the Social Web if you are interested. http://www.slideshare.net/bblfish/philosophy-and-the-social-web-5583083 For the specifics of TBL's motto, the web as a philosophical engineering, see Harry's article: http://www.apaonline.org/publications/newsletters/v07n2_Computers_04.aspx Some interesting assertions: we are not analyzing a world, we are building it. We are not experimental philosophers, we are philosophical engineers. ; online intelligence is generated through complex causal interaction in an extended brain-body-environment system; The Web is ...the creation and evolution of external representations in a universal information space. I'd extend: if the the world wide web is a universal information space, the semantic/ontological web is a universal knowledge space. And we need avoid confusing four fields: philosophical engineering, philosophy of engineering, engineering philosophy, and engineering of philosophy. Azamat, Yes! Basically we have: 1. Data Space 2. Information Space 3. Knowledge Space. Trouble is that the WWW was rolled out as follows: 1. Information Space 2. Data Space -- we are trying to sort this out right now by decoupling Linked Data from Linked Documents, unobtrusively 3. Knowledge Space -- where the power reasoning, rules, and description logics will ultimately shine. The bigger trouble is conflation, there are so many starting points for developers, commentators, and users that one way or the other the following happen: 1. Data, Information, and Knowledge become conflated 2. Names and Addresses become conflated 3. Data Definition and Data Description become conflated 4. Syntax and Semantics become conflated -- RDF (markup language for describing things) as sole mechanism for graph based data representation is exhibit #1 re. this anomaly. Like inflation, conflation ultimately destroys value :-) Kingsley Azamat - Original Message - *From:* Henry Story mailto:henry.st...@bblfish.net *To:* adasal mailto:adam.salt...@gmail.com *Cc:* Lin Clark mailto:lin.w.cl...@gmail.com ; Bjoern Hoehrmann mailto:derhoe...@gmx.net ; Linked Data community mailto:public-lod@w3.org ; Semantic Web mailto:semantic-...@w3.org *Sent:* Friday, June 17, 2011 8:48 PM *Subject:* Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful On 17 Jun 2011, at 19:27, adasal wrote: That said the hacker is a various beast, Indeed, hackers are not angels. But the people on this list should get back to hacking or work together with open source projects to get initial minimal working pieces embedded there. WebID is one; foaf is another, pingback, access control, ... Get the really simple pieces working. and I wonder if this sort of thing can really be addressed without overarching political/ethical/idealogical concerns. It's tough. It all fits together really nicely. I gave a talk on the philosophy of the Social Web if you are interested. http://www.slideshare.net/bblfish/philosophy-and-the-social-web-5583083 Hackers tend to be engineers with a political attitude, so they are more receptive to the bigger picture. But solving the big picture problem should have an easy entry cost if we want to get it going. I talked to the BBC but they have limited themselves to what they will do in the Social Web space as far as profile hosting goes. Again, I'd start small. Facebook started in universities not that long ago. Henry Social Web Architect http://bblfish.net/ -- Regards, Kingsley Idehen President CEO OpenLink Software Web: http://www.openlinksw.com Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen Twitter/Identi.ca: kidehen
Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful
On 6/18/11 8:58 AM, Henry Story wrote: The recent discussions on this list were very much about how to avoid making distinctions unless you have to (Just-In-Time Distinctions?) So why are the above distinctions needed? Particularly with regard to this conversation. A root of these conversations lie confusion that results from conflating a variety of things. If we separate items into appropriate boxes we stand a chance of clarity en route to success. There are deep unresolved matters that will trigger threads likes these, repeatedly. My conflation list is in my last post :-) -- Regards, Kingsley Idehen President CEO OpenLink Software Web: http://www.openlinksw.com Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen Twitter/Identi.ca: kidehen
Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful
On 6/18/11 12:16 PM, Kingsley Idehen wrote: On 6/18/11 8:58 AM, Henry Story wrote: The recent discussions on this list were very much about how to avoid making distinctions unless you have to (Just-In-Time Distinctions?) So why are the above distinctions needed? Particularly with regard to this conversation. A root of these conversations lie confusion that results from conflating a variety of things. If we separate items into appropriate boxes we stand a chance of clarity en route to success. There are deep unresolved matters that will trigger threads likes these, repeatedly. My conflation list is in my last post :-) *At* the root of these conversations lie confusion that results from conflating a variety of things. If we separate items into appropriate boxes we stand a chance of clarity en route to success. There are deep unresolved matters that will trigger threads likes these, repeatedly. My conflation list is in my last post :-) -- Regards, Kingsley Idehen President CEO OpenLink Software Web: http://www.openlinksw.com Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen Twitter/Identi.ca: kidehen
Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful
On 18 Jun 2011, at 13:20, Kingsley Idehen wrote: On 6/18/11 12:16 PM, Kingsley Idehen wrote: On 6/18/11 8:58 AM, Henry Story wrote: The recent discussions on this list were very much about how to avoid making distinctions unless you have to (Just-In-Time Distinctions?) So why are the above distinctions needed? Particularly with regard to this conversation. A root of these conversations lie confusion that results from conflating a variety of things. If we separate items into appropriate boxes we stand a chance of clarity en route to success. There are deep unresolved matters that will trigger threads likes these, repeatedly. My conflation list is in my last post :-) *At* the root of these conversations lie confusion that results from conflating a variety of things. If we separate items into appropriate boxes we stand a chance of clarity en route to success. Every distinction comes at a cost. Say it takes 20 minutes to explain to someone that where they saw As there are in fact A1s, A2s and A3s . Now say you need to explain that to 1 billion people. That is 333 million hours of time taken to explain that distinction. Of course if there are 2 people, a teacher and a listener that is then 666 million hours taken to explain this at a cost to the economy of 7 billion dollars (if we take the low salary of $10 an hour). So the distinction would need to generate more value that that to be worth growing. Now of course in a computerised world, the teaching part can be automated, so that perhaps after covering engineering costs the whole cost to the general economy is 4 billion dollars. If the distinction then helps make the interactions between all those users more than 4 billion dollars more efficient, especially if this is distributed around to each individual, then the distinction has a chance of spreading that wide. So when people discuss if the distinction between a URI for an object and a URI for a page is worth making, it really depends to whom. Initially it may not be worth trying to teach such a distinction to a very large crowd. If one can get their behaviour to be in tune with the distinction without them needing to be immediately aware of it, one can save oneself a lot of money. It is a question of knowing who needs to be tought what, and in what order. Human beings have managed to get very far on the back of mass ignorance of most things. It is only with the developing technical civilisation that mass literacy had to be brought into place at a huge cost to the state, for clearly even greater benefit. The cost of thinking is great, but most people do learn to use their head, as the advantages provided by it are dramatic. Most people don't know how they think though. So they can think without knowing that much about how they do it. So when creating an ontology one could try to design it in such a way that users of those relations would not need many distinctions to get going. Like is a good example of something that simple. It builds on the ability of humans to work out what the appropriate object of a like is. When we get to computers reasoning in a low contextual space such as the web we need tools such as those provided by the semantic web. Of all possible ontologies (all possible distinctions) some are going to be more valuable to a larger crowd. Then there may be ways even there of reducing the distinctions needed to teach such a crowd. Using DocumentObject ontologies with relations that reduce the distinctions needed by a user of the ontology to get it right, might if done right not reduce the inferential ability of the system that much whilst reducing the need to teach many people some distinctions. It may be that the subject worth developing is such a psychosocial economics of ontology development, which takes the cost of distinctions into account. Henry There are deep unresolved matters that will trigger threads likes these, repeatedly. My conflation list is in my last post :-) -- Regards, Kingsley Idehen President CEO OpenLink Software Web: http://www.openlinksw.com Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen Twitter/Identi.ca: kidehen Social Web Architect http://bblfish.net/
Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful
On 6/18/11 1:24 PM, Henry Story wrote: On 18 Jun 2011, at 13:20, Kingsley Idehen wrote: On 6/18/11 12:16 PM, Kingsley Idehen wrote: On 6/18/11 8:58 AM, Henry Story wrote: The recent discussions on this list were very much about how to avoid making distinctions unless you have to (Just-In-Time Distinctions?) So why are the above distinctions needed? Particularly with regard to this conversation. A root of these conversations lie confusion that results from conflating a variety of things. If we separate items into appropriate boxes we stand a chance of clarity en route to success. There are deep unresolved matters that will trigger threads likes these, repeatedly. My conflation list is in my last post :-) *At* the root of these conversations lie confusion that results from conflating a variety of things. If we separate items into appropriate boxes we stand a chance of clarity en route to success. Every distinction comes at a cost. Say it takes 20 minutes to explain to someone that where they saw As there are in fact A1s, A2s and A3s . Now say you need to explain that to 1 billion people. That is 333 million hours of time taken to explain that distinction. Come on! Why no earth would I seek that? Is that what you gleaned from my comments? How did people learn data access by reference before the Web? Basically, would there even be an Internet let alone a WWW if people didn't find a way to grok these matters? I am saying, one narrative doesn't cut it. Inferring that RDF is the new solution to everything doesn't cut it. Here is a break down that clarifies what I mean: Web Information Space components: 1. URIs used to Name Resource Locations - use of URIs as Uniform Resource Locators (Addreses) 2. Resources -- coarse grained structured data in formats such as HTML, JPEG, PNG etc.. streamed from server to client via HTTP protocol The above is about digital variation of real world publishing. Data Space components: 1. URIs used to Name Anything 2. URIs Names may be generic or specific as in the case of Addresses i.e., Resource Locators (URLs) 3. URIs Resolve to actual Resource Locations (Addresses) 4. Resources -- fined grained structured data via directed graph pictorials comprised of triples (or 3-tuples) -- still streamed from server to client but via Name - Address indirection as per #3 5. Triples -- expressible in a variety of syntaxes that include RDF family (RDF/XML, RDFa, Microdata, N-Triples, Turtle, N3, TriX etc..) and many others. Of course if there are 2 people, a teacher and a listener that is then 666 million hours taken to explain this at a cost to the economy of 7 billion dollars (if we take the low salary of $10 an hour). Lost me, I am a little more confident about the inherent intelligence of all human beings. The variable that most overlook (IMHO) is attention. Attention is a critical factor re. perceived human intelligence. This fundamental misconception of human intelligence is something programmers have become dangerously intoxicated with. This is why programs start to fail when end-users become engaged i.e., that hit all the subject matter / domain edge cases and to the programmer they are now become super intelligent in totally transcendant ways, basically a nightmare that typically leads to solution implosion. So the distinction would need to generate more value that that to be worth growing. Now of course in a computerised world, the teaching part can be automated, so that perhaps after covering engineering costs the whole cost to the general economy is 4 billion dollars. If the distinction then helps make the interactions between all those users more than 4 billion dollars more efficient, especially if this is distributed around to each individual, then the distinction has a chance of spreading that wide. Now we're talking! You are describe value of the kind delivered by solutions. Yes, delivering useful solutions that leverage new frontiers, insights, or tweaks of what already exists == potent education mechanism. Users will be engaged and competitors alerted re. opportunity costs. Er.. how about using URL when talking about addresses and data access? Speaking about URI in generic sense is problem #1 when speaking outside this community. Doing that is lazy, careless, and really unacceptable IMHO. This particular tendency just drives people nuts. So when people discuss if the distinction between a URI for an object and a URI for a page is worth making, it really depends to whom. We are introducing a new aspect of the URI abstraction, but assume the audience groks the nuances. That saying a URL is a URI solves the problem whereas it does the complete opposite. Discarding URI for URL has the same effect, and is the biggest headache I see re. communications since it always veers down the: a Car is not a Document path. A URL conveys specific meaning, and has an established sense with Web users and
Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful
On 18 Jun 2011, at 15:54, Kingsley Idehen wrote: On 6/18/11 1:24 PM, Henry Story wrote: On 18 Jun 2011, at 13:20, Kingsley Idehen wrote: On 6/18/11 12:16 PM, Kingsley Idehen wrote: On 6/18/11 8:58 AM, Henry Story wrote: The recent discussions on this list were very much about how to avoid making distinctions unless you have to (Just-In-Time Distinctions?) So why are the above distinctions needed? Particularly with regard to this conversation. A root of these conversations lie confusion that results from conflating a variety of things. If we separate items into appropriate boxes we stand a chance of clarity en route to success. There are deep unresolved matters that will trigger threads likes these, repeatedly. My conflation list is in my last post :-) *At* the root of these conversations lie confusion that results from conflating a variety of things. If we separate items into appropriate boxes we stand a chance of clarity en route to success. Every distinction comes at a cost. Say it takes 20 minutes to explain to someone that where they saw As there are in fact A1s, A2s and A3s . Now say you need to explain that to 1 billion people. That is 333 million hours of time taken to explain that distinction. Come on! Why no earth would I seek that? Is that what you gleaned from my comments? No of course not. I am just developing the thought that distinctions also have a cost, and that can explain why ontologies tend to have different shapes the closer you get to the consumer - ie, the larger the crowd of people you need to teach distinctions. At this point one needs to reduce distinctions - and so increase fuzzyness - in order to make it more difficult for things to be misused. [snip a big piece of text we know we agree on] Of course if there are 2 people, a teacher and a listener that is then 666 million hours taken to explain this at a cost to the economy of 7 billion dollars (if we take the low salary of $10 an hour). Lost me, I am a little more confident about the inherent intelligence of all human beings. The variable that most overlook (IMHO) is attention. exactly what I was saying: Attention has a cost. And teaching new distinctions requires time. Attention is a critical factor re. perceived human intelligence. This fundamental misconception of human intelligence is something programmers have become dangerously intoxicated with. This is why programs start to fail when end-users become engaged i.e., that hit all the subject matter / domain edge cases and to the programmer they are now become super intelligent in totally transcendant ways, basically a nightmare that typically leads to solution implosion. So the distinction would need to generate more value that that to be worth growing. Now of course in a computerised world, the teaching part can be automated, so that perhaps after covering engineering costs the whole cost to the general economy is 4 billion dollars. If the distinction then helps make the interactions between all those users more than 4 billion dollars more efficient, especially if this is distributed around to each individual, then the distinction has a chance of spreading that wide. Now we're talking! You are describe value of the kind delivered by solutions. Yes, delivering useful solutions that leverage new frontiers, insights, or tweaks of what already exists == potent education mechanism. Users will be engaged and competitors alerted re. opportunity costs. :-) Er.. how about using URL when talking about addresses and data access? Speaking about URI in generic sense is problem #1 when speaking outside this community. Doing that is lazy, careless, and really unacceptable IMHO. This particular tendency just drives people nuts. Agree. One can use URLs most of the time. The specs are reasonably abstract, but in context one usually need know no more than a URL, which most developers already do. Drag and drop is the gesture for those that don't have that distinction yet. So when people discuss if the distinction between a URI for an object and a URI for a page is worth making, it really depends to whom. We are introducing a new aspect of the URI abstraction, but assume the audience groks the nuances. That saying a URL is a URI solves the problem whereas it does the complete opposite. Discarding URI for URL has the same effect, and is the biggest headache I see re. communications since it always veers down the: a Car is not a Document path. A URL conveys specific meaning, and has an established sense with Web users and developers. Thus, why not build on that as part of the narrative that explains the new Web dimension that puts the full URI abstraction to use? Agree. Think of my writing URI as a typo on my part. Initially it may not be worth trying to teach such a distinction to a very large crowd. Fatal mistake, hence the 12 year odyssey.
Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful
HS wrote: The recent discussions on this list were very much about how to avoid making distinctions unless you have to (Just-In-Time Distinctions?) So why are the above distinctions needed? Particularly with regard to this conversation. It concerns your talks, going under the overpromising and undelivering title, Philosophy and the Social Web, starting from the epithet the web is now philosophical engineering. Missing the distinctions is leading to such poor online services as the schema.org's types. - Original Message - From: Henry Story To: AzamatAbdoullaev Cc: semantic-...@w3.org ; public-lod@w3.org ; Harry Halpin ; adasal Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2011 10:58 AM Subject: Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful On 18 Jun 2011, at 08:13, AzamatAbdoullaev wrote: HS: I gave a talk on the philosophy of the Social Web if you are interested. http://www.slideshare.net/bblfish/philosophy-and-the-social-web-5583083 For the specifics of TBL's motto, the web as a philosophical engineering, see Harry's article: http://www.apaonline.org/publications/newsletters/v07n2_Computers_04.aspx Some interesting assertions: we are not analyzing a world, we are building it. We are not experimental philosophers, we are philosophical engineers. ; online intelligence is generated through complex causal interaction in an extended brain-body-environment system; The Web is ...the creation and evolution of external representations in a universal information space. I'd extend: if the the world wide web is a universal information space, the semantic/ontological web is a universal knowledge space. And we need avoid confusing four fields: philosophical engineering, philosophy of engineering, engineering philosophy, and engineering of philosophy. The recent discussions on this list were very much about how to avoid making distinctions unless you have to (Just-In-Time Distinctions?) So why are the above distinctions needed? Particularly with regard to this conversation. Azamat - Original Message - From: Henry Story To: adasal Cc: Lin Clark ; Bjoern Hoehrmann ; Linked Data community ; Semantic Web Sent: Friday, June 17, 2011 8:48 PM Subject: Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful On 17 Jun 2011, at 19:27, adasal wrote: That said the hacker is a various beast, Indeed, hackers are not angels. But the people on this list should get back to hacking or work together with open source projects to get initial minimal working pieces embedded there. WebID is one; foaf is another, pingback, access control, ... Get the really simple pieces working. and I wonder if this sort of thing can really be addressed without overarching political/ethical/idealogical concerns. It's tough. It all fits together really nicely. I gave a talk on the philosophy of the Social Web if you are interested. http://www.slideshare.net/bblfish/philosophy-and-the-social-web-5583083 Hackers tend to be engineers with a political attitude, so they are more receptive to the bigger picture. But solving the big picture problem should have an easy entry cost if we want to get it going. I talked to the BBC but they have limited themselves to what they will do in the Social Web space as far as profile hosting goes. Again, I'd start small. Facebook started in universities not that long ago. Henry Social Web Architect http://bblfish.net/ Social Web Architect http://bblfish.net/
Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful
On 18 Jun 2011, at 17:09, AzamatAbdoullaev wrote: HS wrote: The recent discussions on this list were very much about how to avoid making distinctions unless you have to (Just-In-Time Distinctions?) So why are the above distinctions needed? Particularly with regard to this conversation. It concerns your talks, going under the overpromising and undelivering title, Philosophy and the Social Web, starting from the epithet the web is now philosophical engineering. Missing the distinctions is leading to such poor online services as the schema.org's types. What is missing is an argument from how not making four philosophical distinctions can lead to schema.org :-) I think the talk shows quite clearly how philosophy and the web are coming together at many different levels, from the philosophy of language and reference, to the philosophy of mind. I thought the talk was long enough as is. It took me quite a while to put together. But all that is talk. I am back to hacking away to build some of this stuff. Henry - Original Message - From: Henry Story To: AzamatAbdoullaev Cc: semantic-...@w3.org ; public-lod@w3.org ; Harry Halpin ; adasal Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2011 10:58 AM Subject: Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful On 18 Jun 2011, at 08:13, AzamatAbdoullaev wrote: HS: I gave a talk on the philosophy of the Social Web if you are interested. http://www.slideshare.net/bblfish/philosophy-and-the-social-web-5583083 For the specifics of TBL's motto, the web as a philosophical engineering, see Harry's article: http://www.apaonline.org/publications/newsletters/v07n2_Computers_04.aspx Some interesting assertions: we are not analyzing a world, we are building it. We are not experimental philosophers, we are philosophical engineers. ; online intelligence is generated through complex causal interaction in an extended brain-body-environment system; The Web is ...the creation and evolution of external representations in a universal information space. I'd extend: if the the world wide web is a universal information space, the semantic/ontological web is a universal knowledge space. And we need avoid confusing four fields: philosophical engineering, philosophy of engineering, engineering philosophy, and engineering of philosophy. The recent discussions on this list were very much about how to avoid making distinctions unless you have to (Just-In-Time Distinctions?) So why are the above distinctions needed? Particularly with regard to this conversation. Azamat - Original Message - From: Henry Story To: adasal Cc: Lin Clark ; Bjoern Hoehrmann ; Linked Data community ; Semantic Web Sent: Friday, June 17, 2011 8:48 PM Subject: Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful On 17 Jun 2011, at 19:27, adasal wrote: That said the hacker is a various beast, Indeed, hackers are not angels. But the people on this list should get back to hacking or work together with open source projects to get initial minimal working pieces embedded there. WebID is one; foaf is another, pingback, access control, ... Get the really simple pieces working. and I wonder if this sort of thing can really be addressed without overarching political/ethical/idealogical concerns. It's tough. It all fits together really nicely. I gave a talk on the philosophy of the Social Web if you are interested. http://www.slideshare.net/bblfish/philosophy-and-the-social-web-5583083 Hackers tend to be engineers with a political attitude, so they are more receptive to the bigger picture. But solving the big picture problem should have an easy entry cost if we want to get it going. I talked to the BBC but they have limited themselves to what they will do in the Social Web space as far as profile hosting goes. Again, I'd start small. Facebook started in universities not that long ago. Henry Social Web Architect http://bblfish.net/ Social Web Architect http://bblfish.net/ Social Web Architect http://bblfish.net/
Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful
-- Original Message - From: Henry Story To: AzamatAbdoullaev Azamat Cc: semantic-...@w3.org ; public-lod@w3.org ; Harry Halpin ; adasal Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2011 6:19 PM Subject: Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful On 18 Jun 2011, at 17:09, AzamatAbdoullaev wrote: HS wrote: The recent discussions on this list were very much about how to avoid making distinctions unless you have to (Just-In-Time Distinctions?) So why are the above distinctions needed? Particularly with regard to this conversation. It concerns your talks, going under the overpromising and undelivering title, Philosophy and the Social Web, starting from the epithet the web is now philosophical engineering. Missing the distinctions is leading to such poor online services as the schema.org's types. What is missing is an argument from how not making four philosophical distinctions can lead to schema.org :-) I think the talk shows quite clearly how philosophy and the web are coming together at many different levels, from the philosophy of language and reference, to the philosophy of mind. I thought the talk was long enough as is. It took me quite a while to put together. But all that is talk. I am back to hacking away to build some of this stuff. AA: Good luck, Henry. I believe, you can bring us something really valuable. Henry - Original Message - From: Henry Story To: AzamatAbdoullaev Cc: semantic-...@w3.org ; public-lod@w3.org ; Harry Halpin ; adasal Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2011 10:58 AM Subject: Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful On 18 Jun 2011, at 08:13, AzamatAbdoullaev wrote: HS: I gave a talk on the philosophy of the Social Web if you are interested. http://www.slideshare.net/bblfish/philosophy-and-the-social-web-5583083 For the specifics of TBL's motto, the web as a philosophical engineering, see Harry's article: http://www.apaonline.org/publications/newsletters/v07n2_Computers_04.aspx Some interesting assertions: we are not analyzing a world, we are building it. We are not experimental philosophers, we are philosophical engineers. ; online intelligence is generated through complex causal interaction in an extended brain-body-environment system; The Web is ...the creation and evolution of external representations in a universal information space. I'd extend: if the the world wide web is a universal information space, the semantic/ontological web is a universal knowledge space. And we need avoid confusing four fields: philosophical engineering, philosophy of engineering, engineering philosophy, and engineering of philosophy. The recent discussions on this list were very much about how to avoid making distinctions unless you have to (Just-In-Time Distinctions?) So why are the above distinctions needed? Particularly with regard to this conversation. Azamat - Original Message - From: Henry Story To: adasal Cc: Lin Clark ; Bjoern Hoehrmann ; Linked Data community ; Semantic Web Sent: Friday, June 17, 2011 8:48 PM Subject: Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful On 17 Jun 2011, at 19:27, adasal wrote: That said the hacker is a various beast, Indeed, hackers are not angels. But the people on this list should get back to hacking or work together with open source projects to get initial minimal working pieces embedded there. WebID is one; foaf is another, pingback, access control, ... Get the really simple pieces working. and I wonder if this sort of thing can really be addressed without overarching political/ethical/idealogical concerns. It's tough. It all fits together really nicely. I gave a talk on the philosophy of the Social Web if you are interested. http://www.slideshare.net/bblfish/philosophy-and-the-social-web-5583083 Hackers tend to be engineers with a political attitude, so they are more receptive to the bigger picture. But solving the big picture problem should have an easy entry cost if we want to get it going. I talked to the BBC but they have limited themselves to what they will do in the Social Web space as far as profile hosting goes. Again, I'd start small. Facebook started in universities not that long ago. Henry Social Web Architect http://bblfish.net/ Social Web Architect http://bblfish.net/ Social Web Architect http://bblfish.net/
Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful
On 17 Jun 2011, at 14:51, adasal wrote: Don't expect any support from that quarter. (Well apart from a few unhelpful scraps.) The question is how can the SemWeb academic community address these issues? There is the hacker community too, btw. The academic community is looking to be way ahead of the curve, and loves dealing with problems that are difficult to solve. The hacker communuity may be more interested in building things that work and are immediately useful - there is just no other way to grow the community of knowledgeable users. So I think it is the developer hacker community that one has to look at. And that means looking at the problem space and working out what solutions are viral - so that every hacker will want to participate - and also which can be implemented easily with current available tools by the largest community of developers. So for this you don't want to rely on the big players. They can't help that much, because they will tend to build things that work best for them: are centralised and don't work that well in a distributed space. You need something where each user benefits when every other user joins. And in my view that is the social web. The web started in exactly the same way: a few people built web pages that linked together. Each person that did found it valuable to convince others to join too. With structured linked data one can do the same thing, if one makes the data potent: ie it has to have an effect on people: by joining a group you get access to a party, a community of users, a discussion forum. In that space we have foaf you may say. But nobody really bothered making it potent. For example the viral part is missing: we only just wrote up a paper on how to make friending easy (viral) http://bblfish.net/tmp/2011/05/09/ So what the linked data community needs is really to go back to basics and build really useful applications of linked data, where you get more and more people to join in by showing immediate benefits. Henry Social Web Architect http://bblfish.net/
Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful
On 17 Jun 2011, at 17:36, Christopher Gutteridge wrote: Wave! I'm very much in the hacker community too. Get cool stuff done on hack days and so forth. My current hack: screen scraping the glastonbury festival site to get their entire programme; http://programme.ecs.soton.ac.uk/glastonbury/2011/ And then http://programme.ecs.soton.ac.uk/glastonbury/2011/sparql And then http://g2011.ecs.soton.ac.uk/ Very nice UI and cool hack too. Showing and explaining how to quickly put together cool apps like this is one good meme that can catch on - and so become viral. But the next thing to do is technical virality, where the software itself creates an incentive to link into the data web. For example by allowing people to comment on the page above (with experience of the band) after authenticating using WebID [1]. This gives people an incentive to have a webid, and so to have a foaf, and so to maintain data themselves (using a neat UI of course). As more of those people tie themselves in, there is more reason to build cool apps, which can become even cooler because they are then social without being centralised. In short we need to all work together in the semweb as a team, using the tools we have built to do that. It's really not difficult to do. :-) [1] video http://bblfish.net/blog/2011/05/25/ Henry Story wrote: On 17 Jun 2011, at 14:51, adasal wrote: Don't expect any support from that quarter. (Well apart from a few unhelpful scraps.) The question is how can the SemWeb academic community address these issues? There is the hacker community too, btw. The academic community is looking to be way ahead of the curve, and loves dealing with problems that are difficult to solve. The hacker communuity may be more interested in building things that work and are immediately useful - there is just no other way to grow the community of knowledgeable users. So I think it is the developer hacker community that one has to look at. And that means looking at the problem space and working out what solutions are viral - so that every hacker will want to participate - and also which can be implemented easily with current available tools by the largest community of developers. So for this you don't want to rely on the big players. They can't help that much, because they will tend to build things that work best for them: are centralised and don't work that well in a distributed space. You need something where each user benefits when every other user joins. And in my view that is the social web. The web started in exactly the same way: a few people built web pages that linked together. Each person that did found it valuable to convince others to join too. With structured linked data one can do the same thing, if one makes the data potent: ie it has to have an effect on people: by joining a group you get access to a party, a community of users, a discussion forum. In that space we have foaf you may say. But nobody really bothered making it potent. For example the viral part is missing: we only just wrote up a paper on how to make friending easy (viral) http://bblfish.net/tmp/2011/05/09/ So what the linked data community needs is really to go back to basics and build really useful applications of linked data, where you get more and more people to join in by showing immediate benefits. Henry Social Web Architect http://bblfish.net/ -- Christopher Gutteridge -- http://id.ecs.soton.ac.uk/person/1248 You should read the ECS Web Team blog: http://blogs.ecs.soton.ac.uk/webteam/ Social Web Architect http://bblfish.net/ Social Web Architect http://bblfish.net/
Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful
On 6/17/11 4:30 PM, Henry Story wrote: In that space we have foaf you may say. But nobody really bothered making it potent. For example the viral part is missing: we only just wrote up a paper on how to make friending easy (viral) http://bblfish.net/tmp/2011/05/09/ So what the linked data community needs is really to go back to basics and build really useful applications of linked data, where you get more and more people to join in by showing immediate benefits. As I recall, WebID is a practical application of Linked Data (which encompasses FOAF in this context) that's inherently viral :-) -- Regards, Kingsley Idehen President CEO OpenLink Software Web: http://www.openlinksw.com Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen Twitter/Identi.ca: kidehen
Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful
On 6/17/11 4:51 PM, Henry Story wrote: In short we need to all work together in the semweb as a team, using the tools we have built to do that. It's really not difficult to do. :-) [1] video http://bblfish.net/blog/2011/05/25/ Yep! +1000. Working as a team has proven to be a little harder than one assumed a few years ago re. Linked Data bootstrap. Instead of collectively building the cake and realizing its magnitude, there's been a tendency to start scrapping of the poorly formed scraps :-( When you truly comprehend the magnitude of the Linked Data opportunity, the very last thing you'll want to do is own it all yourself, it will kill you with indigestion, and that's if you're really lucky :-) Instead of slapping the all problematic RDF label on Linked Data and perpetually inviting and inciting syntax wars, we should be orienting ourselves towards solutions that leverage the essence of Linked Data, without compromise. Again, we can embrace and extend/cleanup scruffiness since the net effect is to pour opportunity costs on the scruffy which ultimately forces them on board anyhow! -- Regards, Kingsley Idehen President CEO OpenLink Software Web: http://www.openlinksw.com Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen Twitter/Identi.ca: kidehen
Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful
Hi Henry, Hope you are good. Yes there is the hacker community and that is the twist in the tail of the story of the internet. It may well be that certain projects will gather sufficient momentum to address the balance (that I explain I see needs addressing, akin to pirate radio + commercial broadcasting viz public broadcasting, if you like). That said the hacker is a various beast, and I wonder if this sort of thing can really be addressed without overarching political/ethical/idealogical concerns. It's tough. Thinking about the BBC, they do have a charter and that charter is framed with those considerations. I do not think that, and I would expect others to argue about whether, the BBC is the absolute acme of probity. But I think it a good starting point example. It is also impossible to know what might catch on, certainly the domain of the (open) knowledge web is broader than the social web. It leads on up to machine machine interaction. Oddly, though, while I can follow the example I gave of a use case for semantic technologies that intersect with government, business and the public I am stumped coming up with much in the social sphere. There must be other ways of slicing and dicing that domain apart from facebook? Adam On 17 June 2011 16:30, Henry Story henry.st...@bblfish.net wrote: On 17 Jun 2011, at 14:51, adasal wrote: Don't expect any support from that quarter. (Well apart from a few unhelpful scraps.) The question is how can the SemWeb academic community address these issues? There is the hacker community too, btw. The academic community is looking to be way ahead of the curve, and loves dealing with problems that are difficult to solve. The hacker communuity may be more interested in building things that work and are immediately useful - there is just no other way to grow the community of knowledgeable users. So I think it is the developer hacker community that one has to look at. And that means looking at the problem space and working out what solutions are viral - so that every hacker will want to participate - and also which can be implemented easily with current available tools by the largest community of developers. So for this you don't want to rely on the big players. They can't help that much, because they will tend to build things that work best for them: are centralised and don't work that well in a distributed space. You need something where each user benefits when every other user joins. And in my view that is the social web. The web started in exactly the same way: a few people built web pages that linked together. Each person that did found it valuable to convince others to join too. With structured linked data one can do the same thing, if one makes the data potent: ie it has to have an effect on people: by joining a group you get access to a party, a community of users, a discussion forum. In that space we have foaf you may say. But nobody really bothered making it potent. For example the viral part is missing: we only just wrote up a paper on how to make friending easy (viral) http://bblfish.net/tmp/2011/05/09/ So what the linked data community needs is really to go back to basics and build really useful applications of linked data, where you get more and more people to join in by showing immediate benefits. Henry Social Web Architect http://bblfish.net/
Re: Hackers - Re: Schema.org considered helpful
On 17 Jun 2011, at 19:27, adasal wrote: That said the hacker is a various beast, Indeed, hackers are not angels. But the people on this list should get back to hacking or work together with open source projects to get initial minimal working pieces embedded there. WebID is one; foaf is another, pingback, access control, ... Get the really simple pieces working. and I wonder if this sort of thing can really be addressed without overarching political/ethical/idealogical concerns. It's tough. It all fits together really nicely. I gave a talk on the philosophy of the Social Web if you are interested. http://www.slideshare.net/bblfish/philosophy-and-the-social-web-5583083 Hackers tend to be engineers with a political attitude, so they are more receptive to the bigger picture. But solving the big picture problem should have an easy entry cost if we want to get it going. I talked to the BBC but they have limited themselves to what they will do in the Social Web space as far as profile hosting goes. Again, I'd start small. Facebook started in universities not that long ago. Henry Social Web Architect http://bblfish.net/
