2009/6/17 Tony Bowden <[email protected]>: > On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 5:23 PM, > CountCulture<[email protected]> wrote: >> The problem with a wikipedia model (apart from the usual ones -- bad >> edits etc) is that it doesn't give you structured data (hence dbpedia >> etc), and one of the goals of theyworkforyoulocal is to extract >> structured data and provide it in a unified interface, rather than the >> mishmash that's around at the moment. > > When I was doing this for Belfast City Council I used Semantic > MediaWiki to get around that problem. It's not especially > lay-friendly[1], but it's a pretty good way to get all the wiki > goodness whilst still also having structured data.
Its very very easy to parse anything structured in a mediawiki (just a few regular expressions and a bit of code), so anything in a table or a template can be parsed even if there's nothing cleverer there. I've not tried Semantic MediaWiki but given that the unimproved system can be (and is) used by people interested in structured data, I'm sure it is good. You might want to use a wiki for the data that has to be put in ad hoc, eg council names, which ones have elected mayors and so on. Easy enough to then transfer them into your db (and since they are versioned in the wiki things are easier than if they were on a web page). Things you scrape then go into your database directly and you can mash them up nice and easily. -- Francis Davey _______________________________________________ Mailing list [email protected] Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public
