I'd have to add a caveat: <i>Below the propaganda horizon</i>, diversity is a very good thing.
I just made up "Propaganda Horizon" so I should probably define it. When data is federalized, you make a distinction between metadata above and metadata below the horizon above which the propagation down of opinion data can be ignored. For example those helpful people who translate the North Korean website into English know full well that their laws are written in Korean, and have no envy of the "power of English". From the opposite direction, English speakers discount the opinion even though the language is familiar. The Propaganda Horizon is present in self-joined data sets. For example, an EU Directive to the effect that Scots must always wear red socks on Tuesdays might be widely ignored by Scots who always wear red socks on Thursdays. Furthermore, it is unlikely there will ever be a eu.google domain, nor a google.eu domain - this may actually be codified[1]. The conclusion I draw is that commercial data sources are forever above the Propaganda Horizon and you need to take "fad" diversity with circumspection. --Gannon [1] http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/P_87207/ ________________________________ From: Denny Vrandecic <[email protected]> To: Juan Sequeda <[email protected]> Cc: Barry Norton <[email protected]>; [email protected] Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2012 4:22 AM Subject: Re: Reuse On 21 Jun 2012, at 09:38, Juan Sequeda wrote: > This vocabulary competition is a good thing! Yep, competing standards have always proven to be a good thing, just think of the internet protocols before the Web, Hypertext standards before HTML, imperial units of measurements vs SI, RSS vs RSS, microdata vs RDFa, VHS vs Betamax, Blueray vs DVD HD, … all for diversity! :)
