Sarven and all, I don't have the answers to your questions. But I find it interesting that we could at least do a survey with authors. But we would really have to at least mention some *reasonable* tools that are available, otherwise I'm afraid their positions won't change from before. I will discuss this within IW3C2 and see if we can include a question about this in one of the pre- or post- WWW conferences surveys. In the meantime, perhaps SWSA (who promotes ISWC) might want to follow up on this idea as well. Cheers D
On Apr 25, 2013, at 10:29 - 25/04/13, Sarven Capadisli <[email protected]> wrote: > On 04/24/2013 09:39 PM, Daniel Schwabe wrote: >> Some years ago, IW3C2, which promotes the WWW conference, and of which I am >> a member, is very interested in furthering the use of Web standards, for all >> the reasons that have already been mentioned in this discussion, decided to >> ask authors to submit papers in (X)Html. After all, WWW is a *Web* >> conference! (This was before RDF and its associated tools were available.) >> The bottom line was that authors REFUSED do submit in this format, partly >> because of lack of tools, partly because they were just comfortable with the >> existing tools. There were so many that it would have simply ruined the >> conference if the organization simply refused these submissions. >> The objection was so strong that IW3C2 eventually had to change its mind, >> and keep it they way it was, and currently is. >> Clearly, for some specialized communities, certain alternative formats may >> be acceptable - ontologies, in the context of sepublica, make perfect sense >> as an acceptable submission format. But when dealing with a more general >> audience, I do not believe we have the power to FORCE people to adopt any >> single specialized format - as everything else, these things emerge from a >> community consensus over time, even if first spearheaded by a smaller core >> group. >> Before that happens, we need to have a very clear value proposition and, >> most of all, good tools for people to accept and change. Most people will >> not change their ways is not convinced that it's worth the additional effort >> - and having really good tools is a sine qua non requirement for this. >> On the other hand, efforts continue to at least provide metadata in RDF, >> which has been surprisingly harder to produce year after year without >> requiring hand coding and customization each time. But we will get there, I >> hope. >> Just my 2c... > > Hi Daniel, thank you for that invaluable background. > > I'll ask the community: what is the real lesson from this and how can we > improve? > > What's more important: keeping the conference running or some ideals? > > Was that reaction from authors expected? Will it ever be different? > > What would have happened if IW3C2 stood at its place? What would happen if > conferences take a stand - where will authors migrate? > > What would be the short and long term consequences? > > Not that I challenge this, but are we sure that it is the lack of good tools > that's holding things back? What would make the authors happy? Was there a > survey on this? > > -Sarven > > Daniel Schwabe Dept. de Informatica, PUC-Rio Tel:+55-21-3527 1500 r. 4356 R. M. de S. Vicente, 225 Fax: +55-21-3527 1530 Rio de Janeiro, RJ 22453-900, Brasil http://www.inf.puc-rio.br/~dschwabe
