Hi Mathieu, I think the DBpedia mailing list is a better place for discussing the DBpedia ontology: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dbpedia-discussion Drop us a message if you have questions or concerns. I'm sure someone will answer your questions. I am not an ontology expert, so I'll just leave it at that.
JC On 6 May 2013 11:01, Mathieu Stumpf <[email protected]> wrote: > Le 2013-05-06 00:09, Jona Christopher Sahnwaldt a écrit : > >> On 5 May 2013 20:48, Mathieu Stumpf <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> Le dimanche 05 mai 2013 à 16:28 +0200, Jona Christopher Sahnwaldt a >>>> >>>> The ontology is maintained by a community that everyone can join at >>>> http://mappings.dbpedia.org/ . An overview of the current class >>>> hierarchy is here: >>>> http://mappings.dbpedia.org/server/ontology/classes/ . You're more >>>> than welcome to help! I think talk pages are not used enough on the >>>> mappings wiki, so if you have ideas, misgivings or questions about the >>>> DBpedia ontology, the place to go is probably the mailing list: >>>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dbpedia-discussion >>> >>> >>> Do you maintain several "ontologies" in parallel? Otherwise, how do you >>> plane to avoid a "cultural bias", and how do you think it may impact the >>> other projects? I mean, if you try to establish "one semantic hierarchy >>> to rule them all", couldn't it arise cultural diversity concerns? >> >> >> We maintain only one version of the ontology. We have a pretty diverse >> community, so I hope the editors will take care of that. So far, the >> ontology does have a Western bias though, more or less like the >> English Wikipedia or the current list of Wikidata properties. >> >> JC > > > > I can't see how your community could take care of it when they have no > choice but not contribute at all or contribute to one ontology whose > structure already defined main axes. To my mind, it's a structural bias, you > can't go out of it without going out of the structure. As far as I > understand, the current "ontology"[1] you are using is a tree with a central > root, and not a DAG or any other graph. In my humble opinion, if you need a > central element/leaf, it should be precisely "ontology"/representation, > under which one may build several world representation networks, and even > more relations between this networks which would represent how one may links > concepts of different cultures. > > To my mind the problem is much more important than with a local Wikipedia > (or other Wikimedia projects). Because each project can expose subjects > through the collective representation of this local community. But with > wikidata central role, isn't there a risk of "short-circuit" this local > expressions? > > Also, what is your metric to measure a community diversity? I don't want to > be pessimist, nor to look like I blame the current wikidata community, but > it doesn't seems evident to me that it currently represent human diversity. > I think that there are probably a lot of economical/social/educational/etc > barriers that may seems like nothing to anyone already involved in the > wikidata community, but which are gigantic for those > non-part-of-the-community people. > > Now to give my own opinion of the representation/ontology you are building, > I would say that it's based on exactly the opposite premisses I would use. > Wikidata Q1 is universe, then you have earth, life, death and human, and it > seems to me that the ontology you are building have the same > anthropocentrist bias of the universe. To my mind, should I peak a central > concept to begin with, I would not take universe, but perception, because > perceptions are what is given to you before you even have a concept for it. > Even within solipsism you can't deny perceptions (at least as long as the > solipcist pretend to exist, but if she doesn't, who care about the opinion > of a non-existing person :P). Well I wouldn't want to flood this list with > epistemological concerns, but it just to say that even for a someone like me > that you may probably categorise as western-minded, this "ontology" looks > like the opposite of my personal opinion on the matter. I don't say that I > am right and the rest of the community is wrong. I say that I doubt that you > can build an ontology which would fit every cultural represantions into a > tree of concepts. But maybe it's not your goal in the first place, so you > may explain me what is your goal then. > > [1] I use quotes because it's seems to me that what most IT people call an > ontology, is what I would call a representation. > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikidata-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l _______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l
