Wow :) Thanks for that, Dan! On Mon, Jul 26, 2021 at 11:43 AM Dan Brickley <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > On Mon, 26 Jul 2021 at 11:58, Jan Dittrich <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> I would be very interested in Wikidatas Relation to Cyc >> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyc> on one hand and the semantic Web on >> the other. >> > > this isn’t written down in one place well, yet > > Here is one strand of history, emphasising from Cyc via Guha’s later work > on MCF. > > CycL inspired Apple MCF, which got XMLified by Tim Bray when Guha took it > Netscape. June ‘97 it was submitted to W3C by Netscape. It combined with > requirements from W3C content labeling work (PICS), where there was > interest in adding more decentralized expressivity (eg to support Dublin > Core and other schemas being combined in one “label”), complex structures > and datatyped property values, aka Signed PICS labels and PICS-NG. While > PICS and PICS-NG had an s-expression based syntax, RDF (like the 1997 > iteration of MCF) went with XML. At the time XML was being invented by > stripping SGML down into something that might suit the Web. Microsoft > submitted XML-Data to W3C mid 97 too (as well as later a revision, breaking > W3C etiquette). XML-Data shared some goals with RDF but not its graph data > model. RDF and other usecases led to XML Namespaces being an important > thing. As XML popularity grew, RDF was under pressure since it didn’t > engage much with the SGML heritage. The RDFS WG launched just after the RDF > Model + Syntax spec was announced at Dublin Core’s conference in Finland. > This being the “browser wars” era both RDF and RDFS were under huge > pressure to be completed quickly. RDFS included a small subset of the > schema-defining machinery from MCF. The RDF M+S WG produced an RDF > recommendation in Feb 1999 but RDFS was left in limbo, in part because the > XML community were wary of being forced to build XML Schema on top of it. > Meanwhile from 1998 a small but enthusiastic community started to build > around RDF - experimenting with query languages, databases, integration > with inference engines, APIs etc., alongside continued support from > Netscape who used the technology heavily for everything from RSS feeds, > sitemaps, “whats related” annotation services, open data (dmoz) dumps, to > their own browser’s internal data source APIs (xul templates, bookmarks, > mail, ..). On the standards track, W3C management backed off from RDF work > to reflect the concerns of its membership, who tended to much prefer XML. > Meanwhile the US military research agency DARPA had been persuaded by an > academic turned staffer (Jim Hendler) who had worked on similar early > technology (SHOE, PIQ) that they should fund research to standardize a > DARPA Agent Markup Language. A DAML / W3C collaboration led to the > RDF-oriented W3C team at MIT receiving DARPA funding to continue the work > area that had not engaged the XML-centric interest of W3C’s membership (ie > Advisory Committee). Alongside this, RDF/S had engaged the interests of > European researchers working around logic-based KR languages, eg f-logic, > description logics etc., resulting in DAML (US) and OIL (description logic > EU research project outcomes) collaborating via adhoc transatlantic > committee to produce DAML+OIL, a first draft of a more complicated language > that sat on top of RDF. The W3C MIT DARPA funding supported a “Semantic Web > Advanced Development” activity that operated in the grey around of W3C’s > “non member-funded activity”, and which served in particular to bring > DAML+OIL into W3C as new work item. This next phase of RDF work at W3C was > broadly in line with the RDF roadmap and expectations from the 1997 > Metadata Activity, but rebranded “Semantic Web” to reflect several > considerations. Firstly that RDF was clearly more powerful and expressive > than a simple metadata format might need. Secondly, by this point RDF was > pretty unpopular in several contexts - and seen as draining staff resources > and attention from W3C membership priorities (XML, Web Services, etc.). > Renaming from RDF allowed a fresh start. Calling it Semantic Web tied into > Tim-BL’s interest and writing in the area, had more “visionary” feel, > allowing for a message that it was a longer term investigation, therefore > not a competitor to XML Schema, SOAP, Xquery and so on. So now we had PICS > and MCF having mutated into RDF/S for graph data, and then simultaneously a > rebranding of the exercise as Semantic Web, with a big dose of “futuristic” > and “researchy”. Conferences and journals and such started to appear, > initially with much more focus on the “semantics” part, rather than the > “web”. This was the cause for the second great half-hearted renaming, which > grew from the growing split between those of us who were in this for > web-based data sharing, integration, feeds, sitemaps, rss, foaf etc and so > on, and those who were more “semantics first”, with a passion for finding > efficient subsets of Description Logic. Around the mid-2000s the earlier > experimental RDF query languages solidified into SPARQL, which was broadly > in the “data access” side of the community. This is another place that the > Cyc and MCF heritage showed up, since most practical RDF systems had a > notion of source or context attached at the triple of graph level, > corresponding to the notion of “layers” in MCF (and very loosely with cyc > contexts). So this kind of takes us to the time when we had rdf/s, owl, > skos, sparql … and things like dbpedia and the lod cloud were refining the > data-linking “hypertext rdf” work we’d started in the FOAF project, with a > TimBL-fueled passion for every entity being given a URI that can serve up > RDF when dereferenced. A good amount of public open datasets were published > this way, although applications and usage tended to lag. This brings us to > the era of rich snippets, Google acquiring Freebase, renaming it Knowledge > Graph and then stepping back from the role that Wikidata was more effective > at filling… > > > Ok that was a giant biased brain dump, but i think mostly true, and about > 25 years underdocumented history squeezed into a paragraph > > Dan > > > > > >> >> Jan >> >> Am Fr., 23. Juli 2021 um 01:57 Uhr schrieb Denny Vrandečić < >> [email protected]>: >> >>> Hi Thad, >>> >>> Thanks for asking the questions, and thanks Tobi for the pointers. Man, >>> what a lengthy post it was. >>> >>> I understand that the post answered most of your questions. I think that >>> it is entirely possible to layer a prototype semantics over Wikidata, just >>> as the DL semantics have been layered over it. I don't remember if such >>> work has been done before. >>> >>> Regarding ISO 5964, I think I probably have looked through it at some >>> point, but I don't remember it anymore. SKOS has certainly been a stronger >>> influence, and obviously OWL. >>> >>> I hope that helps with the historical deep dive :) Lydia and I really >>> should write that book! >>> >>> Cheers, >>> Denny >>> >>> >>> >>> On Sat, Jul 10, 2021 at 3:00 PM Thad Guidry <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> *Tobi - *That blog post 3 is very helpful. It shows that Denny and I >>>> think alike and agree on everything. :-) His dislike for strong >>>> classification. >>>> Which is part of my basis, to allow weak relations much more. And use >>>> them. But how to allow them, and I think the only way is through >>>> properties based on the Data Model currently. >>>> There are many ways, and SKOS is one way to allow expressing weak >>>> relations and we already have some good support with existing properties >>>> like P4390 mapping relation type >>>> <https://www.wikidata.org/entity/P4390> and a host of others. >>>> >>>> Denny and I also fear the same things, like not having a flexible >>>> enough system to describe our complex world that doesn't always fit into >>>> strict rules. Which is kinda why I've always liked >>>> https://www.w3.org/TR/skos-primer/#secassociative >>>> because of it's non-transitivity which allows much flexibility and as >>>> he and I would say... avoid "Barbara". :-) >>>> Which is pretty much summarized in >>>> https://www.w3.org/TR/skos-primer/#secadvanced >>>> >>>> Sorry for all the SKOS links but semantic relations helps to describe >>>> human knowledge. How a system represents or portrays semantic relations is >>>> where choices are made or have been made. *And I think the right >>>> choices were definitely made.* >>>> Overlaying SKOS and the Wikidata properties that sprinkle it into the >>>> data model is useful, but I've always been kind of reluctant to do >>>> that...probably for the same reasons Denny might give? Choices between >>>> allowing "semantic accuracy" versus "semantic flexibility". But I think >>>> systems like SKOS provide both. Perhaps it could be argued that OWL >>>> provides much less. :-) Still all KOSs provide great use when they fit >>>> well. How they can fit over Wikidata, as I said, is probably only through >>>> properties at this late stage of design and that's fine with me! >>>> >>>> Still, my main focus is and always will be trying to add human >>>> knowledge about concept relations into Wikidata to help machines, to help >>>> us. (the "edges" that humans quickly can deduce in seconds, but still to >>>> this day can sometimes take machines days or weeks to figure out). >>>> >>>> My usage and help to Abstract Wikipedia and Wikidata later on will >>>> primarily be around the mapping of relations ... where a lot of the >>>> possibilities have already been described years and years ago at the very >>>> bottom of this long page: >>>> *inter-KOS mapping relationships <-- *very last row, 3rd column >>>> https://www.w3.org/TR/skos-primer/#seccorrespondencesISO >>>> >>>> >>>> *Denny - * were you part of or lightly influenced by ISO 5964 through >>>> Germany ISO DIN or not .. that also would be good to know. >>>> >>>> Thad >>>> https://www.linkedin.com/in/thadguidry/ >>>> https://calendly.com/thadguidry/ >>>> >>>> >>>> On Sat, Jul 10, 2021 at 3:17 PM Tobi Gritschacher < >>>> [email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Hi, >>>>> >>>>> It would be nice to have a place to look with a link to a page in the >>>>>> Community portal that says "History of Wikidata's design and early >>>>>> collected meetings, notes, design documents, recordings" >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Might not answer your concrete question, but here are some (very) >>>>> early blog posts by Denny. They are still a nice read. :) >>>>> >>>>> 1/3 >>>>> https://blog.wikimedia.de/2013/02/22/restricting-the-world/ >>>>> >>>>> 2/3 >>>>> https://newwwblog.wikimedia.de/2013/06/04/on-truths-and-lies/ >>>>> >>>>> 3/3 >>>>> https://blog.wikimedia.de/2013/09/12/a-categorical-imperative/ >>>>> >>>>> Cheers, Tobi >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> Wikidata mailing list -- [email protected] >>>>> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] >>>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Wikidata mailing list -- [email protected] >>>> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Wikidata mailing list -- [email protected] >>> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] >>> >> >> >> -- >> Jan Dittrich >> UX Design/ Research >> >> Wikimedia Deutschland e. 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