-----Original Message-----
From: John McClure [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 4:48 AM
To: 'Yury Katkov'; 'Wikimedia developers'
Subject: RE: [Wikitech-l] Topic Maps


Yury,
Sure SMW certainly could be part of a solution especially using subobjects
from v1.7, but this suggests WP isn't intended to have something as basic as
a subject-index itself because SMW is apparently not on WP's roadmap. If WP
doesn't record topics for its articles, then WP cannot fully leverage its
library of data in the semantic web. IMHO I think the semantic web is more
fruitfully about merging and contrasting topic maps than resource
descriptions.

On implementation, I see two parts. First, are hierarchical subject indexes
(such as the LCSH)based on SKOS [3] and second are topic maps that are
roundtripped XTM v2.0 [2] within the scope of <page> elements. "All the
other" plumbing is significant enough though to make this work. For
instance, I'd consider requiring "type" designators in XTM stream to be
names of (aliased+actual) namespaces. The suggests a more dynamic namespace
manager which I know has been kicking around for awhile.

Bottom line if SMW were to be incorporated into WP then it's a fine idea to
use SMW to hold topic data. If not, I am concerned that platforms without
semantics don't seem sustainable over the long haul.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_Maps
[2] http://www.isotopicmaps.org/sam/sam-xtm/
[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/skos-referenc

Thank - John

>-----Original Message-----
>From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of
>Yury Katkov
>Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2012 7:50 PM
>To: [email protected]; Wikimedia developers
>Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Topic Maps
>
>
>Hi John! Could you provide some links on how the Topic Maps are used
>in modern wikis and information systems?
>There is a big family of Semantic Extensions [1] that allow to export
>wikipages to RDF, isn't this enough?
>
>[1] http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:SMW_extensions
>-----
>Yury Katkov
>
>
>
>
>On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 6:53 AM, John McClure
><[email protected]> wrote:
>> Adding Topic Maps to MW base software could be a winner --
>it can generate a
>> wiki-site map (some think WP needs one!); it can be used to
>corelate the
>> contents of documents loaded into a wiki (like conference
>proceedings) with
>> a wiki's topic map; and would make a cool tool for any page
>in a wiki, most
>> clearly on a user page. It's perhaps a smart strategic move
>- ISO 82250
>> Topic Maps are the fruit of SGML/Hytime n-ary models that
>'lost' to RDF
>> triples back when. Being a superset of RDF, TMs can type associations
>> between articles while capturing all infobox data.
>>
>> Topic maps may be a compelling FUNCTIONAL upgrade for MW as
>it captures
>> subjects of an article for the first time. Given topic-map
>to RDF transforms
>> amid continuing W3 research, this could be enough for the
>semantic world. By
>> adopting say the Lib of Congress' Subject Headings, a wiki
>like Wikipedia
>> could play an important role in the semantic web. The
>current situation with
>> Wikipedia is that it's hard to have a large library of
>information without a
>> subject catalogue... right now, wikis have an author
>catalogue sort of, fine
>> for smaller hadcrafted wikis but doesn't scale well for many.
>>
>> Since other platforms now have maturing topic map extensions
>I'm worried the
>> impact on wikis not to have that technology.
>>
>> John McClure
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikitech-l mailing list
>> [email protected]
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


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