Markus-
Congrats because SMW 1.7 is a real bellringer - can't wait to upgrade. I was
thinking that "named subobjects" can parallel wiki pagenames,
[[#interwiki:en:ns:pgnm]]. Some namespaces would be nice to reserve would
be #Dublin Core:, #OWL:, #SKOS:, #Topic Map: etc and their information
elements easily defined. And should SF be able to associate forms with
subobject namespaces (and categories), it seems a page can maintain a
virtual wiki. What a coup!
Topic maps distinguish type, subjects, scopes, names, associations &
occurrences - an ISO model of an index at the back of any reference book. A
minimalist implementation is to associate subjects, like categories, in a
page's #DublinCore:Subject property. Subjects can be SKOS objects defined in
Subject: namespace, where eg the Library of Congress Subject Headings are
defined. Markup is just [[Subject:subjectname]] on any page or within any
subobject. [By within, I mean a #^text property for content that's copied
into a page should it be "moved" from subobject to page -- this text can
contain category and subject markup too]. To be fully wiki,
{{pgnm#DublinCore}} might transclude the same material as
{{pgnm/DublinCore}} using this #^text property.
Their idea of "type" in <xtm:scope>:<xtm:type>:<xtm:name> maps to wiki
namespaces more naturally than categories can. Today, categories confuse
plural lists of things with singular types of thing, causing a few practical
problems. Singular nouns seem best defined in Type namespace with instances
located in an appropriately named MW namespace or MW namespace alias. Note,
MW can handle 64K namespaces, maybe for a seriously good dictionary of
common nouns and noun-phrases like Wiktionary?
A few grammatical ideas. A tilde unary operator that does a "like" page or
object selection, and filters for categories and subjects that apply to
pages & subobjects alike, seems valuable. A magic word {{ANAMESPACE}} ("A"
prefix = "A-box") might be nice too to identify a subobject's namespace.
page filters
[[~{{FULLPAGENAME}}#DublinCore:]]
[[Category:Active]][[Subject:LCSH Science]]
subobject filters
[[~{{FULLPAGENAME}}#DublinCore:]]
[[#Category:Active]][[#Subject:LCSH Science]]
both filters
[[{{NAMESPACE}}:+]]
[[Category:Active ]][[Subject:LCSH Science]]
[[#Category:Active]][[#Subject:LCSH Science]]
One alternative subobject naming is {{FULLPAGENAME}}#{{FULLPAGENAME}} which
is a Dublin Core object ie [{{FULLPAGENAME}}#{{FULLPAGENAME}}]
|?Contributor|?Coverage...|?Subject|?Title|?Type
So [[Subject:pgnm]] markup for a page can be stored in the Subject property
in a {{FPN#FPN}} or {{FPN#DublinCore}} object. Another approach is that
mediawiki build a Category-like mechanism, with its own set of tables and
indexes, for Subjects. This may boil down to which part of the wiki stack a
[[Subject:pgnm]] tag best processed. I think a [[Subject:pgnm]] could be a
useful addition to wiki markup so I hope that doesnt get obscured. Wikidata
may want to incorporate ideas concerning Topic Maps - strategically it's
possibly an easy big win, so I'll bother them too.
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Markus Krötzsch [mailto:[email protected]]
>Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 7:43 AM
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Topic Maps
>
>
>On 21/03/12 13:06, John McClure wrote:
>> (1) official ISO versions are purchaseable while unofficial
>versions are
>> foss.
>
>Ok, that's a pity. A standard that nobody can read is not so
>helpful ...
>We already had this issue with other ISO standards before. In the end,
>people just ignore them because they do not get to them.
>
>> (2) there is a TMAPI which I think is conceptual not a
>software library. Use
>> XML parser.
>
>I was more thinking of a library to represent and manipulate
>topic maps
>in a program. Parsing it is one thing, but representing TMs as
>a kind of
>DOM tree (that you would get from XML) would not be so great I guess.
>
>> (3) Drupal has an extension now. There are a few others.
>> (4) again, there's a QL but it's far more SQL - check it
>with XTM for data
>> structures.
>
>Ok, so there is a standard mapping from TM to RDB that allows
>SQL to be
>used for querying?
>
>> Personally, topic maps should be implemented in WP using
>SMW's subobjects.
>
>Ah, so I suppose you are viewing TMs more as a kind of
>conceptual model
>than as a concrete standard with a fixed syntax/semantics. Fair enough.
>
>Regards
>
>Markus
>
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Markus Krötzsch [mailto:[email protected]]
>>> Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 3:28 AM
>>> To: [email protected]
>>> Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Topic Maps
>>>
>>>
>>> [Off-list, maybe off-topic too ;-)]
>>>
>>> Hi John,
>>>
>>> I would actually like to learn a bit more about topic maps.
>Could you
>>> maybe help me to answer some of the following questions?
>>>
>>> (1) Where can I see the official standard? All the documents that I
>>> found start by saying that they are not the ISO standard.
>Where is the
>>> official spec?
>>>
>>> (2) Which software libraries support topic maps? (parsing,
>API, etc.)
>>> For which other tasks is there support in existing software
>(authoring
>>> tools? database systems? reasoners?).
>>>
>>> (3) What are the major users of topic maps today? Where are
>they used?
>>>
>>> (4) How does one query information that is stored in topic maps? (In
>>> other words: which kinds of data access are supported?)
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Markus
>>>
>>>
>>> On 21/03/12 00:53, John McClure 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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