ConferenceCall 2009 03 05

= SemanticWiki mini-series Session-6 - Thu 5-Mar-2009 =


 * Mini-series Title: Semantic Wikis: The Wiki Way to the Semantic Web


 * Session-6 Topic: The Future of Semantic http://c2.com/cgi/wiki? Trends, Challenges and Outlook


 * Session Chair: Prof. Dr. RudiStuder (FZI & Institut AIFB, Universität Karlsruhe) & Dr. MarkGreaves (Vulcan)


 * Panelists:
 * Chairs of previous sessions in this mini-series to summarize the outcome from their sessions, and to make their short statements on today's topic (5 min. each)
 * Dr. SebastianSchaffert, Mr. HaroldSolbrig, Mr. MaxVoelkel, Mr. MarkusKroetzsch, Mr. MikeDean, Mr. PeterYim, Dr. LiDing & Dr. JieBao
 * Speakers from previous sessions of this mini-series to each deliver short statements regarding the future of semantic wikis as they each see it (2 min. each)
 * Mr. ChristophLange, Mr. DanielHansch, Professor DanielSchwabe, Mr. HaroldSolbrig, Mr. JoelNatividad, Professor KeiCheung, Mr. MarkusKroetzsch, Mr. MikeDean, Professor Dr. PeterDolog, Mr. PeterYim, Dr. SebastianSchaffert, Mr. TobiasKuhn & Mr. YaronKoren


 * Resources:
 * Slides:
 * Presentations: . [ C0-Greaves ] . [ C1-Studer ] . [ S1-Schaffert ] . [S2-Solbrig ] . [ S3-Voelkel/Kroetsch ] . [ S4-Dean/Yim ] . [S5-Ding/Bao ]
 * Panelists Thoughts on the Future: . [ L0-Lange ] . [ L1-Hansch ] . [ L2-Schwabe ] . [ L3-Solbrig ] . [ L4-Natividad ] . [ L5-Cheung ] . [ L6-Kroetzsch ] . [ L7-Dean ] . [ L8-Dolog ] . [ L9-Yim ] . [ L10-Schaffert ] . [ L11-Kuhn ] . [ L12-Koren ] & SemanticWiki/Future
 * [ Audio Recording of the session ] (mp3)
 * [ Transcript of the online chat session ] during the panel discussion

Conference Call Details

 * Date: Thursday, Mar. 5, 2009
 * Start Time: 10:30am PST / 12:30pm CST / 1:30pm EST / 7:30pm CET / 18:30 UTC
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 * Please note that this session will be recorded, and the audio archive is expected to be made available as open content to our community membership and the public at-large under our prevailing open IPR policy.

Attendees

 * Registered Attendees:
 * RudiStuder
 * MarkGreaves
 * SebastianSchaffert
 * MarkusKroetzsch
 * HaroldSolbrig
 * MikeDean
 * PeterYim
 * JieBao
 * LiDing
 * DanielSchwabe
 * David Butler (Semontco AG)
 * ThomasBrunner
 * John Thompson (Boeing)
 * BobbinTeegarden
 * YaronKoren
 * TobiasKuhn
 * ChristophLange
 * JoelNatividad
 * SonDoan
 * PeterDolog
 * KeiCheung
 * EdDodds
 * LarsLudwig
 * KenBaclawski
 * BruceBray
 * TimFinin
 * DougHolmes
 * SteveRay
 * Andy Cowell
 * JohnMcClure
 * GuoqianJiang
 * DanielHansch
 * Mike Lang
 * Stephen Davis
 * Sunil Mishra
 * Beverly McLeod (NASA/ARC)
 * AlexGarcia
 * Daniel Redmon (Information International Associates)
 * NancyWiegand
 * ... if you are coming to the session, please add your name above (plus your affiliation, if you aren't already a member of the community) above; or e-mail  so that we can reserve enough resources to support everyone's participation. ...
 * ... if you are coming to the session, please add your name above (plus your affiliation, if you aren't already a member of the community) above; or e-mail  so that we can reserve enough resources to support everyone's participation. ...


 * Regrets:
 * MaxVoelkel
 * PhilippZaltenbach
 * MarcFeickert

SemanticWiki mini-series Background
The Semantic Wiki mini-series a 6-month mini-series comprising Talks, Panel Discussions and Online Discourse. The series is co-organized by FZI Karlsruhe, Mayo Clinic, Ontolog, RPI Tetherless World Constellation and Salzburg Research, Austria. This represents a collaborative effort between members from academia, research, software engineering, semantic web and ontology communities. The 6-month mini-series intends to bring together developers, administrators and users of semantic wikis, and provide a platform where they can conveniently share ideas and insights. Through a series of (mainly virtual) talks, panel discussions, online discourse and even face-to-face meetings, participants will survey the state-of-the-art in semantic wiki technology and get exposure to exemplary use cases and applications. Together, they will study trends, challenges and the outlook for semantic wikis, and explore opportunities for collaboration in the very promising technology, approach or philosophy which people has labeled "semantic wiki."

This series of virtual events will dovetail into the face-to-face workshop: "Social Semantic Web: Where Web 2.0 Meets Web 3.0" at the AAAI Spring Symposium (March 23-25, 2009 at Stanford, California, USA - see: http://tw.rpi.edu/sss09 ).

See: our SemanticWiki mini-series homepage at: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SemanticWiki

Agenda & Proceedings

 * Session Format: this is a virtual session conducted over an augmented conference call.


 * Agenda:
 * 1. Opening by the Session Chair - MarkGreaves & RudiStuder
 * 2. we'll go around with a self-introduction of participants - we will skip this if we have more than 20 participants (in which case, it will be best if members try to update their namesake pages on this wiki prior to the call so that everyone can get to know who's who more easily.) (All - total: ~15 minutes)
 * 3. SemanticWiki mini-series sessions 1~5 summaries - (5 min. each)
 * 4. Panelists thoughts & short statements on the Future and Trends on SemanticWiki's - (2 min. each)
 * 5. Q&A and Open Discussion - ALL (~20 min.)
 * 6. Summary / Announcement / Conclusion - session co-chairs

Session Abstract: The Future of Semantic http://c2.com/cgi/wiki? Trends, Challenges and Outlook

 * '''We are inviting all our chairs and presenters from the previous

sessions back to join us on the panel at this session, to share their thoughts, and to collectively take a glimpse into the future of semantic wikis, as pioneers, developers and practitioners of semantic wiki technologies and applications.'''


 * '''This mini-series has proved to be a fantastic opportunity for

practicing and potential developers, administrators and users of semantic wikis. This concluding session will being everything together, and help everyone look into what semantic wiki promises in the future as well.'''

See: Some of the thoughts on the future and trend of semantic wikis by our earlier speakers at: SemanticWiki/Future

Q & A and Open Discussion:

 * please refer to Process above

Transcript of the online chat (during the session):
Transcript: (lightly edited, only to improve intelligibility)

PeterYim: Welcome to the SemanticWiki mini-series Session-6 - Thu 5-Mar-2009

o Chairs of previous sessions in this mini-series to summarize the outcome from their sessions, and to make their short statements on today's topic (5 min. each) + Dr. SebastianSchaffert, Mr. HaroldSolbrig, Mr. MaxVoelkel, Mr. MarkusKroetzsch, Mr. MikeDean, Mr. PeterYim, Dr. LiDing & Dr. JieBao o Speakers from previous sessions of this mini-series to each deliver short statements regarding the future of semantic wikis as they each see it (2 min. each) + Mr. ChristophLange, Mr. DanielHansch, Professor DanielSchwabe, Mr. HaroldSolbrig, Mr. JoelNatividad, Professor KeiCheung, Mr. MarkusKroetzsch, Mr. MikeDean, Professor Dr. PeterDolog, Mr. PeterYim, Dr. SebastianSchaffert, Mr. TobiasKuhn & Mr. YaronKoren
 * Mini-series Title: Semantic Wikis: The Wiki Way to the Semantic Web
 * Session-6 Topic: The Future of Semantic http://c2.com/cgi/wiki? Trends, Challenges and Outlook
 * Session Chair: Prof. Dr. RudiStuder (FZI & Institut AIFB, Universitt Karlsruhe) & Dr. MarkGreaves (Vulcan)
 * Panelists:

PeterYim: See details on the session page at: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2009_03_05

anonymous morphed into DanielSchwabe

anonymous morphed into RudiStuder

RudiStuder1 morphed into MarkusKroetzsch

anonymous morphed into SonDoan

SonDoan requests a private chat with you

RudiStuder: We are having problems dialing in. The German telecon service says that the conference ID is not valid

PeterDolog: hi all

MarkusKroetzsch: We are now using the UK line to dial in.

anonymous morphed into YaronKoren

MarkusKroetzsch: Hi Yaron.

YaronKoren: What's up, Markus.

MarkusKroetzsch: We are still waiting for Peter to dial in ...

DanielHansch: Hi everybody!

PeterYim: Sorry guys ... I am slightly delayed ... I will be over in a couple of minutes

PeterYim: slides just posted ... please refresh session page

anonymous morphed into EdDodds

LarsLudwig: Hello there

YaronKoren: Looking through the presentations, it looks like Markus and Max's is an old one.

anonymous morphed into JesseWang

YaronKoren: From the 3rd session.

SebastianSchaffert: Hi, I dialed in via the German line just fine

MarkusKroetzsch sees two people with their hands up. You can put them down again with the hand button at the bottom right, I think.

MarkusKroetzsch: We will try that too, back in a minute.

SebastianSchaffert: yes, I could if I had not logged in again

SebastianSchaffert: -n+d

MarkusKroetzsch: ok, we are back via the German line

anonymous1 morphed into ChristophLange

ChristophLange: hi, sorry for coming a bit late...

MarkusKroetzsch: Hi, we are just starting

anonymous morphed into TimFinin

anonymous morphed into Mike Lang

SebastianSchaffert morphed into SebastianSchaffert

anonymous3 morphed into DanielRedmon

DanielSchwabe: Bullets for those w/o slides should are at http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SemanticWiki/Future

anonymous morphed into JieBao

EdDodds: Thanks to the conveners!!!

anonymous1 morphed into John Pacheco

anonymous2 morphed into BobbinTeegarden

anonymous morphed into ChristophLange

SebastianSchaffert: there is also the 4th SemWiki workshop at ESWC2009

YaronKoren: I submitted a talk for the SemTech conference, but they never responded, which I guess means that they rejected me.

YaronKoren:

MarkusKroetzsch: You should inquire anyway.

SebastianSchaffert: ero-training is the goal of every software developer, or should be

YaronKoren: I did, actually, about a month ago - they didn't respond to that either.

MarkusKroetzsch thinks they filter "Yaron" in email headers

YaronKoren: I knew it!

YaronKoren: ...or "forms".

EdDodds: Is there a knowledge engineer job posting resource, either on Ontolog or else place?

TimFinin: we'll continue to need knowledge engineers just as we programmers and database specialists

SebastianSchaffert: but hard to convince companies that they need one, at least that's my experience

SebastianSchaffert: thanks Rudi

MarkusKroetzsch: There will also be another SMW user meeting, maybe DanielHansch can say something on that.

DanielHansch: Peter, would you be so kind and show my updated slide later? (v1.1)

PeterYim: @DanielHansch: I've got your updated slide online

MarkGreaves: Tim: I agree that we will need KEs in many cases; the question is the degree to which semantic wikis can socialize some of the lower-end schema design applications.

DanielSchwabe: I don't believe there will be a single "user interface" that is universally "good" for all

MarkusKroetzsch: Right, see item 2

DanielSchwabe: therefore, we really need environments that make it easy to create customized interfaces

LarsLudwig: we need one environment to customize, maybe

DanielSchwabe: perhaps some communities may reach a consensus on some interface model that suits them

DanielSchwabe: Why access only from other wiki *systems*, and not from any data source?

MarkusKroetzsch: Didn't he say this?

DanielSchwabe: I heard Rudi say "accessing data from other wiki systems"...

MarkGreaves: DanielSchwabe: I agree about the multiple UIs; we don't expect a single best interface to a RDBMS, so why should we expect a single best interface to semantic data? Your M-V-C work is quite cool in this regard.

MarkusKroetzsch: ok, we can check on the recording, I was more focussed on the slide

DanielSchwabe: MarkGreaves - ok, but the actual challenge of good UI design remains

YaronKoren: No, he talked about other data sources before, including desktop-only data.

DanielSchwabe: ok, my mistake...

MarkusKroetzsch: The slides are here: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/work/SemanticWiki/SWiki-06_Future-of-SemanticWiki_20090305/SemanticWiki-Future--RudiStuder_20090305.pdf

YaronKoren: That was early on in the talk.

DanielSchwabe: yes, there is the URL to all the slides earlier in the transcript

DanielSchwabe: I think this definition is missing collectively produced content. To me this is one of the defining notions of "wiki"

YaronKoren: Sure.

SebastianSchaffert: we had a definition of "Wiki Philosophy" in the first session

SebastianSchaffert: it included "everyone can edit"

EdDodds: Anyone using twitter here? What hash tags do you use for Ontolog Forum related tweets?

MarkGreaves: DanielSchwabe: I think there is enough diversity between SMW+, Knoodl, AceWiki, IkeWiki, SWiM, and the other semantic wikis that our community is not well served by drawing bright inclusion lines or debating terminological scope, even around a fundamental property like collaboration. The marketplace is redefining our term anyway. I'd rather see us be inclusive about the term "semantic wiki", leave it hazily defined, and let our various pieces of software speak for themselves.

SebastianSchaffert: research has to be fun;.)

MarkusKroetzsch: +1 to Mark

YaronKoren: I would think a definition of semantic wikis that doesn't include collaboration is not a definition at all.

DanielSchwabe: +1 to Yaron - and that's true for Wikis, not just Semantic Wikis...

MarkGreaves: YaronKoren: I use a semantic wiki in a noncollaborative way for my own personal information management, for example.

MarkusKroetzsch: Actually, my hoempage is a semantic wiki, but I am the only editor

SebastianSchaffert: BTW, first KiWi open source prerelease: http://www.schaffert.eu/2009/02/27/first-kiwi-open-source-release/ (sorry for advertisement, couldn't resist)

DanielSchwabe: MarkGreaves - I agree with the overall approach to the problem; I also don't believe in very strong categorizations that serve no purpose.

YaronKoren: Yes, I'm aware of single-user wikis, but the tools are in place for collaboration.

MarkusKroetzsch: Sure

SebastianSchaffert: not necessarily

DanielSchwabe: The issue is that if you really take away the collaboration infrastructure, the problem becomes much simpler.

SebastianSchaffert: it always becomes simpler without cocurrency

DanielSchwabe: exactly

SebastianSchaffert: but still, wikis are not about collaboration primarily, they are about creating web content quickly

StephenDavies: (what slide are we on now?)

MarkGreaves: "Database" doesn't have a very tight definition, nor does "word processor" or other common classes of software -- they more have a family resemblence and hazy boundaries. No one has an issue with this. So I'd hope this approach is part of our semantic wiki community as well.

DanielSchwabe: Hmmm, then wysywig HTML editors would be wiki tools!

StephenDavies: (ah, okay)

SebastianSchaffert: there is tiddlywiki - http://www.tiddlywiki.com/

YaronKoren: Slide 11 - interestingly, it's about "what is a wiki".

SebastianSchaffert: a kind of wysiwyg editor if you like

SebastianSchaffert: but a wysiwyg editor does not create a website, it just creates HTML

LarsLudwig: take a CMS

DanielSchwabe: Ok, some CMSs or tools do that - create the page, publish right away. One of the really enabling factors in wikis is easy *linking* (not so much formatting, imho)

TimFinin: FB and youtube don't seem to be wikis to me.

SebastianSchaffert: yes, linking is crucial

SebastianSchaffert: and then there is versioning

YaronKoren: You can't edit other people's contributions in FB, YouTube, etc.; that's the issue.

SebastianSchaffert: and (you can debate that) everyone can edit

DanielSchwabe: So that's why some of the social software sites/tools mentioned in slide 11 would not really count as wikis (from the easy linking pov). And, of course, editing other people's contents, sure.

TimFinin: more like forums, then

SebastianSchaffert: yes, but there are nowadays many corporate wiki installations where *not* everyone can edit

SebastianSchaffert: but still they are wikis

TimFinin: bossWiki

DanielSchwabe: it's ok if you have some editorial control on who is allowed to publish...

DanielSchwabe: functionally speaking, it's still collaborative content AND linking

HaroldSolbrig: I think the history component is an important aspect as well.

SebastianSchaffert: I often summarise the wiki characteristics as follows:

SebastianSchaffert: - On a wiki, anyone can edit

SebastianSchaffert: - Wikis are easy to use (buzzword!)

SebastianSchaffert: - Wiki content is linkable

SebastianSchaffert: - Wikis support versioning

SebastianSchaffert: - Wikis support all media (that one is an extension of the old idea of web page)

SebastianSchaffert: http://www.kiwi-project.eu/index.php/kiwi-vision/21-wiki-philosophy

LarsLudwig: hm, I could think of a virtual wiki integrating personal statements without direct editing

ChristophLange: I wouldn't call the feature "versioning" -- IIRC it was originally called "easy undo" = it's easier to undo a mistake than to mess up sth. (and versioning is one solution for that)

SebastianSchaffert: true

DanielSchwabe: my definition - easy content and linking; collaborative creation. Versioning is really just a way to overcome lack of concurrency control - leave to the users to undo inconsistent updates, simplifies implementation.

SebastianSchaffert: @Lars: Twitter?

SebastianSchaffert: Daniel: versioning is much more important

SebastianSchaffert: it is about taking away fears

SebastianSchaffert: the fear of breaking things

LarsLudwig: why not integrating twitter messages into a wiki

DanielHansch: The "rule knowledge in SMW"-prototype is online: http://ruledemo.ontoprise.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

DanielSchwabe: ok, but I consider that as part of "collaborative content creation" support

SebastianSchaffert: if I know that I can undo my changes in a Wiki, I feel much more easy to actually contribute

SebastianSchaffert: @Lars: yes, of course (KiWi)

YaronKoren: I was smiling at the "breaking things", BTW.

EdDodds: Isolated components will be available to link with electronic medical records and financial reporting increasingly done in extensible business reporting language (xbrl) as well. Anyone looking at the medical banking implications of this yet?

HaroldSolbrig: The versioning isn't just being able to undo - it carries the evolution of how the idea was formed. Interestingly, discussions should probably be linear - time flows down the page, but core pages need history.

MarkusKroetzsch: The "Ask The Wiki" demo is still found at http://semanticweb.org/wiki/Special:ATWSpecialSearch (URL not on my slides)

anonymous1 morphed into JohnMcClure

PeterDolog: just some thoghts based on above discussion. I think we probably need some kind of a metaphor for semantic wiki. Looking at what the other wrote: Sebastian - quickly update content -> I think this is historically wiki; Daniel: collaborative editing of content was probably added after when CSCW peaple entered, knowledge evolution goes towards semantics a bit (versioning vs. evolution? probably a discussion point too)

EdDodds: >> LarsLudwig: why not integrating twitter messages into a wiki - Indeed, saw this a.m. http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/News/Breaking-News/Wikis-get-social-52891.aspx on a product (eTouch announces SamePage Version 4.1) that "functionally" attempts this, although not actually with twitter or identi.ca/laconi.ca

DanielSchwabe: @PeterDolog - No, collaboration was there since the beginning in Ward Cunninghams first wiki

PeterDolog: OK, I am not excluding it. I think we just probably miss some kind of methaphor we could all ground too.

MarkusKroetzsch: A core aspect of Ward's Wiki was simplicity -- hardly any markup.

HaroldSolbrig: As was the original HTML

LarsLudwig: EdDodds: next step: integrate 'semantic' messages

PeterDolog: ok, so what would be an equivalent simplicity to semantic wiki

MarkusKroetzsch: As Ward said himself, Wikipedia and others have moved away from this part a lot, but I think he is okay with this

PeterDolog: simplicity in editing beyond content - knowledge?

DanielSchwabe: I translated these into "easy content creation and linking"

DanielSchwabe: So I really don't care what is the underlying representation - if I have a tool that makes it very easy to create content, that's fine.

MarkusKroetzsch: Ward's wiki was not just "easy" (to use), its whole data model was extremely simple. There was hardly any structure in the data it contained. Mostly links.

LiDing: the notion of easy is hard to say

DanielSchwabe: Hence, with wysiwyg HTML enable wiki content to be HTML, so long as people don't have to edit the source...

LiDing: even editing with wiki require training

HaroldSolbrig: Interesting now that I think about it. HTML 1.0 was more semantic than syntax. The XML community argues that it "got off track" with the images and formatting information rather than the semantics of the message itself. XML, on the other hand, made it *too* easy for everyone to say whatever they said their own way. RDF & OWL etc. are attempts to agree on semantics, but WIKI, in a way, is a return to the original HTML principles.

MarkGreaves: LiDing: very well said, "the notion of easy is hard to say"

LiDing: furthermore, editing in English is not that easy

DanielSchwabe: Besides content itself with the simple markup, the real winner was the simple linking mechanism - reference by name

MarkusKroetzsch: but maybe maintaining a basic data model with as little strucutre as possible is not actually our goal these days ...

DanielSchwabe: at that time, this was the difficult part to achieve in a simple way

HaroldSolbrig: Agreed - especially the link to a yet to be created page.

MarkusKroetzsch: indeed

JohnMcClure: Core & definitional to wikis -- which seems not to have received alot of attention -- are namespaces. I believe that public understanding of wikis needs to evolve, not be a revolution with too many concepts. Thus, I suggest that the concept of namespaces -- as a form of strong typing -- is the next crucial atom of info to be communicated.

DanielSchwabe: @Markus - sure, I would not focus so much on a "data model"

DanielSchwabe: @johnM - interesting point...

EdDodds: @ LarsLudwig: next step: integrate 'semantic' messages >> yes, I wonder if the open ontology registry (Ontolog Project) might be utilized to connect with tagging a la delicious, folksonomies, twit hash tags, etc. to help give context to these semantic messages...

PeterDolog: @DanielSchwabe: so our ultimate goal is then, what is now difficult on the content in the wikis which semantics can make it simple

MarkusKroetzsch: @DanielSchwabe: I mean the basic structural model of the wiki content. In spite of all freedom that users should have, technically there must be some basic "model".

DanielSchwabe: that's part of it. Then there is the "consuming the information" part. No good to be easy to create if it is hard to consume! which leads us to customizable interfaces

MarkusKroetzsch: s ConferenceCall_2009_03_05/Daniel/DanielS/

JohnMcClure: I suggest that IF ontologies are calibrated with (inter)wiki namespaces, THEN ontology metadata can be reasoned, leading to interoperability

DanielSchwabe: @MarkusKroetzsch - sure

MarkusKroetzsch: we see it!

YaronKoren: SMW mostly uses categories and not namespaces.

MarkusKroetzsch: Well, it uses both but for very different things.

HaroldSolbrig: We had to splice namespaces in...

LarsLudwig: document annotation is no solution

HaroldSolbrig: e.g. RDF_type or WINE_cabernet

MarkusKroetzsch: @ PeterYim: my lightning slide is not linked online -- did you get it?

JohnMcClure: Yaron, yes I agree, but that doesnt distress me. The essential point is that SMW needs to develop an ontology that describes NSs.

YaronKoren: Markus - a minority of people use namespaces for data. Like Harold.

MarkusKroetzsch: Oh, I would not encourage this, from a technical viewpoint

YaronKoren: Talk to Harold. And John.

JohnMcClure: because...?

YaronKoren: John - I don't see why usage of namespaces is that important to you.

JohnMcClure: Because it is a container. Because it's already in MW. Because it is not new

YaronKoren: You could say the same for categories.

MarkusKroetzsch requests a private chat with you

MarkusKroetzsch requests a private chat with you

HaroldSolbrig: Two different notions of namespace. One is the Mediawiki ns (Category, Template, Property, and talk analogs) and the second is ontology namespace (URI)

MarkusKroetzsch: Ah, that is indeed different

JesseWang: Yaron: I believe one reason people use namespaces is to avoid name conflict: say, two pages: NS1:MembersList vs NS2:MembersList.

JohnMcClure: Harold, agreed. What is the difference my friend?

MarkusKroetzsch: @Harold: Of course, namespaces in ontologies often have no semantic significance. They are specific to some serializations, but not part of the ontological content.

SebastianSchaffert: and they don't say anything about the ontology

SebastianSchaffert: they are about the URIs and not suitable for grouping ontologies

MarkusKroetzsch: (opening a file in an ontology editor and saving it again may sometimes change the namespaces that are used)

MarkusKroetzsch: The notion of "URI" does not involve namespaces either.

MarkusKroetzsch: They only come in in XML and some other file formats.

DanielSchwabe: I guess what is meant is some facility to help "distributed vocabulary management"

LiDing: isn't wiki a place forcing people to converge?

MarkusKroetzsch: @DanielS: Yes, the problem is that semantic technology standards are pretty poor on this task.

DanielSchwabe: @MarkusK - sure, I was just trying to give my interpretation of the remark on using NSs

MarkusKroetzsch: yes, and I think it is a valid remark, just hard to implement properly using standards

DanielSchwabe: @ LiDing - yes, but converge != merge

JohnMcClure: What is meant is a hook to define context, the 'frame' through which a particular wiki, or namespace within a wiki, is constructed. Where else to define such context *in the existing framework*?

LiDing: @daniel, right we do forced-converge or merged by mapping

JohnMcClure: Frankly I am most concerned with making swikis palatable as possible - Start with existing concepts, like namespaces (aka context) and pages (aka resources)

DanielSchwabe: @ LiDing - I believe merged by mapping is more acceptable, hence the use of NSs to help that

JohnMcClure: we can all agree semantically what the 'talk' ns is for. Why stop there? Am suggesting some additional foundational namespaces in addition to the fourteen (14) standard ns's.

TimFinin morphed into TimFinin

DanielSchwabe: Shameless plug - partial answer to point 2 (interface between dbpedia and semantic wiki) - Explorator: http://www.tecweb.inf.puc-rio.br/explorator. First step, exploring data; second step, create/add/edit content (coming)

YaronKoren: @ KeiCheung - well, some might say that a semantic Wikipedia might replace DBPedia entirely.

JohnMcClure: e.g., put one's formal ontology in a 'term' ns, controlled by KEs. Leave folksonomies in the 'category' ns -- potential terms adoptable by KEs

DanielSchwabe: @YaronKoren - sorry, I really don't believe that. They serve entirely different purposes. I could see Semantic Wikipedia being based on top of dbpedia...

SebastianSchaffert: @Yaron: which would make sense, why are they separate in the first place ...

SebastianSchaffert: well, at the moment, DBPedia is based on Wikipedia

DanielSchwabe: @YaronKoren (perhaps that's what you meant?)

SebastianSchaffert: adding the DBPedia-way of querying data to Wikipedia would make sense

YaronKoren: No, I'm talking about adding SMW (for instance ) to Wikipedia.

YaronKoren: Wikipedia could then be queried directly.

SebastianSchaffert: same result, isn't it (or even better)

SebastianSchaffert: that's what I meant

DanielSchwabe: @sebastian - one of the advantages of dbpedia is having a sparql endpoint. It enables powerful interfaces such as the Explorator I mentioned above

MarkusKroetzsch hears echo

SebastianSchaffert: yes, but Wikipedia could offer the SPARQL endpoint

DanielSchwabe: In addition, you could always have the (Semantic) Media Wiki interface, as you said

SebastianSchaffert: instead of having it separate

SebastianSchaffert: I disagree with Mike - OWL must prove that it is useful or otherwise we dump it

SebastianSchaffert: (my challenge ... )

ChristophLange: one more thought about namespaces: I think they are needed if links should remain easy to author. LinkByName actually requires one flat namespace, which is not practical for structuring knowledge, but full URIs are hard to author

DanielSchwabe: +1 to ChristophLange

SebastianSchaffert: @Christoph: link lookup can be done differently

HaroldSolbrig: @Markus (wrt namespaces) - indeed, namespaces have no semantic significance, which is why they work out ok as a part of the name itself. The key, however, is disambiguation - especially when you are referencing outside resources that have not coordinated their names. The classic example is the NCI has a class called "Agent", which includes drugs and other delivery mechanisms. NCI_Agent is needed...

SebastianSchaffert: I'll maybe discuss with you separately how we now do it in KiWi

MarkusKroetzsch: I agree with Sebastian, but I don't think OWL is just useful if it is useful in wikis; actually, we would have very advanced swikis indeed if they are able to leverage a technology as powerful as OWL. Maybe we are not there yet.

KeiCheung: Yaron, my chat room page was blocked by other windows so I didn't see your comment. wikipedia started with free text, so it's not a natural fit to semantic web even dbpedia addresses some of the issues. If we start right using semantic mediawiki (instead of mediawiki), we might be able to create a better dbpedia (neurodbpedia in my case).

YaronKoren: Well, as far as I know DBPedia just uses Wikipedia's infobox data, which could be relatively straightforwardly semantic-ized.

SebastianSchaffert: ... or create a flop because people are reluctant to use it

SebastianSchaffert: if it is too complex

SebastianSchaffert: difficult act of balancing

MarkusKroetzsch: @Harold: yes, I agree; I am not sure how well this is supported by current tools, though

HaroldSolbrig: @Markus I disagree. OWL, while it may not appear directly, is an important component when defining the intended meaning of the semantic components. With OWL, RDF, ... we have "Category" and "Property". That said, OWL should be under the covers.

DanielSchwabe: I think we can build special purpose interfaces to create, edit and navigate data for which we KNOW the (meta) schema.

SebastianSchaffert: people absolutely don't care about semantics

SebastianSchaffert: they have to be added in a natural way

SebastianSchaffert: forms are one way

MarkusKroetzsch: in addition, people absolutely don't care about wikis

SebastianSchaffert: tagging might be one

SebastianSchaffert: exactly

YaronKoren:

YaronKoren: So what are we doing here?

KeiCheung: faviki?

DanielSchwabe: @MarkusKroetzsch, unless you are saying this "tongue in cheek", people DO care about wikis...

HaroldSolbrig: @MarkusKroetzsch: We had to roll our own for the time being. Not only do we have the namespace issue, but, one way or another, we have to know that "Wine" and "Wein" map to the same core resource, so we need a notion of identity.

KeiCheung: owl:sameAs?

SebastianSchaffert: @Yaron: we care about positioning semantic wikis as a tool that people really like to use without noticing that they are using a wiki or semantics

HaroldSolbrig: I want to get to the same page in the end.

SebastianSchaffert: @Harold: this becomes very difficult

SebastianSchaffert: think of "Snow"

MarkusKroetzsch: @Yaron: That is why I think we should step back and consider the goal we have. We gather valuable experience in supporting structured and unstructured content, for trained and untrained users, in groups or alone -- we can define "CMS" or at least contribute significantly to its future definition.

EdDodds: Folks don't care about "semantics" but they do care about "context" -- they just don't realize they can be the same thing

SebastianSchaffert: in Bavaria, we have about 5-10 notions of snow, in Iceland they have about 15

DanielSchwabe: Good user interface are crucial to ANY interactive application...

SebastianSchaffert: and in Saudi Arabia they probably have only 1

SebastianSchaffert: +1 to Daniel

SebastianSchaffert: user centred design

DanielSchwabe: @SebastianSchaffert (Ha, in Brazil we have may .5 notion of snow, none real! :-Q)

MarkusKroetzsch: @DanielSchwabe: The people from the street care about the label "wiki" as they care about "Web 2.0", but the cateogrization as one or the other type of CMS is not essential to them as long as it works

DanielSchwabe: @MarkusKroetzsch - ah, ok

HaroldSolbrig: @SebastianSchaffert: What we've done is created a 3 part identifier (NS_designation(code)). NS is namespace ID, designation is language specific and possibly changeable name and code is immutable. Note that links don't just come from other wiki pages (!). If we don't find NS_designation(code), we look up NS(Code). If found, we build a redirect page.

EdDodds: A simple case is job matching a la hr-xml. HR still refuses to use "context" to match "job description" with "resume" -- job seekers, however, do wish they would

MarkusKroetzsch: @Harold: I think I understand what kind of problems you would encounter there. You want to work on syntax, when all SemWeb standards work on semantics (i.e. letting you identify the entities you model, but not the names that you use for them).

MarkusKroetzsch wonders how many parallel side chats one can have while still being an attentive listener ...

EdDodds: Another case is the White House Forum on Health Reform Event on now http://www.whitehouse.gov/live2/ where about of the jawing is about differing definitions and cross talk

EdDodds: alot of

JohnMcClure: Special purpose interfaces (@Daniel) could be bound each to a namespace. People 'get' that pretty easily, and understand that

SebastianSchaffert: @Harold: but how does it solve the problem of owl:sameAs redirecting to the same page?

JohnMcClure: place:White House is SURELY different than article:White House and talk:White House

SebastianSchaffert: concepts are slightly different in different cultures

DanielSchwabe: @JohnMcClure - sure, that's one of the primitive mechanisms we use in HDEWiki (and more general in HyperDE tool)

JohnMcClure: each requiring a wholly different set of tools to make the goal (completing content) faster, better, cheaper

DanielSchwabe: @JohnMcClure - there is a builtin notion of "context", and a way to customize the interface depending on the context.

JoelNatividad: Following up on my point about word processors - has anybody looked into using the new document formats - Open XML and ODF in particular as a jumping point

JoelNatividad: for capturing semantically annotated data when creating documents

JoelNatividad: ODF has a metadata Technical Comittee

smishra morphed into Sunil Mishra

SebastianSchaffert: yes, we even have an open bug tracker issue on this

SebastianSchaffert: still open

DanielSchwabe: @YaronK, can you post the URL to the website you mentioned?

YaronKoren: Sure - http://opencongress.org/wiki

anonymous1: How is the UI problem related to the non-specific spirit of the wiki paradigm? For instance, from my experience working within the biomedical domain I have see that tools such as WIKI-Proteins do not facilitate any specific tool for the kind of information they are meant to support. How could having more specific UIs help solving the UI problem?

BobbinTeegarden: Has anyone tried to move the wiki ui from words and bullets to an interactive graph (with GIS overlay) more like Gelernter's Mirror World?

SebastianSchaffert: because specific is always better for the user than generic

MarkusKroetzsch: anonymous1, you can use "Settings" at the top panel to get a name.

DanielSchwabe: @ anonymous1 - that's precisely the point I was making in my earlier interventions!

LarsLudwig: name space? -- I call it mind space

HaroldSolbrig: @Sebastian: Even with owl:sameAs, we still have to get folks from whatever historical or language specific hyperlink they've got to the SMW page that defines the category or property. The advantage of the identifier approach is we don't have to carry a history of all names that have been used.

MarkusKroetzsch: oops, I misinterpreted the text field next to the hand button

SebastianSchaffert: response:

SebastianSchaffert: namespaces are not for semantics

DanielSchwabe: @YaronKoren - is there some sort of schema underlying the "structured" portion of this website? Is there a way to access the "raw" underlying data?

SebastianSchaffert: @Harold: that's fine - my concern is only that it is not so easy to use the same concept in multiple languages

SebastianSchaffert: we had this in IkeWiki

YaronKoren: @DanielSchwabe - not really, no.

SebastianSchaffert: but didn't to it in KiWi after a long discussion

AlexGarcia: I suppose that also has to do with being able to define atomic components of a wiki page, the page is the atomic unit of the wiki.

HaroldSolbrig: @Sebastion: agreed that it isn't. There are attempts and claims to be able to do this, however, in Medical "ontologies" such as Gene Ontology and SNOMED-CT. Also, what of Dublin Core and good ol' RDF?

SebastianSchaffert: @ AlexGarcia: not necessarily, we also discussed heavily in the community how to annotate parts of pages

SebastianSchaffert: take the Wikipedia page about the computer mouse

SebastianSchaffert: it would be useful to annotate each section differently, because it is about many historical mice

JoelNatividad: @Tim: Great stuff! Would love to see what your team put together.

JoelNatividad: @Tim: Great stuff! Would love to check out the work that your team did

AlexGarcia: can u track changes over anything else but pages?

SebastianSchaffert: @ AlexGarcia: yes, in KiWi we implemented versioning and transactions for metadata

SebastianSchaffert: not 100% solved, but mostly

JoelNatividad: Actually, I'm currently working on embedding semantic metadata in the SVG XML files that SRF-Ploticus produces.

AlexGarcia: is there any literature on that?

JohnMcClure: Markus' concern is that an ns organization conflicts with one's ability to 'categorize' things in multiple ways. There are several responses to this. First, don't overlook the impace of REDIRECTS. Second, consider closely whether the structure of the ontology is ill-fitting wrt the implemented namespaces.

ChristophLange: @ AlexGarcia: the page can remain the atomic unit, but then we need good refactoring workflows in case a page grows more complex (and subconcepts emerge within a page)

SebastianSchaffert: on the versioning? we are working on an article

SebastianSchaffert: should be finished next week

YaronKoren: Sorry, what was the question? I couldn't hear it.

MarkusKroetzsch: @John: My point is: categories already do that, are well known, and have support by advanced UIs even for searching. So why try to use MW namespaces?

SebastianSchaffert: @John: never forget the user

SebastianSchaffert: who would find this useful? I would find it awkward

MarkusKroetzsch: @John: I agree that it could be conceived, even though it would not play well with the technical use of namespaces now (e.g. namespaces cannot be added from the wiki but only server-side)

DanielSchwabe: @ AlexGarcia - there is a whole series of work on model-based interface specification. If you want to get a flavor of what's possible, some is exemplified in our HDEWiki demo: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/work/SemanticWiki/SWiki-02_Technology-1_20081120/HDEWiki--DanielSchwabe_20081120.html

JohnMcClure: I don't believe there is any ontology for defining a category. (Unless you wanna raise Topic Maps v Ontology debate)

SebastianSchaffert: SKOS

MarkusKroetzsch: well, I think we are talking of different things here

JoelNatividad: In my ideal world, users will work on their documents using familiar interfaces and then the knowledge is published on Semantic Wiki

SebastianSchaffert: +1 to Joel

SebastianSchaffert: intuitiveness means known patterns of use

JohnMcClure: yep, skos. Further, mw searching does understand ns's and categories. Certainly I acknowledge that there's a break with categories in some sense. But this is called 'emerging ke' right

AlexGarcia: Hi Christoph, how could the re-factoring be done?

JoelNatividad: and other users can further annotate on Wiki, and if it can be done, the annotations are round-tripped down to the document

DanielSchwabe: +1 to Joel too

JoelNatividad:

GuoqianJiang: @Markus, We are using RDF output from SMW for processing proposals generated from LexWiki

PeterDolog: @Joel: And this is exactly also a big challenge for us as researchers

PeterDolog: i.e. how to make it simpler to make

JesseWang: We are doing something at Vulcan.

PeterDolog: because program we can always

JesseWang: Mark is talking on that.

PeterDolog: but how everybody can do that?

ChristophLange: @ AlexGarcia: in Wikipedia it is done manually. Whenever a subsection (e.g. history of Italy) grows too large, somebody first puts a warning there (this should be rolled out to an article of its own), then somebody else does that, and replaces the former section by a short summary, and fixes links on other pages pointing to the subtopic

MarkusKroetzsch: we are also working on solutions for inter-wiki data exchange and integration -- I would like to collect input on what people need

ChristophLange: @ AlexGarcia: Now assume semantic structures on pages (e.g. saying this paragraph is a subconcept of type T), then a semantic wiki could assist with that

TimFinin: gotta go. Thanks for all the fish

JohnMcClure: @Sebastian - Users find it useful that place:White House involves its own set of tools

MarkusKroetzsch: we plan to release software for exchanging data between wikis (instead of copying it from one wiki to the other by duplicating pages); use cases could affect our design choices

GuoqianJiang: @Markus, we are really interested in the future plan for RDF/OWL backend of SMW

MarkusKroetzsch: well, feel free to write an email

MarkusKroetzsch: (I think the session stops rather soon)

GuoqianJiang: @Markus, yes, talk to you later by email

SebastianSchaffert: @John: how about the page about the place which is called "White House" involving their own tools instead of placing it on the link?

MarkusKroetzsch: ok, just bear with me being slow processing mails; quite some of them these days ...

GuoqianJiang: OK, I see.

DanielSchwabe: @MarkusK - why not use LOD as the underlying basis to share content between wikis?

AlexGarcia: @ Joel: having a semantic structure supporting the generation of documents could make it possible to produce scientific papers, for instance, fully annotated. This could deliver an OLD environment over the paper. I think that when supporting the generation of documents the annotation should happen naturally and without any effort, the document being generated should be immerse in the web by means of relationships over those data types contained in the paper.

MarkusKroetzsch thanks Mark and Rudi for chairing this session, and Peter for setting this up

JoelNatividad: plaudits to the all the conveners, Peter in particular!

SebastianSchaffert: @Daniel: done by KiWi and planned for extension

JohnMcClure: Users find it useful that place:* is in effect, a geo database That White House is an article ABOUT something (like the place:White House that place_talk:White House is an article ABOUT place:White House, etc etc Of course, you can see metastatements abound

AlexGarcia: Thanks everybody

SebastianSchaffert: yes, thanks!

GuoqianJiang: Thanks all

PeterDolog: thanks everybody

DanielSchwabe: @SebastianS - great, will take a closer look!

DanielSchwabe: Thanks all!

ChristophLange thanks the organizers and all participants

JoelNatividad: any news about 2nd User Group Meeting of SMW?

DanielSchwabe: Bye all, thanks for the interesting exchange!

MarkusKroetzsch: bye

PeterDolog: bye to all

SebastianSchaffert: @Daniel: essentially, if you access the KiWi system with a client that sends "Accepts: application/rdf" it redirects to http://showcase.kiwi-project.eu/KiWi/linkeddata.seam?http://showcase.kiwi-project.eu/KiWi/content/FrontPage

PeterYim: Great session ... Mark, Rudi and everyone! Thank you all for a most wonderful mini-series!

SebastianSchaffert: or something similar

YaronKoren: @Joel - I guess there's no news.

YaronKoren: The plan was to have one in Germany in May or so...

SebastianSchaffert: @Daniel: the key is to use URIs that are "local" to the server domain

SebastianSchaffert: which can be problematic if you want at the same time use ontologies

YaronKoren: We could have one instead in the U.S., if there's interest.

JoelNatividad: Count me in, perhaps we can time it with SemTech

YaronKoren: Yeah... although I'm not going to that one.

YaronKoren: Is anyone from SMW presenting there, do you know?

SebastianSchaffert: Markus apparently tried to submit a presentation

YaronKoren: That was me. Unless Markus did too.

JoelNatividad: I also submitted one but the passed on it as well

YaronKoren: Oh. Maybe it's a trend.

JoelNatividad: like Markus said

JoelNatividad: mail filters

YaronKoren: So, are you still planning to go?

JoelNatividad: I am. Particularly since Mark said they were planning to host some SMW sessions

YaronKoren: Hm.

YaronKoren: Well, I guess that's where the 2nd SMW user meeting will be, then.

JoelNatividad: Great! Maybe we should continue the planning on semediawiki-user mailing list

YaronKoren: Sure, feel free to send an email. I still don't think I'm going.

JoelNatividad: k. bye all!

PeterYim: bye everyone! a big THANK YOU to all, once again!

-- end of chat transcript --


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