The discussion here concerning how to fit into the Semantic Web has gone all
over the place, and while it certainly has been interesting, one thread
seems to link it together: there is very little agreement about what is the
best way to share our records; and the subtext appears to be: there probably
won't be any agreement for some time. How long do you think it would take to
get agreement on the format(s) and even agreement on WEMI (which I think is
incorrect, based on outdated 19th century thinking, and not what people want
anyway!). Implementing linked data, although it would be great, is years and
years away from any kind of practical implementation, especially in this age
of financial crisis, which will probably get much worse before it begins to
get better.
Tim Berners-Lee addressed precisely this situation in his talk when he
mentioned the project of trying to get government data on the web. His
emphasis was: just put your information on the web in whatever form you
have. People will change it anyway. As he said, if we all have to wait for
the government bureaucracy to make a real decision by creating and convening
committees, endless discussing, reaching "consensus decisions," the
government information that people really want would never be shared. But
since some people have put the information they have on the web in the forms
they have now, others have taken it, changed it for the own purposes and as
a result, some wonderful things have been made.
The information world could be working with our data *right now* but since
we feel it's not in the "best" format using linked data, in effect we are
preventing people from using our data at all. As Berners-Lee said, what is
absolutely vital is that your data exists out there, even if it's only in a
CSV. I agree that only putting up the "text" before it is transformed into
linked data is much inferior to what it could be, but otherwise, we provide
people with nothing at all.
The longer we make people wait for our information--which is really what
people want--while we argue and discuss and after a generation or two come
to some kind of agreement, the more we isolate ourselves and we become less
and less relevant to the world of information.
I think we should do what Berners-Lee said. It's quick, cheap and can be
done right now.
Jim Weinheimer
Received on Fri Oct 23 2009 - 03:47:06 EDT