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RE: Wikipedia and Topic Maps

• To: "'DuCharme, Bob (LNG-CHO)'" <bob.ducharme@l...>, xml-dev@l...
• Subject: RE: Wikipedia and Topic Maps
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <len.bullard@i...>
• Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 16:02:06 -0600

Yes.  It is, after all, a map.  I tend to think of 
inverted indices, but after seeing the Ontopia demo, 
particularly the query demo, it can be more.

So it might also be a useful way to map say, discoverable 
assets/interfaces/innovations.  In other words, we might 
use it to document and navigate discoverable services.
Would a UDDI registry be a good candidate for topic mapping?

We could treat event types as topic types.  I have to wrap 
my head around that idea a bit more to see what utility that 
could have.  Hmmm... if everything is a topic, then events 
are topics, human rights are topics, and the intersections 
of these are... topics?

Of course, I'm still contemplating what I bent some ears 
with at XML 2004:  the notion that a uniform set of human 
rights should be created for the WWW based perhaps on an 
ontology of event types.  It seems to me that event types 
are a core piece of Daconta's venn diagram intersection 
of 'relevance'.

<rant>I know it sounds quixotic, but I just don't think US 
paranoia and money should determine how identity management and records 
access should work for the global community.  It seems 
to me this is a global issue given the global nature of 
the web and collaborative nature of its innovation and 
leadership.  I assert this is a topic of interest to 
all members of the WWW, not just those who's business 
it is to build intelligence systems.  Yet if this does 
not quickly become a topic of interest to all of us who 
can think reasonably about it, that is precisely what 
is about to happen.   We cannot create a safer world 
by giving up civil liberties.  That's an oxymoron.</rant>

Thanks Bob.

len


From: DuCharme, Bob (LNG-CHO) [mailto:bob.ducharme@l...]

>Would a wikipedia be improved if the topic map model were used for creating
it?

I don't know about creating it. I could be coming at Topic Maps from the
wrong angle, but I think of them as more of a middleware technology. If a
set of web pages (whether wikipedia, weblogs, or whatever) had keywords
assigned, as many weblog entries do, those keywords could be used to help
populate a topic map built on top of that information, and then apps could
be built on top of the topic map to offer different ways to navigate among
those pages. Tim Bray's http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/ would be a
candidate to start a prototype. 

flickr.com and del.icio.us would be even better places to try, because
they're much more expansive. I'm still wondering why the TM folk haven't
done anything with the megs and megs of RecipeML data out there, which seems
like an ideal application for a useful free Topic Map. 

I don't think too hard about Topic Maps because with Eric Freese and Sam
Hunting as co-workers, I'm confident that they'll be alert to any
opportunities in the organization. (Also, Terry Brady of LexisNexis did a
cool presentation at Extreme about using Topic Maps in project management.) 

Bob

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