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Re: Meta-somethingorother (was the semantic web mega-permathre

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: Meta-somethingorother (was the semantic web mega-permathread thing)
• From: Miles Sabin <miles@m...>
• Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2004 07:25:34 +0100
• In-reply-to: <0E36FD96D96FCA4AA8E8F2D199320E52020E851A@R...>
• References: <0E36FD96D96FCA4AA8E8F2D199320E52020E851A@R...>
• Sender: Miles Sabin <miles@m...>
• User-agent: KMail/1.6

Joshua Allen wrote,
> Completely irrelevant, IMO.  Think of WinFS this way -- you have lots
> of things which you *already* capture metadata about.  Such as
> contact info in your address book.  Or information about songs, or
> movie files.  You *already* manage this metadata, and have been for a
> decade at least, probably.  The world hasn't come crashing down.
<snip/>

> Semantic web is similar vision, but on a global scale.  We recognize
> that people are already storing and managing terabytes of metadata;
> so what will happen when we "liberate" that metadata in a way that
> allows repurposing, sharing, and synergy?  Presumably, there will be
> many new applications that depend on metadata, more sharing, and more
> incentive to collect (automated or manual) and maintain new metadata.

This is a prime example of the hubris I find so objectionable about the 
whole reheated-GOFAI-with-angle-brackets thing that is the Semantic 
Web: the assumption that if you take something that works in small 
controlled environments, multiply it by n, and jam it all together 
somehow, then <poof/> some emergent magic happens and we have something 
wonderful and new.

I'm sorry Joshua, but after decades of failure in this particular strand 
of AI, the burden of proof is on the advocates of this dream not the 
skeptics. Come back when you've got some evidence not just hand waving 
and promissory notes.

But then, maybe your whole mail was satire: I loved the line about how 
WinFS is going to liberate my metadata from the clutches of proprietary 
formats and APIs ;-)

Cheers,


Miles

• References:
  • RE: Meta-somethingorother (was the semantic web mega-permathread thing)
    • From: "Joshua Allen" <joshuaa@m...>

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