Re: [tlug] Effect of AI and data processing rift on the Semantic Web

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Edward Middleton writes:

 > People using FOAF obviously don't think so.  I think these sort of 
 > perceptions are the biggest problem "the current effort" faces.

What perception problem?  The correct perception that the semantic web
stuff can be ignored for most practical purposes?  For heaven's sake,
Berners-Lee invented the semantic web in 1994!  In some areas, "web
ontologies" are taking hold, such as the Dublin Core and RSS feeds.
But until they start to connect up in useful ways, there is no "the"
semantic web.  That's what makes the World Wide Web such a wonderfully
concrete thing: the fundamental facts that the Internet is a singleton
and that any URL on the Internet can be accessed from anywhere on the
Internet.  It's all connected, by construction.

Now, what I'm pointing out is that people *using*, say, "RSS
syndication" (whichever protocol) are behaving in the time-honored
improve-the-'net fashion: find a practical problem, find practical
solutions, kaizen and unify until itch-to-write-RFC develops,
standardize (more or less successfully).  But people participating in
"semantic web" activities *in order to advance the semantic web* are
basically OSI-izing.

I don't which class FOAF falls into.  Maybe FOAF is as common in some
reasonably large circle as meishi-koukan is in Japan.  If so, it
solves a practical problem, and I don't need to know what it is,
either.  Otherwise ....