I mean, if working with RDF has taught me one thing, it’s that converting between two different forms of serialization is trivial—it’s the underlying model that matters.

Exactly! And still, many who are in the integration business think that XML schemas is the only product required to exchange data between multiple parties. The serialization format(s) should be based on the use cases of the information. And even in a small organization use cases tend to pop up all the time demanding new formats. Most SOA-people see a problem with multiple serialization formats but I am thinking that it is almost insignificant these days if you have a well defined model.

Hence, there is a need for a simple vocabulary editor that allows domain experts to create a vocabulary without knowing the innards of semantic web technologies. I had a discussion with an IT-strategist from a large government authority today and we agreed that a tool like this would greatly benefit the use of controlled vocabularies in the public sector.

I am thinking of a web based wiki-like tool with the following features/use cases:

1. A domain expert can create a new vocabulary and enter some data about it in a form.
2. A domain export can create a term in a vocabulary by completing a simple web-based form.
3. Users can browse the vocabulary.
4. One or more domain experts can discuss a term on the same page where the information about it is displayed (this makes it easier to find previous decisions about term definitions etc).
5. The tool uses proper URL:s in view mode that corresponds to the actual URI:s for the terms.
6. The tool responds to accept headers and do proper redirects in order to behave like a normal published vocabulary.
7. A user can export the entire vocabulary as RDF/XML, n3 and PDF (for reading in text form and sending the vocabulary to someone else).
8. The tool provides a page where relations between terms and concepts are visualized in a graph.
9. The tool should be simple to install on a cheap web host (maybe only requiring PHP and mysql).

What features are missing in your opinion? Depending on how hot the south of France is this summer I may give it a shot sometime in august. Ideas are welcome…

Although unknown to most people on the giant global graph, Niklas Lindström is the inventor and sole developer of Oort. And:

1. Oort is a Python toolkit to work with RDF data.
2. Python will rule the world and RDF will be the primary way of connecting people in the Giant Global Graph.
3. The Giant Global Graph will be the natural entry point for the first self-aware computer (let’s call it “The Machine”) to gain control of humanity.
4. You want to be treated nicely by The Machine.

Therefore you should become friends with Niklas by celebrating his birthday so that he may prevent the scenario we all became aware of in the documentary “The Terminator” a couple of years ago:

He may be our only hope.

Each real document has been assigned a URI like http://example.com/act/31977D001. Thus it represents a non-information resource. What should happen if you enter that URI in a web browser? Well, the server shouldn’t return a HTTP 200 status code. That would imply that the resource is an information resource.

So, my idea is currently to try this:

I am not sure about it yet, but this is the first try.

• Designed for humans first, machines second
• Modularity / embeddability
• Enables and encourages decentralized development, content, services
• A design principle for formats
• Adapted to current behaviors and usage patterns
• Highly correlated with semantic XHTML

I am new to RDF and the semantic web (but have used microformats in previous web projects) but to me the advantages of RDF and RDFa (the “sprinkling” framework) are clear. Microformats may work for a limited set of use cases but I have not yet understood how to use microformats efficiently for the bulk of what I need. However, it is great that a lot of development is going on in the area of embedding machine readable data in documents. Without microformats the pace would probably have been much slower.

Here are my thoughts on the items that James mention:

Designed for humans first, machines second: For me the HTML document that carries the information is for humans. With it we apply styling and markup to allow humans (and their assistive devices) to understand the content. The embedding of data is for machines primarily. Although advanced editors may be great at editing HTML, the fact is that most users are not.

Modularity / embeddability: Embeddability is of course necessary. The problem is that the current versions of (X)HTML were not designed for embedding data. This means that Microformats have to rely on the attributes and elements available of which none were primarily designed for stuffing machine readable information in. RDFa, on the other hand, is making rapid progress. You can use XHTML 1.1 with RDFa right now and validate it with the W3C validator.

Enables and encourages decentralized development, content, services: I am not sure I understand this one, at least not for the development of vocabularies. Microformats encourages a centralized way of storing vocabularies on their web site in a format that isn’t machine readable. The power of RDF is that vocabularies can be stored anywhere in a machine readable way. The world is big and the web has been built to support interaction in a decentralised way. Development of a vocabulary is a local thing for me.

A design principle for formats: See above. Why have a design principle for all? Everyone has different needs and resources and I would prefer to adopt the vocabulary design process to each business case. The Microformats.org website lists design patterns to use when sprinkling a document with embedded data. Instead of calling them design patterns you could say “seeing how far we can go in interpreting the current HTML specification”.

Adapted to current behaviors and usage patterns: Sure, if you limit yourself to a few HTML-adept bloggers. I would venture to guess that there are more people publishing information on the web that know little to nothing about markup than people who do. And they shouldn’t need to. Peple working with information need tools. Tools should help out with the actual markup and embedding of data.

Highly correlated with semantic XHTML: And this is good. But it contradicts the previous statement. Current behaviour is to not use semantic XHTML. It is only a limited number of websites that use valid markup. Both RDFa and Microformats will hopefully help in raising awareness of semantic markup.

What do you think?