Talk:Semantic Web/Archive 1

Lead
The lead paragraph needs work --I dont understand the "Berners Lee advocates it but it..." part. &#25140;&#30505sv 23:52, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Made some clarity edits to paragraphs 1-4.

I'm troubled by the passage "... particularly, in XHTML interspersed with XML, or, more often, purely in XML ..."

XHTML is subset to XML. Specifically, XHTML is HTML held to XML well-formedness strictures. I don't think there's such thing as XHTML interspersed with XML. XHTML is XML, or it isn't XHTML.

But enough for one day.

--LQ 21:57, Jul 26, 2004 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I wrote that. I was just trying to provide a variety of examples of where the semantic data can live, lest someone think it has to all be in one place. I'm not married to the current phrasing. - mjb 22:35, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

There surely needs to be a reference to the Scientific American article written by Berners-Lee et al.

Chinese Interwiki
Why is the Chinese Interwiki link showing up in the main article space? RickK 03:17, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

---

Very interesting stuff, there is an article describing the semantic web here:

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5156243.html?tag=zdfd.newsfeed

Perhaps taking some facts from this article and explaining them in this wikientry would be good.--ShaunMacPherson 09:20, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia categories
Wikipedia categories look like a real-life application of semantic Web ideas, without relations labelling (provided by RDF). Oobserve the outcome of the experience will be interesting. Marc Mongenet 14:27, 2004 Jun 30 (UTC)


 * Well, it is just a very limited application of Semantic Web ideas. The Semantic Web is not just about meta data. --zeno 02:00, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Advertisement hoarding
This article seems to be exploited as an advertisement hoarding for various Semantic Web projects to get some traffic. In my opinion, people working on a related project should not self-advertise. If your project is worth mentioning, an independent contributor will add it.

Also, there seems to be a lack of discussion about projects which try to implement core parts of the SW architecture, and more focus on data-providers, specifications and end-user applications. For example, I personally am unsure about the relevancy of NextBio as a Semantic Web application. In other words, none of the projects, except for maybe LOD, really give any indication of what one might expect of the SW in years to come (not denying the current importance of FOAF and SIOC).

Anyways, I've added the DBpedia project to the list. Surprising to see it isn't mentioned considering... (and no I'm not involved in DBpedia). In general, methinks the article needs a lot of work. Wadroit (talk) 15:45, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Components of the Semantic Web
Overall a good technical article but I'm concerned that much of this paragraph (Components of the Semantic Web) is lifted word-for-word from the copyrighted W3C page... Could it be rewritten? (I don't know enough to really rephrase it at all well, unfortunately)

The phrase "in Extensible HTML (XHTML) interspersed with XML," can't be correct because XHTML is XML. (I'd rephrase if I knew what assertion should be made instead.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gherson2 (talk • contribs) 13:15, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

criticism
This article seems to miss the criticisms against Semantic Web, for instance the complaint that you have to write it twice, once for the human and once for the computer. Secondly that Google was able to make description metatags unneccessary which suggests that the entire double-markup exercise can be solved by (meta)tagging and analysis.

Oh, and I am not putting in the NPOV tag here, that causes too much noise from troublesome editors, an example of tags having gone sour. How is that for post modern grade irony? &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.164.70.218 (talk • contribs).
 * A greater concern in some critics' estimation is how to find a source of revenue to pay the bandwidth bill. If 100,000 computers can continuously pull your data and understand it but cannot make purchasing decisions on their own, then there is nobody to look at the advertising. --Damian Yerrick (☎) 22:36, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

What about criticisms of Semantic Web that point to the idea that ontologies cannot be defined clearly enough and/or inference engines made with enough ability to truly make any sense of Semantic web? The entire criticism section seems to revolve around criticisms of Semantic Web if it works, and not at all about the idea that Semantic Web, as envisioned by proponents, isn't as implementable as they claim. -DynamicallyLinkedDebauch 22:11, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Can you point to a good source (news media, peer-reviewed academic publication etc.) raising that criticism? --cygri 23:17, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The Unrealized Idea section under Criticism is misguided. No one expects the 'Web to evolve into the Semantic Web'. In fact, the two can happily coexist. The Unrealized Idea that is mentioned in the cited articles is the Web of Data of the Semantic Web. More specifically from, the unrealization is that "so far, we’ve focused on languages, formalisms, standards, and semantics... But languages and standards are of no consequence without uptake, and uptake requires increasing the amount of data exposed in RDF" --andrers2b 6:00, 01 May 2009 (PDT)

Examples
When it is easier for machines to analyze data, it is easier for people controlling those machines to control that data. Today it is for example very difficult for the Chinese government to restrict the access of its subjects to data related to particular (types of) topics. It is done by machines analyzing words in hypertext documents and by human eyes. There are to many users in China to have them all checked by humans. The text-analyzing techniques are bypassed easily, by using other words (f.a. metaphors) and by using no words (images). An advanced implementation of the semantic web would make it a lot easier for the Chinese government to control its subjects, because machines would 'know' what the information that is circulating is about and machines can proces much more information must faster and much more efficiently than humans can. Off course, with these new means of control, new means of resistance will emerge.

Another example: I have implemented several semantic webfeatures on my personal website. I have an author metatag with the value ‘Robert Buzink’ (my name) which is the same as my domain-name. A software agent could deduce from these two facts with some certainty that my site is a personal website. I also implemented several geo-tags, from which a software agent could deduce that I am living in Maastricht. I refer to webpages of friends in a Xhtml Friends Network kind of way, which means that I define my relationship to them in the link pointing to their site. I also adopted FOAF standards to make my social network intepretable by machines. All this information together with the information provided by my friends websites and the information retrieved by analyzing the textual contents of my sites pages and other media that is properly semantically ‘tagged’, provide invaluable information about me and my peergroup for web-index machines like the google-bot, but (or: and thus) also for marketing  and governmental organisations. Robert Buzink 10:42, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

First Paragraph is Incomprehensible
By the way it was written, I imagine this wasn't written by a native speaker. I would be more than willing to help change it, but am not really sure whats trying to be said here. Could someone jump on this??

Examples
In trying to illustrate the "Potential benefits of the Semantic Web", surely you could find a more compelling example than "automatically find the nearest manicurist".

I think there are at least two potential application types for SW technology.

The first type are consolidation applications - most of the common examples of SW usage fall into this category. SW is shown as being a method to consolidate and bundle information for the ultimately human end users

The second type are automation applications - where SW usage has attributes in common with expert systems and/or some primitive AI.

There may be others, but it is worth making this distinction in the article.

another link
not sure if it's worth including, or where to put it http://research.ebiquity.org/ via http://slashdot.org/

wiki-net
MattisManzel 21:33, 30 June 2006 (UTC): Made up wiki-net

Missing references
Why were the citations removed? At least the citations referenced in the article should be put back.

Can someone tell who who worked on this arcticle? Is there a list of authors relating to the documents? cheers Ferhat

Client-server criticism
The “Client-server” criticism subsection is questionable.


 * It claims that “the Semantic Web is based on a traditional client-server architecture, which ultimately is not scalable.” The Semantic Web is based on the same architecture as the World Wide Web, which is arguably the most scalable information system currently in existence.
 * It claims that “URIs within RDF are still machine-specific references”. This is incorrect because it ignores the abstraction layer created by the DNS; the URI http://google.com/ is certainly not specific to any single machine.
 * It claims that “Many have pointed to MAYA's Information Commons as a more practical implementation”. In a short Google search for comparisons between the two technologies I found only material and statements produced by people directly associated with the Information Commons project. This makes me think the statement is POV.

I say remove. cygri 23:11, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Would-be useful information
Is there a resource one can use to search for the URI that commonly represents a concept? Seems like such a thing should exist, and would be of significant importance to a Semantic Web author. I wanted to know what the URI of the planet Earth was, and spent a fruitless period searching for it. Somegeek 15:20, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

First contribution
First, since this (the Semantic Web type stuff) is my mind candy of the moment, I decided to see if I could explain it. I have no idea how well this communicates in general. I believe the previous version was more succinct, but I do believe it left a lot out of the details of why and what.

Anyway, this is my first actual contribution, so I'm open to suggestions/gripes. -- StWeasel

Rename to Semantic web
I think the article should be moved to "Semantic web" per WP:CAPS. Is there a specific reason it should stay at "Semantic Web"? eg. is it a proper noun? Even if there is project out there named just "Semantic Web", the article seems to describe the general concept rather than one specific implementation, so it can't be a proper noun. Is that correct? --Interiot 21:51, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * We should keep the current capitalization, per the same reasoning as for World Wide Web. cygri 07:54, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Agree; 'Web', in this context, is a proper noun; thus 'Semantic Web' follows. - penagate [ talk 10:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Then shouldn't it be capitalised like that in the introduction instead of "semantic web"? And should the "Category:Semantic web" be capitalised like that as well? --Shepard 17:19, 6 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Btw: people make a distinction between Semantic Web (the 'real' one as proclaimed by the W3C, so everything around their technology) and semantic web (more pragmatic, not the full SW-vision, Microformats and the like). --Shepard 14:15, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

See Also section requires cleanup
At the moment, the See Also section is just an arbitrary list of barely related articles.

I propose to remove these items from the list, for the stated reason:


 * AskMeNow — not prominent, unclear how it relates to the Semantic Web
 * DAML+OIL — superseded by OWL, which is prominently discussed in the main article text
 * Description logic — too specific, mentioning Knowledge representation is sufficient
 * DOAC — not prominent, could go into separate "List of Semantic Web applications"
 * DOAP — should go into separate "List of Semantic Web applications"
 * Dublin Core — should go into separate "List of Semantic Web applications"
 * Epistematics — not a prominent topic
 * Knowledge technologies — too generic, mentioning Knowledge representation is sufficient
 * Nesstar — not prominent, could go into separate "List of Semantic Web applications"
 * Ontology alignment — too specific, is mentioned in Ontology
 * OWL - Web Ontology Language — prominently discussed in the main article text
 * RDFa Embedding RDF in XHTML — too specific, is mentioned in RDF and XHTML
 * Semantic spectrum — too specific
 * Semantic wiki — should go into separate "List of Semantic Web applications"
 * Semantic MediaWiki — mentioned in Semantic wiki
 * Semantic URL — discusses an issue which is orthogonal to this article's topic
 * SIOC — should go into separate "List of Semantic Web applications"
 * SKOS — should go into separate "List of Semantic Web applications"
 * SPARQL — prominently discussed in the main article text
 * Swoogle — should go into separate "List of Semantic Web applications"
 * YubNub — should go into separate "List of Semantic Web applications"
 * Quintura — should go into separate "List of Semantic Web applications"
 * Terminology extraction — too specific


 * DOAC, DOAP, Dublin Core, SIOC, SKOS - These items should not be included in a "List of Semantic Web applications".  They are not applications, but rather ontologies/controlled vocabularies. --Dorzey (talk) 12:40, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I am uncertain about these items, please help:


 * Semantic service oriented architecture — I don't like this, it is not a prominent term, just a combination of two buzzwords. Remove?
 * Semantic publishing — doesn't seem to be a widely used term, but the article's content is relevant. Suggestions?
 * Semantic translation — how does this relate to the Semantic Web?

These should stay:


 * Expert system
 * Knowledge representation
 * Metadata publishing
 * Microformats
 * Topic map

cygri 10:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

20070220meta ;; modifications to lead section
Rationale for modifications to lead section includes:
 * more informative wording
 * more links to related WP content
 * fewer "IT-buzzword" sounding redundancies and vague clauses
 * WP content is intended for a "general audience," the wording should reflect that

Please feel free to discuss any faults you may find with these principles, or how you think they may be better implemented, so we can work together to improve this article. Thanks! dr.ef.tymac 18:13, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * dr.ef.tymac, I'm sorry but your latest change is not an improvement at all. I'm reverting it (again -- it was me the first time too). I don't find any fault with the principles, but I feel that your latest change does not meet them, especially the first.


 * The Semantic Web is not an “initiative”; the phrase “extend web content into a framework” doesn't make sense; don't squeeze in the unrelated and awkward term “automata” just to make it a link; replacing the simple “find, share and combine” with “integrate” does not go over well with a “general audience”; “with little or no human intervention” is wrong (“less human intervention” maybe).
 * Yes, I agree (marginally) with the first two points, disagree with the following points, and am puzzled by your last point because it could have easily been fixed with a minor rewording. Please note that the first two items were intentionally introduced by me to inspire you to more fully develop your idea behind "it's more than just metadata." I knew you would find fault with those, but instead of refining them (as I hoped you would), you simply reverted. Back to square zero. More details below. dr.ef.tymac 02:17, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I reverted instead of refining because I didn't feel that your version was in better than the old one in any significant way. I asked you to clarify your very broad criticism of the old version, which you do below, and that is much appreciated. I should have at least worked the links you provided into the original text, I apologize for not doing so. cygri 11:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Which terms do you feel are IT-buzzwords? Which terms or phrases do you feel are inappropriate for a general audience? cygri 00:32, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok Cygri, thanks for responding, I will just start from the beginning and work forward. I may skip some items just because there is so much. First, I would like to suggest your characterization ("not an improvement at all") seems to ignore even incremental improvements to basic English grammar. You may disagree with the modification on balance (even I admit none of them were/are perfect), but reverting to a prior version with broad generalizations, and reintroducing mistakes seems to introduce very little room for compromise, and thus progress. Hopefully, we can both try to focus on specifics, (like you do further down in your response, and which is greatly appreciated). I will try to do the same. Thanks for your consideration.
 * Apologies for missing the improvement in grammar, I am certainly ignorant in that regard. (I'm not a native speaker, just in case you will let that count as an excuse.) I'm very open to compromise, but please let's use the current (old) version as a baseline and work from there -- I believe it is not as bad as you claim it is. The third-level bullets below are my comments. cygri 11:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

The Semantic Web is a loosely defined and evolving framework of World Wide Web based technologies
 * This clause contains two compound adjectives, neither of which is properly punctuated, and both of which seem redundant (you do see this, yes?)
 * Now that you mention it ...
 * What sense of the word "framework" is being used here? is it strictly a software Framework? is it also a philosophical/dialectical framework? is it a collection of potentially competing frameworks, all of which are documented somewhere in formal language specification(s)? Is it an unmethodical mish-mash of some or all of the above concepts? Some alternate definition?
 * It's the mish-mash. Which I find is nicely expressed by “loosely defined”.
 * The world wide web is a technology, and the word "web" is in the title of the article, why the redundant construction "world wide web based technologies" and why does it take five words to indicate a fact that can be unambiguously indicated more concisely? Moreover, RDF, Dublin Core, et. al. have more uses than just for the web ... arguably, if we wanted to be precise, this should be replaced by Information retrieval technologies or something similar. This type of "verbosity without precision" is exactly the style of ambiguous writing that is meant by "IT buzzword-speak"
 * World Wide Web is a proper name, that's why I think it's ok to have all the words. I won't insist on it. RDF, DC et al. have uses beyond the Web, but these uses are also beyond the Semantic Web, and not relevant here. I think it's important to describe the Semantic Web as based on the World Wide Web (“an extension of the World Wide Web”?)

that seek to augment human readable Web content
 * Hmmm ... again with the grammar
 * Ok, you found fault with "metadata" and yet "augmenting content" seems to fit squarely with the traditional use of the word consistent with the subject of the article. Moreover, it is an established, citable term that unfamiliar readers can explore with a link to another article if they choose, and it doesn't depend on unlinked and wordy clauses with very low information content. "But wait! It's more than just metadata!" ... ok, such as? Anything linkable, citable? I'm not hell-bent on promoting any specific word, just as long as whatever words get used, actually *mean* something.
 * Metadata is “data about data”. The vast majority of data on the Semantic Web is not about data, but about people (FOAF profiles. That's why metadata is wrong here, linkable or not. You are right, “augmenting content” is a fairly meaningless phrase.
 * Human readable Web content as opposed to what? Space-alien readable? Human readable is a *notoriously* context-dependent construction that seems to add no information to "web content," which is (just like books, movies, multimedia) implicitly human readable. Would you expect a general audience to relate to "let's find some human readable library books"? Sometimes the construction is a helpful clarification (e.g., "...the human-readable portion of a bar code...") but here the clarification seems superfluous at best, and in the extreme, misleading, buzzwordy, sloppy and redundant.
 * Human "readable" is, again, imprecise. Multimedia web content is not "readable" is it? Audio content is not "readable" is it? and yet both of these are canonical examples of content that is ostensibly improved by the "framework" detailed in this article. Sure, you could replace it with "human consumable" or something even more wordy, unconventional and strange, OR you could provide a link to the article that explains the concept, which is what the "Wiki" in Wikipedia is all about, no? You said you agreed with the principles above, so why did you revert a link that you did not even contest as unhelpful?
 * Good points, “human-readable” should go. “Expressed in natural language”?
 * I didn't remove the link as you claim; you re-labelled World Wide Web link to “web content”, I just restored the label. I didn't know about the Web content article, having a link to it would be good.

with information that is machine processable
 * Machine processable, what new information does this give us? Isn't all web information "machine processable" by definition, otherwise how does it get on the Internet? This is not intended sarcastically, this part is in genuine need of clarification.
 * Machine processable, you mean like by automated software agents? Hmmm ... that's funny, that's exactly what is indicated (imprecisely) as the very next clause in the exact same sentence.
 * Clarifying “machine processable” without getting quite wordy is hard. You suggested “processed and interpreted by automata”, which also suffers from the problems above.
 * You found fault with the word "automata" and yet that seems to be *precisely* the point that is being made here. Even if it is "akward" the text of the link does not have to equal the article title, it can be rephrased. If it is "unrelated" then what exactly is the alternate term you propose that more clearly indicates what is meant here?
 * Fair enough. How about “with information that is machine processable”? Or even better, let's link to software agent.


 * I will stop there, for now. Please feel free to propose specific improvements. We agree in principle, which is good, now it's just a matter of translating that agreement into progress foward. I am especially hoping you can propose alternatives to address the specific deficiencies enumerated above. dr.ef.tymac 02:17, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I tried to do so; please forgive the poor grammar and style, I hope that at least the content is improved. cygri 11:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Follow-up: Hi cygri, thanks for taking the time to review and comment. Here are just some quick responses for now:
 * Grammar: I mentioned this only to verify one possible area of improvement. I didn't realize you were not a native English speaker, so please don't take that as a criticism, it was meant only as a relatively minor point. So far I haven't had any trouble understanding you. (IMHO, Multi-lingual editors are a great benefit to Wikipedia, and emphasis should always be on improving article content anyway; not ancillary debates on grammar and spelling).
 * Framework: It seems the definition of "framework" (or whatever word is used to promote this concept) is the central issue that needs to be addressed here, because it is the foundation for the entire article, and consensus is an uphill battle without a verifiable and neutral way to define this. I appreciate the insight you used by introducing "loosely defined" and to some extent I personally even agree with it. The problem is, without setting some kind of "boundary" or at least an identifiable foundation for what the article is actually *about*, how can other editors contribute without having to guess what we think? What's worse, how can readers be expected to take it seriously?
 * Moving forward: Problem: It seems the single greatest deficiency with the article is a lack of a citable definition in the lead section. Solution: start gathering cites and building from quotable sources. Then this deficiency can be better addressed. Even if there is inherent "looseness" and ambiguity in the subject matter, we would do well to at least start the article with the most stable foundation available, and build from there. As always, feedback and comments are most welcome. Regards. dr.ef.tymac 16:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

20070221meta ;; modifications to lead section
dr.ef.tymac, I agree that falling back to quotable sources is the right idea. The problem is ultimately that we deal with a much-hyped term here that is used to mean quite different things by different people. And then there's the wide chasm between the vision and today's reality. I tried to synthesize a middle ground that encompasses many of those views, and necessarily ended up with vague wording; a better approach might be to explicitly acknowledge that the term is ill-defined, and summarize different positions. The Web 2.0 article might be a good model, both in the tone of its introduction and its overall structure. cygri 21:26, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, your synthesis provided insight, and (as mentioned earlier) personally I agree with you. The last major modification you made to the lead section seems *much* improved, and it seems to provide a much clearer foundation. An improved foundation seems to make it easier to talk about: 1) "usage", 2) "chasm", and 3) "hyped" because the text has improved clarity and continuity. For example, it is possible to say something like:

1: The Semantic Web is (... clear snapshot overview, like you provided, blah blah blah) ...   2: At its core, the Semantic Web includes (talk about the elements "blah blah blah") ... 3: At its periphery, the concepts of the Semantic Web become increasingly less well-defined, owing to a wide variety of intended meanings and usage. Additionally, there is some disparity between the core "vision" behind the Semantic Web, and the fulfillment of that vision in terms of currently-deployed and usable software.
 * Or some such similar approach to make the point. It is just one of various ways to communicate these ideas, and of course citations will be useful to keep everything verifiable and minimize disputes in the future. Hopefully that makes sense. The improvements and work you have put into this article reflect good attention to detail and dilligence. For that I say, "hats off to you." Regards. dr.ef.tymac 00:23, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

eRDF
"eRDF" was linking to the wrong article. I changed it to eRDF (data format) to show that there was no existing article on this eRDF, but perhaps I didn't invent the best name. Somegeek 19:51, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Implications of the Semantic Web
The most exciting part of the article:

"Even though it is simple to define, RDF at the level with the power of a semantic web will be a complete language, capable of expressing paradoxes and tautologies, and in which it will be possible to phrase questions whose answers would require a machine to search the entire web and an unimaginable amount of time to resolve. Each mechanical RDF application will use a schema to restrict its use of RDF to a deliberately limited language. However, when links are made between the RDF webs, the result will be an expression of a huge amount of information. It is clear that because the Semantic Web must be able to include all kinds of data to represent the world, the language itself must be completely expressive."

should probably be highlighted more than it is, buried in the middle of it. -  But more importantly, that paragraph is what is cool and exciting about SW....  but there is only a paragraph about it! How will the Semantic Web be "capable of expressing paradoxes and tautologies" and be a "completely expressive language". The article explains what SW is, but this is very important.

162.83.249.187 03:30, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

People involved with the Semantic Web
Found this while searching for Semantic Web under Ben Way anybody know who he is?

Has been quoted as describing the Semantic Web as "the most powerful development of information management since the creation of the database" --212.183.134.66 20:50, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Criticism: It barely exists
I removed this subsection which has been added today in the Criticism section:

It barely exists
While there are examples of web pages marked up with Semantic Web tags, the proliferation of use of tag schemes such as RDF is really yet to be seen. Compared to the number of Web pages on the Internet, the Semantic Web is very sparse.

The core of this argument is that adotion of Semantic Web technologies has not been as fast as expected, and that's a valid point and worth discussing in the article. But the way it was put here is clueless and lacks documentation:


 * There is no such thing as “Semantic Web tags”.
 * RDF is not a “tag scheme”.
 * The Semantic Web is not about “marking up web pages”. There are individual Semantic Web technologies for this purpose, namely eRDF and RDFa, but their success or lack of adoption does not constitute success or lack of adoption for Semantic Web technologies in general. Criticism of these specific technologies should go on their article.
 * The traditional Web predates the Semantic Web by at least decade. Of course the Semantic Web is still sparse in comparison. This is hardly surprising.

To make the original contributor's argument, we would need:


 * Documentation of expected rapid adoption of Semantic Web technologies,
 * Numbers that show that these expectations are not being met.

Pointers

Semantics
This article doesn't explain what the semantic web has got to do with semantics. --RichardVeryard 13:10, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Semantics, as described on it's article, is a follows:

1. the study of symbols 2. the study of the meaning of symbols

The relationship between semantics and the semantic web is at the heart of the definition. I interpret this as semantics is the study of symbols and their meanings by humans, while the semantic web is similarly the study of symbols and meanings by machines (computers, etc). Orange 05:22, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Criticism
Removing two sentences of criticism underscores a big problem with Wikipedia. The two sentences were good, and yet immediately removed because the author didn't go through all the hoops (not announced in advance) the page editor wanted. The whole point of Wikipedia is to keep heavy-handed editors at bay -- this isn't the publishing industry keeping printing presses fed day and night.

If the work adds to the article, and isn't grossly off-topic, it should stay, warts and all. The more editors start picking stuff to death, never being quite perfect enough, the less people have any interest in providing data.

Now may I add my criticism of the semantic web without getting picked to death?

"A commonly used example of the possible benefits of a sematic web is comparing prices of merchandise for sale. Merchants have no interest in their price being compared to the rest of the free market, and they are being exhorted by proponents of the semantic web to spend an enormous amount of time and effort to do something that hurts their business.

"Then there is the issue of languages. English is not the only language utilized to publish on the internet, but a semantic web requires translation among a plethora of languages that is a daunting task, for starters." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.67.6.15 (talk) 18:20, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't believe language to be an issue. The Semantic Web operates at the ontological level.  "Homme" and "Man" are the respective language labels for the same ontological concept.  It would be up to the application builders to translate down from the ontological level.  That is unless your criticism refers to natural language processing; and on this topic I don't feel expert enough to comment.--Dorzey (talk) 12:48, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Creation of a Semantic Web Portal
This article seems to contain lots of links to related information. I think it would be useful to create a Semantic Web Portal. What do other people think?--Dorzey (talk) 12:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Unclear
After reading this article I still don't understand what the semantic Web is. I understand the high-level concept that it is a way to add more meaning to data enabling better searching and more machine-readable processing. The article could be improved by adding a "layman's terms" description. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 17.232.72.72 (talk) 16:25, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, this article is very poorly written. Hopefully I'll have time to clean it up enough to be understandable. There are also too many external links, in my opinion, causing confusion to readers who even attempt to read this because the importance of each link included is diminished. Gary King (talk) 20:14, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Is this all hype?
I read several articles heralding the advent of the Semantic Web, came to Wikipedia to get some background (I'm not a computer science person) and found it all fascinating. But then I went on to the web to try to find out more about it, trying to find programs to get certified in coding for these languages, jobs that were asking for people qualified in using OWL and other markup languages and found only references dating back to 2004. Sure, there are academics and professionals who gather and talk about it all once a year and set some standards but is anyone actually using this in their work or training others to use it? I don't see much practical application which I think would be apparent, even in a quick Internet search for the key terms. There seems to be a lot of talk and not much implementation. It does make one wonder whether there is really a need for this technological development. You'd think if it helped people do things better, there would be tons of businesses and academic programs developing applications and training people. Hey, maybe it IS there but it's not apparent to the casual inquirer. 192.107.39.18 (talk) 20:53, 26 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I've been working in this field since 1999. If I go to Joberve.co.uk today, I can see a handful of jobs listed for RDF, a fair few (low-level though) for vague "semantic web" techniques (usually little more than competent HTML 4!), and the rare one for real Semantic Web techniques. I still don't see them for OWL or ontologies. So, it's getting better - but don't hold your breath. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Relation to OO ?
I see there's a new section . Is this useful?

It's obviously "relevant", for meanings of "relevant" that mean "not excluded by obvious differences", but what does it add to point out relations between SemWeb and a trivial commonplace like OO? &mdash; for that's what OO is these days, a trivial axiomatic assumption that pre-dates SemWeb thoughts by around 20 years. What sections might we add next? "SemWeb relationship to XML"? It's no less-likely that SemWeb implies an XML context than an OO context. Both are commonly used and useful, so they're likely to be picked up. Neither is an absolute requirement.

SemWeb (meaning the RDFS approach) is based around a tree-structured taxonomy with notions of inheritance. So is OO (in most people's view). What does stating this here add to the article, that isn't either obvious, obsolete (check the dates on those refs) or described in too little detail to add anything new?

Remember also that this is a "one page overview" at an encyclopedic level. It's not a training manual for coders, and doesn't have to state every little snippet that's possible to include. For such a vast topic in a small space, every sentence here must earn its keep. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:01, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree, the Relation to OO doesn't add anything to the discussion and seems to be a catch-all for COI/vanity references.

90.23.84.137 (talk) 11:52, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

This section is very dubious. Too many claims that are questionable and that aren't backed up.

--LD (talk) 02:47, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I think similarities with OO are interesting, but the text is sloppy. CORBA is eg. not a programming language... 193.11.31.222 (talk) 12:15, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the "relationship" between the SemanticWeb & OOP is nonsense & should be deleted. DEddy (talk) 12:31, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Merge from Semantic publishing

 * Oppose merge of Semantic publishing to Semantic Web.

It's arguable that some level of "semantic publishing" is a component of, perhaps a pre-requisite for the Semantic Web. However Semantic publishing works already, in the Web 1.0 pre-Semantic Web era. A full Web isn't a pre-requisite for useful work in the publishing aspect. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:14, 6 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Rationale: The only thing "semantic publishing" talks about is "semantic publishing on the web" which it considers to be the same as "semantic web publishing". Since "publishing" is pretty much synonymous with web hosting, I don't think there is any practical difference between the two topics. If I am mistaken, a clear explanation of how something which is "semantic publishing on the web" falls outside of the "semantic web" needs to be given in both articles, citing reliable sources. -- Beland (talk) 19:25, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Oppose merge with Semantic publishing. That other page includes pretty low quality material anyway, and could have been implemented within a corporate or university environment free of the web. These need to be separate pages - and they both really need improvement! History2007 (talk) 23:35, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

cleanup tag removed
A clean uo tag was added here with the words:
 * this is a good article, don't get me wrong, just wondering if someone might be willing to help improve its accessibility to new readers as well as its flow?

I removed this tag because I don't think this is reason enough to add such a tag. I think those tags on top of the article should be avoided because the interfer with the reading. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 02:40, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Semantic Web Philosophy
It seems to me that all the discussion around Semantic Web is missing a key philosophical issue.

In order to make semantic web happen, we must come to an agreement on what terms and concepts mean, so that there is one and only one meaning that is understood by all for each term. A universal dictionary of things and concepts. It is like a reverse engineering if the mythical Tower of Babel. It is a huge challenge and a huge undertaking, perhaps the hardest one for humanity since language was invented tens of thousands of years ago.

Agreeing on what each term means is the foundation for putting terms in a context, and only then a semantic use of the Web could be harnessed and developed.

I beleive the better way to do this is by collaborative work with wiki-like experience and yes, under knowledge domains, as the actual approach goes. It might take a hundred years untill it finally happens, but it will be worth the effort. Think of how faster research and development could go under a rich format common language. How faster and clearer it would be to come to agreements - or disagreements. Too often the main barrier for progress of humanity lays in bad communication - difference of understanding by the parties involved in a human interaction. Semantic web would overcome this human limitation. And since we are now entering the age of Knowledge Society, having a common, understandable language for all could mean leveraging the knowledge to unthought-of levels.

Alfredo Barriga - Chile