Re: Afghanistan War Diary as topic map in Maiana

On 29/10/10 09:18, Lars Heuer wrote:
> Hi Lutz,
>
>> there is a new topic map available in Maiana which might be in interest
>> for you. Under [1] you will find the 2004 time slice of the Afghanistan
>> War Diary. The original data is purchased by WikiLeaks; we transformed
>
> Great. But where is the additional value?
>
> Someone converted the WikiLeaks somehow to a topic map. Great...
[...]
> Where is the additional value of using Topic Maps?
>
> Don't understand me wrong, WikiLeaks on Topic Maps would be great, but
> the current translation of WikiLeaks sounds like a 1:1 mapping of
> MARC(XML) to Topic Maps.

Lars,

Why the snarky attitude? All Lutz has done is to inform this community
of an interesting application of Topic Maps. If you don't believe there
is any value, then why tell us you think it's "great"?

   * At very least this demonstrates a way to map and query a large
     corpus of documents that didn't originate in a form designed to
     be mapped. That is in itself a success, simply as an open example
     of how a translation project can be approached (i.e., a public
     demonstration is always welcome, no matter how simple);

   * that we can now query those documents in a variety of new ways in
     order to locate information that would otherwise be quite difficult
     to discover, well, that is a further success (i.e., this makes it
     easier to create more incisive queries, using new tools);

   * that this work has been announced to the public and permits further
     development by a third party which could provide additional value
     (i.e., this work facilitates additional work);

   * that an analysis based on this could result in a positive policy
     change in the war in Afghanistan which might shorten the war and
     save lives, this would likely outweigh the value of anything any
     of us have ever done, as well as be a strong argument for the
     adoption of Topic Maps as a mainstream technology (i.e., there
     are follow-on effects of the application of any technology).

I don't know what if any backstory there might be in your desire to
be publicly critical, but on the face of it, that you can't see any
value in this suggests either a desire to denigrate others' successes
or a lack of imagination.

I certainly see value in this project, and welcome any information on
its further development. I'd particularly love to see someone do a
Google Maps mashup...

Murray

...........................................................................
Murray Altheim <murray10 at altheim dot com>                       ===  = =
http://www.altheim.com/murray/                                     = =  ===
SGML Grease Monkey, Banjo Player, Wantanabe Zen Monk               = =  = =

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