Re: Semantic Bleachers: was Re: Afghanistan War Diary as topic map in Maiana

Hi Patrick,

[...]
> "You have suggested DBpedia as a topic maps project and said translating
> it into a topic map is simple." 

> I assume you see some steps beyond that "simple" translation.

Well, DBpedia as topic map would provide a Topic Maps view on
Wikipedia. We could issue TMQL queries against it: Ask for all persons
which are born in Bremen. Ask for all cities which are named "Austin".

I see some potential in it. Since Wikipedia was published, every now
and then a person of the Topic Maps community comes up with the
statement "WTF does Wikipedia not use Topic Maps?". A translation of
DBpedia to Topic Maps would bring us a step forward and may gain some
promotion for Topic Maps since DBpedia is very popular.

There are more innovative projects than DBpedia but DBpedia is
currently a big player in the LOD/RDF/Semantic Web community and I
wouldn't care if DBpedia deserves this fame or not. It's a good
starting point.

> What I have been trying to ask is: "What steps are those?"

I don't know. I want to query Wikipedia and maybe I want to update
Wikipedia through TMQL in the future. I want to stay in my preferred
technology. We can also translate TMQL to SPARQL, though.

> I am trying to understand what you think others could contribute to the
> DBpedia topic maps project? Assuming it became a public project.

It comes down to a simple RDF to Topic Maps mapping. We take the
DBpedia ontology and decide how we'd translate it to Topic Maps.

Best regards,
Lars
-- 
Semagia 
<http://www.semagia.com>

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