Re: Convincing ordinary people

At 10:33 16/06/2011, Alexander Johannesen wrote:
>frankly, I've never used an easy-to-use TM system.

[...]

>Why aren't the community just talking about simple ways of getting
>Topic Maps into web pages, simpler constructs that people can use
>straight away, without knowing all the nasty details of the various 
>TM
>models?

May I suggest that the community consider going back to its roots?

TM, if I understand rightly, grew out of pre-computer concepts and 
methods developed by librarians and others concerned with organising 
information for easy retrieval - classification and indexing, in 
other words. Probably few librarians or back-of-book indexers (I was 
the first, am now the second) would have the ability to deal with the 
technologies evolved by the TM community, but many would have little 
difficulty in handling the concepts.

TM's principal addition to those (again, in my understanding) is its 
predilection for exact specification of relationships. Book and 
library collection indexers are often content merely to say that A is 
related to B, but TM wants to specify that A is a kind of B, or A is 
a part of B, or A is a property of B, or whatever. In many smaller 
indexing projects, that's overkill, though - it's often sufficient to 
indicate that A has a connection with B, without the exact detail.

If the TM community could develop something that's usable within a PC 
running Windows, doesn't require more than basic computer know-how, 
and allows indication of non-specific as well as specific 
relationships between topics, I'm pretty sure you'd find interest 
among back-of book indexers. The growth of the e-book market is one 
area that could make it especially welcome - and I wouldn't be 
surprised if smaller libraries didn't find uses for it too.



Linda Sutherland
linda.sutherland-k881bfVVboVWk0Htik3J/[email protected]