Re: Convincing ordinary people

On 17/06/11 01:20, Linda.Sutherland wrote:
 > 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?

Hi Linda,

I agree that as the Topic Map community has grown it has had an
increased focus on filling out further details of what might be
considered the "necessary suite" of specifications -- such as the
ability to query -- and hasn't had a focus on the basics. It seems
a shame that after over a decade there isn't one simple, standalone
Topic Map demo application. A bit remarkable, really.

 > 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.

Yes, you have that correct. And over the years a number of people
(Kal Ahmed and myself, among others) have published foundation Topic
Maps that could be used to provide the basic term and relation types
used in various domains. E.g., of particular interest to librarians
are Topic Maps providing the basics for thesaurus construction. Back
in 2007 I published one supporting all the terms and relations in
the librarians' long-standing thesaurus standard, z39.19, of which
you may be familiar. But even just the basic IsNarrowerThan and
IsBroaderThan is a good start -- things don't need to be complicated.

Armed with such a beast it'd be possible to build thesaurus structures
in a Topic Map editor. What we don't have is that editor.

 > 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.

For many years now I've been sitting on several hundred thousand
lines of code in a now-dormant project that if I had the time I
would have released into open source. It has a very good visualisation
engine but is currently much too complicated to be considered a user-
friendly application. But I just fixed a couple of compile-time bugs
and opened it up, visualising a Sherlock Holmes ontology. I'm a bit
surprised that it still works.

If I had someone willing to negotiate the Google Code or SourceForge
web sites and manage the project I would be willing to entertain the
notion of trying to trim that project down from kitchen sink to
something suitable for release as a Topic Map visualisation and/or
editing tool.

The problem is, like many people on this mailing list I have almost
no time to devote to hobby projects, just too much on my plate
lately -- ah, for the luxury of lots of spare time...

Murray

...........................................................................
Murray Altheim <murray11 at altheim dot com>                       = =  ===
http://www.altheim.com/murray/                                     ===  ===
                                                                    = =  ===
       Boundless wind and moon - the eye within eyes,
       Inexhaustible heaven and earth - the light beyond light,
       The willow dark, the flower bright - ten thousand houses,
       Knock at any door - there's one who will respond.
                                       -- The Blue Cliff Record