Thanks for creating this discussion, I hope it will be useful.
I've been reading up on YADIS [1] / XRDS [2] / WRFS [3] to make sure
that I can get an idea of their potential, as I am not au fait with them
I'm sad to say.
So as I understand, you use YADIS to discover an identity, and get an
XRDS document back indicating which identities they prefer to use and
what services those identities are on. Then you can use WRFS to find out
what containers those identities hold on those services.
SIOC [4] is one representation method for describing the content of the
containers and the items, and the structure / connections therein.
For example, on the DP wiki there's an illustration [5] by Josh
Patterson showing how a WRFS prototype workspace could use YADIS+WRFS to
get URIs for an identity's associated data containers so that
applications can access the data in those containers represented in a
format like SIOC or FOAF (for containers of posted items or people
respectively). As Alexandre Passant mentioned earlier, FOAF and SIOC
are being used in his application to export linked data from Flickr
accounts [6]. SIOC data is also being produced from various personal
blogging platforms and microblogging accounts [7].
But SIOC isn't just for personal containers of data. I think another
issue for the DataPortability workgroup is whether methods can be used
to port not just personal sets of data but communities of data. SIOC
was initially intended to provide a way to describe the content from
online communities, like mailing lists, message boards, etc. It was
soon used for people's blogs (since the post+reply structure is very
similar to community discussions; it's just that the first poster is
usually one person in blogs), and more recently for other personal sets
of Web 2.0-type content items. But if I run a community site, and I
decide I want to port my group from one place to another, SIOC can be
used to fully describe the structure (and content if combined with other
vocabluaries) of most communities. We have various exporters in place;
importers are the next step (a first demonstrator for WordPress has been
produced [8]).
What do others think? I know SIOC is just one representation format of
course, microformats can be used and Eran Globen has shown how SIOC-type
structures can be represented using microformats [9] as well.
Thanks,
John.
--
[1] http://yadis.org/
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yadis#Yadis_capability_document
[3] http://cowbell.floe.tv/WRFS_11_20_2007.html
[4] http://sioc-project.org
[5] http://dataportability.pbwiki.com/WRFS%20Prototype%20Workspace
[6]
http://apassant.net/blog/2007/12/18/rdf-export-of-flickr-profiles-with-foaf-and-sioc/
[7] http://rdfs.org/sioc/applications
[8] http://wiki.sioc-project.org/w/SIOC_Import_Plugin
[9]
http://web.archive.org/web/20061103031603/http://hellonline.com/blog/?p=91
-----Original Message-----
From: dataportabi...@googlegroups.com on behalf of Chris Saad
Sent: Fri 04/01/2008 23:12
To: DataPortability.Public.General
Subject: [DataPortability-Public] DataPortability and SIOC
Hi John,
I thought we should start a new thread over here to discuss SIOC and
how it fits into the broader picture of DataPortability.
Let's start with the very basic principals.
Let's assume that using the DataPortability reference design (for
example) I am able to find a user's YADIS/XRDS information, and from
there identify the services/data containers they use, and from their
use oAuth to log into those services, and from there use some sort of
standardized WRFS query API to retrieve personal data from that user's
account.
What does SIOC give me in this picture that I don't have already?
Perhaps there is some overlap (and that's ok - maybe some of us need
to adjust the picture).
This is the goal of DP - not work out how this all fits together to
form a complete picture and write down the reference design - so this
is a very worthy discussion.
Look forward to your input.
Chris
Great reply, thanks!
> I think the major thrust of WRFS is simply this: there is a lot of
> semantic web tech out there. Startups are not yet using it, and I
...
> classes, or grad school. To "Average Joe Hacker", inferencing really
> is "black magic".
Unfortunately as a non-practising magician, I'm not too well up on my
inferencing spells :) SWEO [1] is currently nearing the end of its
charter, and has focused a lot on practical use cases, but we also need
to get more of the "Semantic Web for Dummies" stuff out there [1] for
average Joe.
> In the same way that TCP made it easier for HTTP, and we dont go re-
> implementing TCP/IP stacks that much anymore, I'd like to see WRFS
> become a transport, discovery, and aggregation mechanic for web data.
> RDF has a role to play, as well as other interesting technologies.
Do you think SPARQL should or could be part of a WRFS transport layer?
I also wanted to ask if there is something that you think we may be
missing in SIOC that could be added to help with the WRFS effort. I
know you mentioned in [2] that SIOC didn't solve some issues and some
parts of the (RDF) puzzle were loosely joined - what I think you meant
is that WRFS was created to bridge some of the obvious gaps? But if we
are missing something obvious in SIOC, let us know!
Thanks again, I have found your contributions and example scenarios very
illustrative and practical so far - great work.
John.
--
[1] web.media.mit.edu/~stefanm/commonsense/SemanticWeb.ppt
XML Customized tags, like:
<dog>Nena</dog>
+ RDF Relations, in triples, like:
(Nena) (is_dog_of) (Kimiko/Stefan)
+ Ontologies Hierarchies of concepts, like
mammal -> canine -> Cotton de Tulear -> Nena
+ Inference rules Like:
If (person) (owns) (dog), then (person) (cares_for) (dog)
= Semantic Web!
[2]
http://groups.google.com/group/dataportability-public/browse_frm/thread/efa8071fd5ad3b65?