Some of our insights into the SMW RDF export (which we found to be
difficult to configure and use):
1. Probably most relevant: total lack of support for xml:lang, which would
have been essential to our purposes.
Wikidata should be planned with support for language in mind.
2. We also found that we had serious problems with managing structure, e.g.
record and subobject. Due to the need to obtain this information
recursively by repeated calls, and because there is no control on the URI
created for these calls, some easy solutions like applying clean-up xslt
will not work. This may not be relevant for wikidata.
3. At first the lack of variable datatype (datatype is fixed per property)
is acceptable. However, we found this a major problem with respect to the
forced distinction between datatype:wiki-page and datatype:global URI
properties. Essentially, SMW forces one to introduce for a semantic
property (e.g. dc:creator) two distinct dummy properties:
property:creator_page and property:creator_uri. Since in RDF export the
artificial distinction between pages and URIs disappears, it would be
desirable to merge them, but only one of them can be set to an imported
vocabulary.
I think this may be relevant to wikidata, where a similar distinction
between properties pointing to a local wikidata item and a global resource
exists.
Gregor
(PS: If any of the problems above in reality does not exist in SMW and we
simply overlooked the solution, I am very happy for corrections, of course!)
--
---------------------------------
Dr. G. Hagedorn
+49-(0)30-8304 2220 (work)
+49-(0)30-831 5785 (private)
http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregorhagedorn
https://profiles.google.com/g.m.hagedorn/about
This communication, together with any attachments, is made entirely on my
own behalf and in no way should be deemed to express official positions of
my employer. It is intended only for the person(s) to whom it is addressed.
Redistributing or publishing it without permission may be a violation of
copyright or privacy rights.