> From: jc@sahnwaldt.de
> Date: Sun, 5 May 2013 16:28:14 +0200
> To: wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikidata-l] Question about wikipedia categories.
>
> Hi Pat,
>
> I've been involved with DBpedia for several years, so these are
> interesting thoughts.
>
> On 5 May 2013 01:25, Patrick Cassidy <pat@micra.com> wrote:
> > If one is interested in a functional “category” system, it would be very
> > helpful to have a good logic-based ontology as the backbone.
> >
> > I haven’t looked recently, but when I inquired about the ontology used by
> > DBpedia a year ago, I was referred to “dbpedia-ontology.owl”, an ontology in
> > the format of the “semantic web” ontology format OWL. The OWL format is
> > excellent for simple purposes, but the dbpedia-ontology.owl (at that time)
> > was not well-structured (being very polite).
>
> Do you mean just the file dbpedia-ontology.owl or the DBpedia ontology
> in general? We still use OWL as our main format for publishing the
> ontology. The file is generated automatically. Maybe the generation
> process could be improved.
>
> > I did inquire as to who was
> > maintaining the ontology, and had a hard time figuring out how to help bring
> > it up to professional standards. But it was like punching jello, nothing to
> > grasp onto. I gave up, having other useful things to do with my time.
>
> The ontology is maintained by a community that everyone can join at
> http://mappings.dbpedia.org/ . An overview of the current class
> hierarchy is here:
> http://mappings.dbpedia.org/server/ontology/classes/ . You're more
> than welcome to help! I think talk pages are not used enough on the
> mappings wiki, so if you have ideas, misgivings or questions about the
> DBpedia ontology, the place to go is probably the mailing list:
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dbpedia-discussion
>
> Thanks!
>
> Christopher
>
> >
> >
> >
> > Perhaps it is time now, with more experience in hand, to rethink the
> > category system starting with basics. This is not as hard as it sounds.
> > It may require some changes where there is ambiguity or logical
> > inconsistency, but mostly it only necessary to link the Wikipedia categories
> > to an ontology based on a well-structured and logically sound foundation
> > ontology (also referred to as an “upper ontology”), that supplies the basic
> > categories and relations. Such an ontology can provide the basic concepts,
> > whose labels can be translated into any terminology that any local user
> > wants to use. There are several well-structured foundation ontologies,
> > based on over twenty years of research, but the one I suggest is the one I
> > am most familiar with (which I created over the past seven years), called
> > COSMO. The files at http://micra.com/COSMO will provide the ontology itself
> > (“COSMO.owl”, in OWL) and papers describing the basic principles. COSMO
> > is structured to be a “primitives-based foundation ontology”, containing all
> > of the “semantic primitives” needed to describe anything one wants to talk
> > about. All other categories are structured as logical combinations of the
> > basic elements. Its inventory of primitives is probably incomplete, but is
> > able to describe everything I have been concerned with for years (7000
> > categories and 800 relations thus far) can always be supplemented as
> > required for new fields. With an OWL ontology, queries can be executed by
> > any of several logic-based utilities. Making the query system easy for
> > those who prefer not to build SPARQL queries (including myself) would
> > require some programming, but that is a miniscule effort compared to what
> > has already been put into the DBPedia database. Tools such as “Protégé”
> > make it easy to work with an OWL ontology, and there is a web site where an
> > OWL ontology can be developed collaboratively.
> >
> >
> >
> > I will be willing to put some effort into this and assist anyone who wants
> > to used the COSMO ontology for this project. If those who are in charge of
> > maintaining the ontology (is anyone?) would like to discuss this at greater
> > length, send me an email or telephone me. All those who are interested in
> > this topic may also feel free to contact me, or to discuss this thread on
> > the list. I suggest the thread title “Foundation Ontology”.
> >
> >
> >
> > Pat
> >
> >
> >
> > Patrick Cassidy
> >
> > MICRA Inc.
> >
> > cassidy@micra.com
> >
> > 908-561-3416
> >
> >
> >
> > From: wikidata-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org
> > [mailto:wikidata-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Michael Hale
> > Sent: Saturday, May 04, 2013 2:57 AM
> > To: Discussion list for the Wikidata project.
> >
> >
> > Subject: Re: [Wikidata-l] Question about wikipedia categories.
> >
> >
> >
> > I think it's important to consider the distinction between a category system
> > and semantic queries. I think it's very likely that DBpedia and Wikidata
> > will converge over time and develop a simple enough query interface that
> > causes fewer people to use the category system because we will be able to
> > automatically generate relevant queries related to a given article. DBpedia
> > currently has a lot more data, but Wikidata is important for many editing
> > scenarios. Also, in the future I think there will be a lot of content
> > scenarios where it is natural to start by putting data into Wikidata and
> > then including it in articles instead of just extracting information from
> > articles. If you are familiar with query languages you can get comfortable
> > with the DBpedia SPARQL examples in a few minutes, but for a typical reader
> > that just wants to go from an article about a person to a list of similar
> > people it is hard to beat scrolling down and just clicking on a category. I
> > did a test query on DBpedia to plot all sports cars by their engine sizes,
> > and I think for the types of things it enables you to do it is totally worth
> > the learning curve. That being said, I think the category system has a lot
> > of potential for better browsing scenarios as opposed to queries. I've been
> > making a tool that mixes the article view data with the category system. You
> > can see a video of the basic idea here and a screenshot of football league
> > popularity split by language.
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Wakebrdkid/Popular_category_browsing I'm
> > currently multiplying the Chinese traffic by 30 to try and account for Baidu
> > Baike.
> >
> >> Date: Sat, 4 May 2013 08:14:54 +0200
> >> From: jane023@gmail.com
> >> To: wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> Subject: Re: [Wikidata-l] Question about wikipedia categories.
> >>
> >> Wondering exactly the same thing - my frustrations with categories
> >> began about three years ago and it seems I am surprised monthly by
> >> severe limitations to this outdated apparatus. I am a heavy category
> >> user, but I would love to be able to kick it out the door in favour of
> >> a more structured method. As far as I can tell, there is very little
> >> synchronisation among language Wikipedias of category trees, and being
> >> able to apply a central structure to all Wikipedias through Wikidata
> >> sounds like a great idea, and one which would not disturb the current
> >> category trees we already have, but supplement them. As I see it, some
> >> category structures are OK, but when categories get big, people split
> >> them in non-standard ways, causing problems like this recent
> >> media-hype regarding female novellists. I think that it's great this
> >> is in the news in this way, because I am sure that most Wikipedia
> >> readers never knew we had categories, and this is a great introduction
> >> to them, as well as an invitation to edit Wikipedia.
> >>
> >> 2013/5/4, Chris Maloney <voldrani@gmail.com>:
> >> > I am just curious if there has ever been discussion about the
> >> > potential for reimplementing / replacing the category system in
> >> > Wikipedia with semantic tagging in WikiData. It seem to me that the
> >> > recent kerfuffle with regards to "American women writers" would not
> >> > have happened if the pages were tagged with simple RDF assertions
> >> > instead of these convoluted categories. I know, of course, that it
> >> > would be a huge undertaking, but I just don't see how the category
> >> > system can continue to scale (I'm amazed it has scaled as well as it
> >> > has already, of course).
> >> >
> >> > I am trying to learn more about wikidata, and have perused the various
> >> > infos and FAQs for the last two hours, and can't find any discussion
> >> > of this particular issue.
> >> >
> >> > -- Chris
> >> >
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> >> >
> >>
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