What is interesting about categories, is that no matter how shaky the
system is, these are pretty much the only meta data that there is for
articles, because as I said before, just about every article has one.
The weakness of DBpedia is that it is only programmed to pick up
articles with infoboxes, and there just aren't that many of those.

2013/5/7, Michael Hale <hale.michael.jr@live.com>:

> Pardon the spam, but it is only 2000 categories. Four steps would be 25000.
>

> From: hale.michael.jr@live.com
> To: wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Date: Tue, 7 May 2013 12:10:51 -0400
> Subject: Re: [Wikidata-l] Question about wikipedia categories.
>
>
>
>
> I spoke too soon. That is the only loop at two steps. But if you go out
> three steps (25000 categories) you find another 23 loops. Organizational
> studies <-> organizations, housing -> household behavior and family
> economics -> home -> housing, religious pluralism <-> religious persecution,
> secularism <-> religious pluralism, learning -> inductive reasoning ->
> scientific theories -> sociological theories -> social systems -> society ->
> education -> learning, etc.
>

> From: hale.michael.jr@live.com
> To: wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Date: Tue, 7 May 2013 11:31:24 -0400
> Subject: Re: [Wikidata-l] Question about wikipedia categories.
>
>
>
>
> I don't know if these are useful, but if we go two steps from the
> fundamental categories on the English Wikipedia we find several loops.
> Knowledge contains information and information contains knowledge, for
> example. Not allowing loops might force you to have to give different ranks
> to two categories that are equally important.
>

> Date: Tue, 7 May 2013 16:41:45 +0200
> From: hellmann@informatik.uni-leipzig.de
> To: wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikidata-l] Question about wikipedia categories.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>     Am 07.05.2013 14:01, schrieb emw:
>
>
>
>       "Yes, there is and should be more than one
>         "ontology", and that is
>
>         already the case with categories, which are so flexible they can
>         loop
>
>         around and become their own grandfather."
>
>
>
>         Can someone give an example of where it would be useful to have
>         a cycle in an ontology?
>
>
>
>     Navigation! How else are you going to find back where you came from
>     ;)
>
>     Wikipieda categories were invented originally for navigation,
>     right?  Cycles are not soo bad, then...
>
>     Now we live in a new era.
>
>     -- Sebastian
>
>
>
>
>
>
>       To my knowledge cycles are considered a problem in
>         categorization, and would be a problem in a large-scaled
>         ontology-based classification system as well.  My impression has
>         been that Wikidata's ontology would be a directed acyclic graph
>         (DAG) with a single root at entity (thing).
>
>
>
>
>
>
>         On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 3:03 AM, Mathieu
>           Stumpf <psychoslave@culture-libre.org>
>           wrote:
>
>           Le
>             2013-05-06 18:13, Jane Darnell a écrit :
>
>
>
>                 Yes, there is and should be more than one "ontology",
>                 and that is
>
>                 already the case with categories, which are so flexible
>                 they can loop
>
>                 around and become their own grandfather.
>
>
>
>
>
>             To my mind, categories indeed feet better how we think. I'm
>             not sure "grandfather" is a canonical term in such a graph,
>             I think it's simply a cycle[1].
>
>
>
>             [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_%28graph_theory%29
>
>
>
>
>
>                 Dbpedia complaints should be discussed on that list, I
>                 am not a
>
>                 dbpedia user, though I think it's a useful project to
>                 have around.
>
>
>
>
>
>             Sorry I didn't want to make off topic messages, nor sound
>             complaining. I just wanted to give my feedback, hopefuly a
>             constructive one, on a message posted on this list. I
>             transfered my message to dbpedia mailing list.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>                   Sent from my iPad
>
>
>
>                   On May 6, 2013, at 12:00 PM, Jona Christopher
>                   Sahnwaldt <jc@sahnwaldt.de>
>                   wrote:
>
>
>
>
>                     Hi Mathieu,
>
>
>
>                     I think the DBpedia mailing list is a better place
>                     for discussing the
>
>                     DBpedia ontology:
>
>
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dbpedia-discussion
>
>                     Drop us a message if you have questions or concerns.
>                     I'm sure someone
>
>                     will answer your questions. I am not an ontology
>                     expert, so I'll just
>
>                     leave it at that.
>
>
>
>                     JC
>
>
>
>                     On 6 May 2013 11:01, Mathieu Stumpf
> <psychoslave@culture-libre.org>
>                     wrote:
>
>
>                       Le 2013-05-06 00:09, Jona Christopher Sahnwaldt a
>                       écrit :
>
>
>
>
>                         On 5 May 2013 20:48, Mathieu Stumpf
> <psychoslave@culture-libre.org>
>                         wrote:
>
>
>
>
>                           Le dimanche 05 mai 2013 à 16:28 +0200, Jona
>                           Christopher Sahnwaldt a
>
>
>
>
>                             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
>
>
>
>
>
>
>                           Do you maintain several "ontologies" in
>                           parallel? Otherwise, how do you
>
>                           plane to avoid a "cultural bias", and how do
>                           you think it may impact the
>
>                           other projects? I mean, if you try to
>                           establish "one semantic hierarchy
>
>                           to rule them all", couldn't it arise cultural
>                           diversity concerns?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>                         We maintain only one version of the ontology. We
>                         have a pretty diverse
>
>                         community, so I hope the editors will take care
>                         of that. So far, the
>
>                         ontology does have a Western bias though, more
>                         or less like the
>
>                         English Wikipedia or the current list of
>                         Wikidata properties.
>
>
>
>                         JC
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>                       I can't see how your community could take care of
>                       it when they have no
>
>                       choice but not contribute at all or contribute to
>                       one ontology whose
>
>                       structure already defined main axes. To my mind,
>                       it's a structural bias, you
>
>                       can't go out of it without going out of the
>                       structure. As far as I
>
>                       understand, the current "ontology"[1] you are
>                       using is a tree with a central
>
>                       root, and not a DAG or any other graph. In my
>                       humble opinion, if you need a
>
>                       central element/leaf, it should be precisely
>                       "ontology"/representation,
>
>                       under which one may build several world
>                       representation networks, and even
>
>                       more relations between this networks which would
>                       represent how one may links
>
>                       concepts of different cultures.
>
>
>
>                       To my mind the problem is much more important than
>                       with a local Wikipedia
>
>                       (or other Wikimedia projects). Because each
>                       project can expose subjects
>
>                       through the collective representation of this
>                       local community. But with
>
>                       wikidata central role, isn't there a risk of
>                       "short-circuit" this local
>
>                       expressions?
>
>
>
>                       Also, what is your metric to measure a community
>                       diversity? I don't want to
>
>                       be pessimist, nor to look like I blame the current
>                       wikidata community, but
>
>                       it doesn't seems evident to me that it currently
>                       represent human diversity.
>
>                       I think that there are probably a lot of
>                       economical/social/educational/etc
>
>                       barriers that may seems like nothing to anyone
>                       already involved in the
>
>                       wikidata community, but which are gigantic for
>                       those
>
>                       non-part-of-the-community people.
>
>
>
>                       Now to give my own opinion of the
>                       representation/ontology you are building,
>
>                       I would say that it's based on exactly the
>                       opposite premisses I would use.
>
>                       Wikidata Q1 is universe, then you have earth,
>                       life, death and human, and it
>
>                       seems to me that the ontology you are building
>                       have the same
>
>                       anthropocentrist bias of the universe. To my mind,
>                       should I peak a central
>
>                       concept to begin with, I would not take universe,
>                       but perception, because
>
>                       perceptions are what is given to you before you
>                       even have a concept for it.
>
>                       Even within solipsism you can't deny perceptions
>                       (at least as long as the
>
>                       solipcist pretend to exist, but if she doesn't,
>                       who care about the opinion
>
>                       of a non-existing person :P). Well I wouldn't want
>                       to flood this list with
>
>                       epistemological concerns, but it just to say that
>                       even for a someone like me
>
>                       that you may probably categorise as
>                       western-minded, this "ontology" looks
>
>                       like the opposite of my personal opinion on the
>                       matter. I don't say that I
>
>                       am right and the rest of the community is wrong. I
>                       say that I doubt that you
>
>                       can build an ontology which would fit every
>                       cultural represantions into a
>
>                       tree of concepts. But maybe it's not your goal in
>                       the first place, so you
>
>                       may explain me what is your goal then.
>
>
>
>                       [1] I use quotes because it's seems to me that
>                       what most IT people call an
>
>                       ontology, is what I would call a representation.
>
>
>
>
>
>                       _______________________________________________
>
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>                 --
>
>                 Association Culture-Libre
>
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>     --
>
>       Dipl. Inf. Sebastian Hellmann
>
>       Department of Computer Science, University of Leipzig
>
>       Events: NLP & DBpedia 2013
>       (http://nlp-dbpedia2013.blogs.aksw.org, Deadline: *July 8th*)
>
>       Venha para a Alemanha como PhD:
>       http://bis.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/csf
>
>       Projects: http://nlp2rdf.org , http://linguistics.okfn.org ,
>       http://dbpedia.org/Wiktionary , http://dbpedia.org
>
>       Homepage: http://bis.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/SebastianHellmann
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