Hello,
Can/should wiki subject indexes be a functional requirement of the wikidata project, or of some other? I think navigating a wiki today without a subject index is difficult, to say the least. A subject index seems such a critical component for information libraries! WP's portals are a nice step but still, users seem at the mercy of topical links inserted by authors of the portal. How much better it would be to have a taxonomy of subjects that can be associated with a page by ITS author so that the page can be found independently of portals.
The semantics of SKOS, I suggest, should be baked in to wikis. I also suggest faceted UDC [1] or similar inter/national classification scheme be one of many that can be referenced by users when browsing any wiki. I envision that Subjects would be defined in a namespace as fundamental to a wiki as the Category namespace is. Basically, I can see requesting some software to correlate my own subject taxonomy with interwikis' (WP's) tasxonomies, so that I as a user don't have to manually search each interwiki for content relative to my personal list of subjects.
Is this an idea before its time, something already considered, or something to consider now? Thanks for your thoughts. -- john
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Decimal_Classification
On Mar 31, 2012, at 02:00 , John McClure wrote:
Hello,
Can/should wiki subject indexes be a functional requirement of the wikidata project, or of some other? I think navigating a wiki today without a subject index is difficult, to say the least. A subject index seems such a critical component for information libraries! WP's portals are a nice step but still, users seem at the mercy of topical links inserted by authors of the portal. How much better it would be to have a taxonomy of subjects that can be associated with a page by ITS author so that the page can be found independently of portals.
I see a major issue with the user interface of this (though I agree with your assessment). It has to be very easy to set the right subject, otherwise people will not do it.
The dbpedia people extract some rough classification of the articles. It is not perfect, but may be worth looking at that, too.
The semantics of SKOS, I suggest, should be baked in to wikis. I also suggest faceted UDC [1] or similar inter/national classification scheme be one of many that can be referenced by users when browsing any wiki. I envision that Subjects would be defined in a namespace as fundamental to a wiki as the Category namespace is. Basically, I can see requesting some software to correlate my own subject taxonomy with interwikis' (WP's) tasxonomies, so that I as a user don't have to manually search each interwiki for content relative to my personal list of subjects.
I think the project should reach out to libraries, ie, real experts. The library world is currently looking at the issues of how to redefine cataloging standards, how to make them Linked Data friendly, etc; because that work is still in flux, it may be the ideal time to talk to them. In view of the importance of WP, libraries cannot allow themselves to ignore this (I believe...)
Ivan
Is this an idea before its time, something already considered, or something to consider now? Thanks for your thoughts. -- john
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Decimal_Classification
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Lydia,
I have a question. I am interested in "multilinguistics". I define multilinguistics as the cybernetics of the mecalanguages, i.e. the operational, computer applications and strategic pragmatic coexistence of natural (and artificial) languages that can be used between man/man/machine/machine. I am, therefore, interested in stabilizing a table of all the (meca)languages names and specifics, and I have been working on the preparation of a WikiLinguae project for years in trying to converge/cooperate the teams of ISO, private, and Open Source tables, within the loose framework of the MAAYA network (Members: http://maaya.org/spip.php?article40http://maaya.org/spip.php?article40, including UNESCO, ITU, ACALAN, LinguaMon, Union Latine, Francophonie, AUF, etc.) as well as to work on script homography, which is a DNS problem, etc.
This problem is extended with the support of IDNA2008 consistency (IDNs), e-mail addresses, variants (i.e. the same term with different printings, or different Unicode Points). I would like to know if this area is part of the Wikidata project, or of the way it is planned to address it), polynymy issues (i.e. strict cross/languages synonyms), variances (i.e. the variation of the semantics of a term, or the appearance of a new term) both in data definitions and in data values.
I would also like to know, from the very beginning, if this WikiLinguae project was to be kept separate, should/could ally with Wikidata, or if Wikidata had its own project regarding multilinguistics (*). I note here that it should be both multilinguistic (to document every language) and polylingual (to document them in every language). In addition, should there be a Wikimedia extension/version of the "locale" files that would be documented cooperatively (in cooperation or not with other "locale" directories
Thank you. jfc
(*) Multilinguistics by nature is a semiotic discipline with semantic, syntax, and pragmatics. It treats every language as equal to the others. It should not be confused with "globalization" (eg. Unicode), which is:
* the "internationalization" of the medium (support of ISO 10646) within an English framework + the localization of the ends (ISO 15897) + the filtering of linguistic quoted exchanges as per their language (ISO 639), scripts (15924), and administrative authority as a cultural referent (ISO 3166:1). * and results in langtags (RFC 5646).
Globalization and an open langtag compatible format should be sufficient at this stage (due to the limited number of Wikipedia languages) if there is no specific need for Wikimedia formats or locale file extensions. Also, the WikiLinguae project seeks to be a wiki-based ISO 11179 conformant reference "spine" in the matter of languages and cultures: this is not a small task and may still call for time.