From: Magnus Manske
The Cunctator wrote:
Please, please do not turn on this feature. Human-inserted metadata
is
basically unwiki. There are better approaches to dealing with the problem of categorization/computer comprehension of data. The right approaches act like magic.
Would be great to have one of those. But, AFAIK, there's no way to implement a category scheme purely by code. That mean, there *has* to
be
some interface for humans changing categories around.
I didn't say we should implement a category scheme purely by code. I can think of several better methods to providing the utility of categories than inserting hidden metadata tags.
I should have more time in the coming weeks to make some explicit suggestions--that is, mock up examples, etc.
I think that having a categorization project (a la dmoz for Wikipedia) would be a fine idea, as long as the work, and the data, are separate from the root Wikipedia.
In fact, the best thing would be to work on developing ways for outside projects to hook easily into the Wikipedia content without having to be a Bomis-hosted project, prolly by having an XML hook.
If we did so, I could imagine a group at the MIT Media Lab or the Cyc project figuring out some bad-ass way of navigating Wikipedia content, etc.
And since when is editing an article unwiki? :-)
Adding hidden content is unwiki.
What I'd like to see is an explicit wiki-statement of what is the desired functionality--that is, what is the utility missing--that a category scheme would provide.
Then we can discuss particular implementations separately--for example, is it better to use a system which has a single ontology or a system which allows for dynamic ontologies?
The Cunctator wrote:
From: Magnus Manske
The Cunctator wrote:
Please, please do not turn on this feature. Human-inserted metadata
is
basically unwiki. There are better approaches to dealing with the problem of categorization/computer comprehension of data. The right approaches act like magic.
I disagree strongly. Note that inter-language links and in-article links are already human-generated metadata, and work just fine.
Let's turn on this feature ASAP, and get people to mark articles up, so we can then experiment with ways of processing the category links. Wiki is data-driven: we can bootstrap the system by simply showing the list of category links in an article in a similar way to the list of interlanguge links.
I don't believe that adding the [[category:xxx]] feature will generate a single ontology: rather, there will be a forest of possible ontologies, creating a rich wiki-like mulch of human-relevant meaning that can then be processed by computers.
All we need for the moment is agreement that
1. [[category:xxx]] links should be permitted in articles 2. how to display them (if at all) in the current article rendering
-- Neil
The Cunctator wrote:
I didn't say we should implement a category scheme purely by code. I can think of several better methods to providing the utility of categories than inserting hidden metadata tags.
They are not hidden! Categories would, in fact, be displayed more promently than "ordinary" links, like language links. And hit "edit", then you see the matching source. If that ain't visible enough...
I should have more time in the coming weeks to make some explicit suggestions--that is, mock up examples, etc.
I think that having a categorization project (a la dmoz for Wikipedia) would be a fine idea, as long as the work, and the data, are separate from the root Wikipedia.
How about this: When you edit a page, all "meta-links" (language links, categories) are parsed out of the article text and displayed in a smalled edit box below. When you save your edit, these just get pasted at the end of the article. That way, they will work like they're separate, and still use the existing goodies (versioning etc.).
In fact, the best thing would be to work on developing ways for outside projects to hook easily into the Wikipedia content without having to be a Bomis-hosted project, prolly by having an XML hook.
If we did so, I could imagine a group at the MIT Media Lab or the Cyc project figuring out some bad-ass way of navigating Wikipedia content, etc.
If we (some distant day, after many file cabinets of consensus-finding;-) do that, then we'd run a little script and extract all the category links from the database into an XML file. That will make a great starting point for the MIT people!
Magnus
Magnus Manske wrote:
The Cunctator wrote:
I didn't say we should implement a category scheme purely by code. I can think of several better methods to providing the utility of categories than inserting hidden metadata tags.
They are not hidden! Categories would, in fact, be displayed more promently than "ordinary" links, like language links. And hit "edit", then you see the matching source. If that ain't visible enough...
I should have more time in the coming weeks to make some explicit suggestions--that is, mock up examples, etc. I think that having a categorization project (a la dmoz for Wikipedia) would be a fine idea, as long as the work, and the data, are separate from the root Wikipedia.
How about this: When you edit a page, all "meta-links" (language links, categories) are parsed out of the article text and displayed in a smalled edit box below. When you save your edit, these just get pasted at the end of the article. That way, they will work like they're separate, and still use the existing goodies (versioning etc.).
In fact, the best thing would be to work on developing ways for outside projects to hook easily into the Wikipedia content without having to be a Bomis-hosted project, prolly by having an XML hook.
If we did so, I could imagine a group at the MIT Media Lab or the Cyc project figuring out some bad-ass way of navigating Wikipedia content, etc.
If we (some distant day, after many file cabinets of consensus-finding;-) do that, then we'd run a little script and extract all the category links from the database into an XML file. That will make a great starting point for the MIT people!
Magnus
Indeed. The words "semantic bootstrapping" come to mind.
-- Neil
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