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The reason why the semantic web is even more fundamental: You can't get everyone to agree on one schema. Period. Even if everyone is motivated to, they can't ag

by jerf 4y ago

The reason why the semantic web is even more fundamental: You can't get everyone to agree on one schema. Period. Even if everyone is motivated to, they can't agree, and if there is even a hint of a reason to try to distinguish oneself or strategically fail to label data or label it incorrectly, it becomes even more impossible. (I mean, the "semantic web" has foundered so completely and utterly on the problem of even barely working at all that it hasn't hardly had to face up to the simplest spam attacks of the early 2000s, and it's not even remotely capable of playing in the 2022 space.) Agreement here includes not just abstract agreement in a meeting about what a schema is, but complete agreement when the rubber hits the road such that one can rely on the data coming from multiple providers as if they all came from one. Nothing else matters. It doesn't matter what the serialization of the schema that can't exist is. It doesn't matter what inference you can do on the data that doesn't exist. It doesn't matter what constraints the schema that can't exist specifies. None of that matters. Next in line would be the economic impracticality of expecting everyone to label their data out of the goodness of their hearts with this perfectly-agreed-upon schema, but the Semantic Web can't even get far enough for this to be its biggest problem! Semantic web is a whole bunch of clouds and wishes and dreams built on a foundation that not only does not exist, but can not exist. If you want to rehabilitate it, go get people to agree (even in principle!) on a single schema. You won't rehabilitate it. But you'll understand what I'm saying a lot more. And you'll get to save all the time you were planning on spending building up the higher levels.

lyxsus 4y ago
There're a lot of wrong perspectives on the topic in this thread, but this one I like the most. When someone starts to talk about "agreeing on a single schema/ontology" it's a solid indicator that that someone needs to get back to rtfm (which I agree a bit too cryptic). The point here is that in semantic web there're supposed to be lots and lots of different ontologies/schemas by design, often describing the same data. SW spec stack has many well-separated layers. To address that problem, an OWL/RDFS is created.
- jerf 4y ago
  "The point here is that in semantic web there're supposed to be lots and lots of different ontologies/schemas by design, often describing the same data." Then that is just another reason it will fail. We already have islands of data. The problem with those islands of data is not that we don't have a unified expression of the data, the problem is the meaning is isolated. The lack of a single input format is little more than annoyance and the sort of thing that tends to resolve itself over time even without a centralized consortium, because that's the easy part. Without agreement, there is no there there, and none of the promised virtues can manifest. If what you say is the semantic web is the semantic web (which certainly doesn't match what everyone else says it is), then it is failing because it doesn't solve the right problem, though that isn't surprising because it's not solvable. If what you describe is the semantic web, the Semantic Web is "JSON", and as solved as it ever will be. A "knowing wizard correcting the foolish mortals" pose would be a lot more plausible if the "semantic web" had more to show for its decades, actual accomplishments even remotely in line with the promises constantly being made.
  - lyxsus 4y ago
    so if it tries to have a unified ontology that's why it's destined to fail, but if it's designed to working with many small ontologies… that's why it will fail! lol, but you can't have it both ways. In SW, the "semantic" part is subjective to an interpreter. You can have different data sources, partially mapped using owl to the ontology that an interpreter (your program) understands. That allows you to integrate new data sources independently from the program if they use a known ontology seamlessly or create a mapping of a set of concepts into a known ontology (which you would have do anyway in other approach). So in theory, data consumption capabilities (and reasoning) grows as your data sources evolve. > If what you describe is the semantic web, the Semantic Web is "JSON", and solved. It has nothing to do with JSON, JSON-LD, XML, Turtle, N3, rdfa, microdata and etc.. RDF is a data model, but those are serialisation formats. That's another interesting point, because half of the people talk only about formats and not the full stack. That's not a reasonable discussion. > which certainly doesn't match what everyone else says it is oh, I know it and it's upsetting.
leoxv 4y ago
Wikidata is already providing a nearly globally accepted store of concept IDs. Wikipedia adds a lot of depth to this knowledge graph too. Schema.org has become very popular and Google is backing this project. Wordpress and others are already using it. Governments are requiring not just "open data", but also "open linked-data" (which can then be ingested into a SPARQL engine), because they want this data to be usable across organizations. The financial industry are moving to the FIBO ontology, and on and on...
jeremiem 4y ago
I don't think it's impossible to agree on one schema but it's very expensive to do so and requires tools from the study of philosophy. While I don't work in the domain, the ontologies in the OBO Foundry and all the ones deriving from Basic Formal Ontology[0] have some level of compatibility that make their integration possible. Still far from "one schema to rule them all" but it shows that agreement can be achieved. There are other initiatives that I'm aware of that could also qualify as a step in the right direction: "e-Government Core Vocabularies" and the "European Materials Modelling Ontology". I hope and want to believe that, sooner than later, we will have formalized definitions for most practical aspects of our lives. [0] https://basic-formal-ontology.org/users.html https://basic-formal-ontology.org/users.html

by jerf 4y ago

lyxsus 4y ago

There're a lot of wrong perspectives on the topic in this thread, but this one I like the most. When someone starts to talk about "agreeing on a single schema/ontology" it's a solid indicator that that someone needs to get back to rtfm (which I agree a bit too cryptic). The point here is that in semantic web there're supposed to be lots and lots of different ontologies/schemas by design, often describing the same data. SW spec stack has many well-separated layers. To address that problem, an OWL/RDFS is created.

jerf 4y ago
"The point here is that in semantic web there're supposed to be lots and lots of different ontologies/schemas by design, often describing the same data." Then that is just another reason it will fail. We already have islands of data. The problem with those islands of data is not that we don't have a unified expression of the data, the problem is the meaning is isolated. The lack of a single input format is little more than annoyance and the sort of thing that tends to resolve itself over time even without a centralized consortium, because that's the easy part. Without agreement, there is no there there, and none of the promised virtues can manifest. If what you say is the semantic web is the semantic web (which certainly doesn't match what everyone else says it is), then it is failing because it doesn't solve the right problem, though that isn't surprising because it's not solvable. If what you describe is the semantic web, the Semantic Web is "JSON", and as solved as it ever will be. A "knowing wizard correcting the foolish mortals" pose would be a lot more plausible if the "semantic web" had more to show for its decades, actual accomplishments even remotely in line with the promises constantly being made.
- lyxsus 4y ago
  so if it tries to have a unified ontology that's why it's destined to fail, but if it's designed to working with many small ontologies… that's why it will fail! lol, but you can't have it both ways. In SW, the "semantic" part is subjective to an interpreter. You can have different data sources, partially mapped using owl to the ontology that an interpreter (your program) understands. That allows you to integrate new data sources independently from the program if they use a known ontology seamlessly or create a mapping of a set of concepts into a known ontology (which you would have do anyway in other approach). So in theory, data consumption capabilities (and reasoning) grows as your data sources evolve. > If what you describe is the semantic web, the Semantic Web is "JSON", and solved. It has nothing to do with JSON, JSON-LD, XML, Turtle, N3, rdfa, microdata and etc.. RDF is a data model, but those are serialisation formats. That's another interesting point, because half of the people talk only about formats and not the full stack. That's not a reasonable discussion. > which certainly doesn't match what everyone else says it is oh, I know it and it's upsetting.

leoxv 4y ago

Wikidata is already providing a nearly globally accepted store of concept IDs. Wikipedia adds a lot of depth to this knowledge graph too. Schema.org has become very popular and Google is backing this project. Wordpress and others are already using it. Governments are requiring not just "open data", but also "open linked-data" (which can then be ingested into a SPARQL engine), because they want this data to be usable across organizations. The financial industry are moving to the FIBO ontology, and on and on...

jeremiem 4y ago

I don't think it's impossible to agree on one schema but it's very expensive to do so and requires tools from the study of philosophy. While I don't work in the domain, the ontologies in the OBO Foundry and all the ones deriving from Basic Formal Ontology[0] have some level of compatibility that make their integration possible. Still far from "one schema to rule them all" but it shows that agreement can be achieved. There are other initiatives that I'm aware of that could also qualify as a step in the right direction: "e-Government Core Vocabularies" and the "European Materials Modelling Ontology". I hope and want to believe that, sooner than later, we will have formalized definitions for most practical aspects of our lives. [0] https://basic-formal-ontology.org/users.html https://basic-formal-ontology.org/users.html