[TagCommons-WG] GRDDL, rel-tag, and the Tag Ontology

[Harry Halpin]

Everyone,

    I'm Harry Halpin, Chair of the GRDDL (as in "griddle") W3C Working
Group. GRDDL's mission is to provide an easy, low-cost way to convert
microformats to Semantic Web data [1,2] Of course, one of the most
popular microformats is "rel-tag." The role of GRDDL is basically to
connect XML and XHTML via a transformation to some Semantic Web language
like RDF. In particular, we're working on transformations [1] from
various common microformats to various RDF vocabularies, and creating
those when they don't exist. All someone has to do is add a "link" (in
the "head" of the HTML) that points to the transformation, and so one
could use rel-tag in a page and get a tag ontology for free.

    Furthermore, with the use of GRDDL's ability to put the
transformation in either namespace documents or profile documents at
profile URIs, individuals who create content don't have to explicitly
add any "GRDDL links" to their HTML with microformats in order for
applications. Instead, we can just put a GRDDL transformation to a tag
ontology in the page at rel-tag's profile URI, and we should license all
rel-tag data to tag ontology data.

    Although, looking at rel-tag, I don't see a profile URI, although I
do see what appears to be some sort XMDP profie...Is Kevin Marks in this
group?

    Lastly, the most important thing I have to offer this group is an
informal deadline - the GRDDL WG closes in the 3rd quarter of 2007, and
I would like to have some sort of transformation from rel-tag to some
tag ontology by then.

    Also, if interested in GRDDL, do give our specifications [1,2] a
read and send comments to public-grddl-comments at w3.org.

    Note that my cycles to devote to this group will be a bit limited
till we get GRDDL to Last Call, so (please see - and better yet - send
comments to public-grddl-comments at w3.org!), but after we get GRDDL more
or less on the standards track (hopefully by the end of the month), I'll
move a good bit of my energy to tag ontologies.

       thanks!
             harry

[1] http://esw.w3.org/topic/MicroModels
[2] http://www.w3.org/2004/01/rdxh/spec
[3] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/grddl-wg/doc29/primer.html


Tom Gruber wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
>  
>
> Welcome to the Tag Commons Working Group.   You are getting this
> message because you have indicated to me you want to participate in
> this effort. I have subscribed you to the list
>
>  
>
>             "Tag Commons Working Group" <wg at tagcommons.org
> <mailto:wg at tagcommons.org>>
>
>  
>
> The next message you get from this list should be an invitation with
> your password.
>
>  
>
> It's taken me far too long to get this group together, but I feel that
> we now have critical mass of people with needs, people with ideas,
> people who have already done work, and people with time (just a
> little!) to get something done.  Our purpose is to work out an
> agreement on a set of conventions for sharing tag data across
> independently developed applications/sites/data sources.  
>
>  
>
> I commit to moderate this conversation and maintain a blog of our
> activities <http://tagcommons.org <http://tagcommons.org/>>.   I
> welcome the posts of others who have standalone essays to post as
> well, but for dialog and work in progress I would like to use this
> discussion list.
>
>  
>
> This list is private to members, but I will subscribe anyone who
> expresses an interest and who is not a spammer or the like.  If you
> think this would be of interest to someone else, please refer them to
> me or have them sign up at
> http://lists.tagcommons.org/listinfo.cgi/wg-tagcommons.org
>
>  
>
> This is not a standards body, although there are people from standards
> organizations participating.  I would like to make this extremely
> lightweight and quick to results.  Despite the slow start, I now have
> time to commit to make this happen.
>
>  
>
> Toward that end, in the following messages I will start threads on the
> following topics:
>
>  
>
>     * Use cases for sharing tag data
>     * Roles for standard formats, ontologies, namespaces, etc.
>     * Existing proposals for formats, ontologies, namespaces, etc.
>
>  
>
> In other words, let's start the conversation by saying what we need,
> how we might work together to achieve that need, what work we can
> adopt or build on, and then plan the next steps.
>
>  
>
> Each one of you on this list have something important to say about at
> least one of these topics, so please speak up so we can get the ball
> rolling.
>
>  
>
> Thank you for your patience and attention.
>
>  
>
> Tom Gruber
>
>  
>


-- 
		-harry

Harry Halpin,  University of Edinburgh 
http://www.ibiblio.org/hhalpin 6B522426