Comments on: ORM, RDF, and Jon Postel http://www.rossbates.com/2009/07/orm-rdf-and-postel/ Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:36:54 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Ross http://www.rossbates.com/2009/07/orm-rdf-and-postel/comment-page-1/#comment-6 Ross Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:01:38 +0000 http://www.rossbates.com/?p=249#comment-6 Chris - thanks for the follow up. The whole idea of putting more trust in people to “say anything about anything” has been on my mind for a while and our conversation spurred me into putting something down. Didn't intend to tag you as "don't trust users" guy, as you point out there's more to the story. You make some really good points about the flip side of giving users more power. Things like planning for recovery when people do make mistakes, designing interfaces that guide/suggest, and using education as a guiding principle behind the "say anything" philosophy of the semantic web. Good thoughts. Chris – thanks for the follow up. The whole idea of putting more trust in people to “say anything about anything” has been on my mind for a while and our conversation spurred me into putting something down. Didn’t intend to tag you as “don’t trust users” guy, as you point out there’s more to the story. You make some really good points about the flip side of giving users more power. Things like planning for recovery when people do make mistakes, designing interfaces that guide/suggest, and using education as a guiding principle behind the “say anything” philosophy of the semantic web. Good thoughts.

]]> By: Christopher St. John http://www.rossbates.com/2009/07/orm-rdf-and-postel/comment-page-1/#comment-5 Christopher St. John Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:37:57 +0000 http://www.rossbates.com/?p=249#comment-5 So, @cks here. What I meant was more along the lines of "it's just plain impolite to give somebody a full-sized flamethrower to light a candle" It's not that you don't trust them (maybe they're an expert with a flamethrower), but a situation where it's easier to do the wrong thing than the right thing is non-optimal. But at least with a flamethrower it's pretty obvious when you've messed up. A better parallel with RDFS/OWL might be ripping the labels off all your canned goods, then letting the cook know that there might be a container of (unlabeled) rat poison in there someplace, so "you just be careful, ok?" Current semantic web technology is good at handling "anyone can say anything about anything", but only at the expense of nearly complete credulity. We need better tools to help users fully understand the consequences of their actions (label the rat poison?) and handle the fallout (provide fire extinguishers along with the flame thrower?) So, @cks here. What I meant was more along the lines of “it’s just plain impolite to give somebody a full-sized flamethrower to light a candle”

It’s not that you don’t trust them (maybe they’re an expert with a flamethrower), but a situation where it’s easier to do the wrong thing than the right thing is non-optimal.

But at least with a flamethrower it’s pretty obvious when you’ve messed up. A better parallel with RDFS/OWL might be ripping the labels off all your canned goods, then letting the cook know that there might be a container of (unlabeled) rat poison in there someplace, so “you just be careful, ok?”

Current semantic web technology is good at handling “anyone can say anything about anything”, but only at the expense of nearly complete credulity. We need better tools to help users fully understand the consequences of their actions (label the rat poison?) and handle the fallout (provide fire extinguishers along with the flame thrower?)

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