Date: Sat Sep 08 2001 - 08:28:25 PDT
Unfinished Revolution
unrev-II@egroups.com
OHS DKR Project
SRI International
333 Ravenswood Avenue
Menlo Park, CA 94025
| Subject: | Semantic Community Web Portal |
I have a confession to make.
I have a login password for Bernard's web site. I have yet to use it. Why? Because I am lazy. It is far easier to hit NewMessage in Eudora and type "unrev" and then ship off some gem, than it is to fire up my browser, type in enough of a url to get the browser to remember where I want to go, then log in, then navigate to some appropriate page, then offer up some gem. Eric Armstrong has been right all along: email is easier.
But, email is far less useful in a couple of senses: it's not well organized (in contrast to a well-designed web site as is Bernard's), and it tends to allow rambling, which, I think, calls for some structure, as for example IBIS provides.
But then, try to put IBIS threads into email and you lose the structure of the discussion; web sites are better for that. So, I conclude, email is easier and for those of us of the lazy persuasion, better. But, I also conclude that, for purposes of logical coherence in discussion and knowledge space, web sites, particularly those designed as knowledge portals like Bernards, are better. Go figure.
What would I like to see come out of this? How about something along the lines of a Wiki in the sense that folks can easily jump in and add comments to some web page, but, at the same time, those comments are framed into an email to be shipped off to some favored email list. Oh gads! What a kluge. How about a Wiki that accepts emails and knows how to install them? Probably another kluge. Oh my! How 'bout banning email! What a concept...
Speaking of gems, Alex's post about Frank van Harmelen is a gem. I was not aware of his work. I am now.
And, I stand behind all those things I said earlier on the topicmapmail list.
Were I to conjure a summary of this response, it would be:
What we need is a knowledge portal that is as convenient as email, and as
powerful as a web site.
If anyone wants to start a thread here about the IBIS question: How to build a convenient, powerful knowledge portal?, have at it. I'd suggest using the IBIS ontology (ala Jeff Conklin): questions can be followed by IDEAs or other QUESTIONs that refine the previous question. IDEAs can be followed by IDEAs that specialize the previous IDEA, by QUESTIONs that refine the IDEA, by PRO and by CON arguments, and in the Nexist variant, by COMMENTs which offer up neutral observations of one sort or another.
Jack Park
jackpark@thinkalong.com