Looks like we might be able have some parts of the aggregator up and running by the conference time. We won't be able to participate (unless we win some money within the next few days), but I guess this is not going to be a big problem.

The basic idea is to start showing some practical applications of the protocol in order to have others thinking and possibly implementing.

There are a few interesting things that can be discussed about ENT, besides the protocol.

The first one is the usage of TopicRolls. They are basically a way to syndicate lists of types and topics and can be used in several different ways. We have thought of a couple of them, but most probably other will follow, maybe moving away from OPML which is the format which we are currently using.

The other front is on the aggregator side. Once we start collecting posts and organizing them according to topics, there's something more to do than simply sorting posts using topics. This is why we introduced Types as a way to create relations between posts.

In other words, if a post contains these topics:

• places:San Francisco, Gradisca d'Isonzo, London, Somewhere in Sweden
• people:Marc Canter, Ben Hammersley, Paolo Valdemarin, Matt Mower
• companies:Broadband Mechanic, Evectors, Novissio

We could create relations between all these and all the other ones already existing in a directory, thus allowing to navigate trough posts in a completly new way (btw: this is what our aggregator will ultimately do).

But the kind of relations that can be created between topics and types is still to be completly explored and could probably create some very interesting results, especially if applied to existing archives.

On Sunday, April 13, 2003, at 10:03 PM, QT - Marc Canter wrote:

> sounds like a plan - I'm trying to get either Matt or Paolo to
> show up.
> this is during your mail bot session?

Yes, precisely. There's much intertwingley goodness to be had when you start treating email, and mailing lists specifically, as
just-more-data. I'd wager that in total there is a great deal more meaningful signal in the collected listservs and majordomos of the world than the web. The more technical or complex a subject, it seems to me, the more it gravitates towards old school mailing lists, and the further it retreats from the web. Why this is I'm not sure, but
releasing the trapped knowledge in all those old list archives seems a very noble cause. And to do that, we need something like ThreadsML.
Or I might be talking cobblers. Anyone?

sounds like a plan - I'm trying to get either Matt or Paolo to show up.
this is during your mail bot session?

>
< replied-to message removed by QT >

I can do one better than that. I'm speaking there on this very sort of thing. I'm planning on talking about ThreadsML (and now ENT). Perhaps making it into more of a discussion type affair would be good? Also attending are some Latent Semantic Indexing people, and the guys from Waypath, so we might be able to touch on a great deal of good stuff regarding fitting threads into ontologies, and representing such.
Personally I think retrofitting existing content into an ontology is the Really Big Problem we're going to have to face sooner rather than later. Might as well start talking about it.

On Friday, April 11, 2003, at 07:54 PM, QT - Marc Canter wrote:
>
> I also suggested a BOAF at ENTCON (Dr. Weinberger is into it) -
> anybody else interested in attending?
>
> - Marc
> =================
>
> ThreadsML never picked up sufficient steam, but I believe that
> it or something like it is needed more than ever. a BOAF at
> Emerging Tech sounds like a great idea. Count me in.
>
>
> -- David W.

Hi folks,

I was feeling pretty ill yesterday when Marc pointed me to this thread so I'm just catching up. Also I missed ThreadML before so it's a 106 messages I'm reading!

From what I can see though ThreadML seems to be a good idea and, if it's based upon RSS, an idea whose time has come.

One thing I haven't come across so far is any explanation about why the previous initiative fell short. Can anyone summarise? Are there any lessons to be learned? Have we?

Regards,

Matt

p.s. The ENT spec URL should be

http://www.purl.org/NET/ENT/1.0/

which is it's permanent URL. The URL via my blog is where the document lives right now but the above PURL will always point at the latest version of the spec.

wow 2 mentions of Blue Oxen in one day - quite a day for them.

I'd like to point to Matt and Paolo's new ENT spec:

http://matt.blogs.it/specs/ENT/1.0/

as much as I'd like to see RDF succeed, it's still pretty daunting and complicated - despite the W3C's upcoming efforts at education.

ENT is an RSS extension and something any software developer can add in very quickly. It would also be 100% compatible with any paralell RDF or XTM efforts. That's KEY!

I propose that "we" use ENT as a mechanism for flowing threads through. It would take an alteration of the current ThreadsML spec - but something well worth it.

- Marc

>
< replied-to message removed by QT >

Cool.

I'm funneling David's reply - and mine - via this email - onto the QuickTopic site.

This would be ONE example of how a ThreadsML might provide cool new functionality.

I used today - as the day that Matt and Paolo shipped the first draft of ENT (East News Topic)

http://matt.blogs.it/specs/ENT/1.0/

as I believe THAT is how ThreadML will get implemented! 'cause without categorizing and flowing threads into ontologies or facet maps - what's the point?

I also suggested a BOAF at ENTCON (Dr. Weinberger is into it) - anybody else interested in attending?

- Marc
=================

ThreadsML never picked up sufficient steam, but I believe that it or something like it is needed more than ever. a BOAF at Emerging Tech sounds like a great idea. Count me in.


-- David W.

=================

>
< replied-to message removed by QT >

re. QT : nifty footwork!

re. ThreadsML

Although I have some reservations about the spec in its current form, it certainly would be great to see some smarter applications appear!
Steve Cayzer has been working in the Semantic Blogging domain recently, and has surveyed what's out there - I'm cc'ing him in the hope he has comments re. ThreadsML.

My main reservation: personally I think the ThreadsML tries to do too much in one place, and runs the risk of the semantics being spread thin (if you see what I mean ;-) In particular I think the cataloguing terms (Topic, hasTopics, categoryOf etc) could be better defined separately from the thread terms (Post, agreesWith, commentsOn etc). The overlap between these two sets and other schema (e.g. the RSS taxo module, the ClaimMaker vocab) could make mixing messy.

Having said that, the way ThreadsML stands in its current form is probably already pretty close to the sweet spot for well-defined/easily-used. If there's a general hubbub of approval to the spec as it stands, I'll happily go with the flow and do what I can to support it in whatever apps I work on.
(just a random thought - I wonder if the Topic side could be linked to the RDF representation of Topic Maps work...that could pull in a whole community...)

btw, there seems to be loads of structured discussion related discussion, see for example :
http://collab.blueoxen.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl

Evidence that it's an idea who's time has come, perhaps?

Cheers,
Danny.






< replied-to message removed by QT >

Edited by author 04-11-2003 01:17 PM
As far as I know, the effort stands at the proposal you referred to, Marc (http://www.quicktopic.com/7/H/rhSrjkWgjnvRq). Can we get agreement on that? If so, it may be just a matter of specifying that more formally and taking the proposal to a larger group for approval. Can someone say how that's normally done, at least for reference later?

This is good timing for me, becuase once I get QT Pro released (a few weeks from now), I want to implement ThreadsML in QuickTopic. Once the standard is in place, there are lots of possibilities -- one I'm thinking of is providing very flexible viewing of any thread through XSL.

Thanks for resurrecting this, Marc. I'd let it lay idle for awhile while working on other things.

Whoops, the proposal is here: http://www.quicktopic.com/7/H/rhSrjkWgjnvRq?m1=66&mN=66