[VoCamp Discuss] VoCamp DC is a go!

Peter Mika pmika at yahoo-inc.com
Sat Apr 18 02:19:57 PDT 2009


Hi Mike,

> facilitate their continued collaboration.  Clearly, part of helping 
> people collaborate on vocabularies is to help them find tools that are 
> useful for the purpose.  I think we agree on all these points, but I'm 
> not sure.
Yes, we agree!
> I also believe that if we feel confident about a tools ability to do a 
> job better than alternatives, then we should recommend that tool.  I 
> suggested Knoodl become the VoCamp tool of choice because I think it 
> is the best tool for the job.  I have not come to this conclusion 
> without doing the due diligence.  A large part of my job is to track 
> the market and learn about other tools, both competing and 
> complimentary ones.  I also have a fair amount of experience managing 
> collaborative ontology projects.  I think that the essential 
> properties that a collaborative vocabulary editor must have to be 
> useful for VoCamp participants are that it is 
> web-based, publicly hosted, and free.  As far as I know, Knoodl is the 
> only tool that fits this description.  Of course, others may disagree 
> with my opinion as to what properties are essential for a 
> collaborative vocabulary editor.
There are other tools (neologism, freebase, vocab.org, the online 
version of Protege). Each have their own limitations and special 
circumstances. You would really need at minimum to perform an 
independent evaluation (e.g. a user study) to make claims about which 
tool is the 'best', especially because you are claiming that your 
company's tool is the best. I have to say that personally I would not be 
too enthusiastic about such an evaluation either. Just as we are using 
different offline ontology editors (for me, it's my favorite text 
editor...), it's likely that we will prefer different online tools for 
editing our ontologies. What you will be able to claim is that your tool 
is popular by measuring traffic to your site, just as the success of 
Protege is measured in number of downloads.
> I really believe that VoCamps can be very important in spreading the 
> development of domain vocabularies, which are essential to the success 
> of semantic technologies.  I also strongly believe that collaborative 
> ontology building must be done over the web.  I understand your view, 
> I hope you understand mine as well.
Again, we perfectly agree!

Best,
Peter
>
> Cheers,
>
> Mike
> Revelytix, Inc.
>
> phone: 410-584-0009 (office)
>           443-928-3782 (cell)
> skype: michael.allen.lang.jr
> aim: MikeJrRevelytix
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 6:46 PM, Peter Mika <pmika at yahoo-inc.com 
> <mailto:pmika at yahoo-inc.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hi Mike,
>
>     As VoCamp organizers, I think it's critically important for us to
>     be impartial as to what tools we are using and recommending to
>     others. In this past VoCamp at Ibiza we have actually went through
>     a number of tools, and checked out the basic features of each.
>
>     You are welcome to expand the page on publishing tools at [1], but
>     without supporting evidence I think it's inappropriate to conclude
>     that your company's product offers the best solution. In
>     particular, your company's tool is not the only one allowing
>     collaborative ontology editing, again see [1].
>
>     Best,
>     Peter
>
>     [1] http://vocamp.org/wiki/Publishing_Tools
>
>
>     Mike Lang Jr. wrote:
>
>         Hi everyone,
>
>         I am going to encourage participants in VoCamp DC to use
>         Knoodl <http://www.knoodl.com> to collaborate on their
>         Vocabularies both before and after our VoCamp and I think that
>         other organizers should do the same.  It may be in bad taste
>         for me to promote my own company's product in this way, but it
>         is free (and will remain so) and it is the only tool I am
>         aware of that enables collaborative vocabulary editing.
>          Without such a tool, VoCamps will not be able to accomplish
>         their main goal, which is to produce useful ontologies.  It is
>         not reasonable to expect an ontology to be finished within a
>         weekend.  In fact, an ontology is never finished because part
>         of the point of using one is that it can adapt and change as
>         it needs to.  Knoodl is a natural place for people to continue
>         to develop and manage any ontologies and it enables them to do
>         so collaboratively with the people that they meet at a VoCamp.
>
>         I have started a VoCamp Community
>         <http://www.knoodl.com/ui/groups/VoCamp> in Knoodl where
>         participants can upload Vocabularies.  If we make this a best
>         practice of future VoCamps, then participants of any VoCamp
>         will be able to collaborate on their ontologies long after
>         their VoCamp ends.
>
>
>         I'd be glad to hear any thoughts/feedback on this issue.
>
>         Mike Lang
>         Revelytix, Inc.
>
>         phone: 410-584-0009 (office)
>                  443-928-3782 (cell)
>         skype: michael.allen.lang.jr
>         aim: MikeJrRevelytix
>
>
>         On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 6:54 PM, Tom Heath
>         <tom.heath at talis.com <mailto:tom.heath at talis.com>
>         <mailto:tom.heath at talis.com <mailto:tom.heath at talis.com>>> wrote:
>
>            Hi Mike,
>
>            Great news! Quite a turnaround time, and an impressive list of
>            participants already :) I took the liberty of adding Clark
>         & Parsia to
>            the list of VoCamp supporters
>            <http://vocamp.org/wiki/VoCampSupporters>; just one way of
>         us giving
>            credit for the generosity that helps grease the VoCamp
>         wheels ;)
>
>            Just shout if I can help in any way,
>
>            Cheers,
>
>            Tom.
>
>
>            2009/4/14 Mike Lang Jr. <mikelangjr at revelytix.com
>         <mailto:mikelangjr at revelytix.com>
>            <mailto:mikelangjr at revelytix.com
>         <mailto:mikelangjr at revelytix.com>>>:
>
>            > Hi everyone, Kendall Clark of Clark & Persia has generously
>            offered to let
>            > us use his offices for VoCamp DC the weekend of May 30/31. I
>            have updated
>            > the VoCamp wiki (http://vocamp.org/wiki/VoCampDCMay2009)
>         to show
>            our plans
>            > so far. There will be an initial cap of 40 people, so be
>         sure to
>            visit the
>            > wiki to sign up (anyone who joined the VoCamp DC Google Group
>            has been
>            > signed up, if you can not attend, please remove your
>         name). Feel
>            free to
>            > contact me with any questions/suggestions. Thanks, Mike Lang
>            > Revelytix, Inc.
>            >
>            > phone: 410-584-0009 (office)
>            >           443-928-3782 (cell)
>            > skype: michael.allen.lang.jr
>            > aim: MikeJrRevelytix
>            >
>            >
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>            --
>            Dr Tom Heath
>            Researcher
>            Platform Division
>            Talis Information Ltd
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