Re: Semantic Web Hackings

["Sean B. Palmer" <sean@mysterylights.com>]

> I don't understand what you mean. It's just as easy for me to make
> assertions about mailto:jason@injektilo.org as it is about
> uuid:D147430A-2394-4acf-8E3C-FA08F9622182.

True, but I'd rather converse with mailto:jason@injektilo.org than
uuid:D147430A-2394-4acf-8E3C-FA08F9622182 :-)

> This would be redundant if a person's URI was required to
> be their mailbox.

I'm not saying it should be required, just that there might be certain
advantages in doing so.

> How can you prove you own mailto:sean@mysterylights.com? Why
> would you want to?

How can you prove you own your house? Why would you want to? Like it or
not, most things in this world are owned by someone or other, and the same
goes for objects on the Web. Someone has control over http://www.w3.org/ I
can also assert that I own mailto:sean@mysterylights.com but to prove it
without doing a WHOIS check you'd have to use digital signatures. I don't
know who (if anyone/thing) owns uuid:D147430A-2394-4acf-8E3C-FA08F9622182 ,
and I wouldn't like to know...

> Theoretically, the only person who could modify that file is the person
> who "owns" that web space.

In my opinion, ownership of "Webspace" is not as clearly defined as
ownership of mailboxes.

> Using this approach has a couple advantages as far as I can tell.
> There's plenty of free web space for everybody.

And email addresses:-
http://mail.yahoo.com/
http://www.hotmail.com/
et cetera

> This gives a person an actual place to stick their assertions that the
rest
> of the world can query using today's technology.

Yes, that's the whole point! But then you have that assertion, you need it
to say <Description about="me">, and I am suggesting that we use our email
addresses as an identifier for "me".

> Sorry if I'm being too practical.

Not at all; your comments are very useful.

> I think this is definitely a cool idea but would like to see it be
usable.
> If we could hammer out a schema, I'd be willing to work on a web-based
> tool that lets users enter information about themselves and gives them
the
> RDF file that they could then stick wherever they pleased (or even POST
> it to their web space for them).

Like http://uwimp.com/ ? Certainly this thing has a lot of potentials...

Kindest Regards,
Sean B. Palmer
http://infomesh.net/sbp/
http://www.w3.org/WAI/ [ERT/GL/PF]
"Perhaps, but let's not get bogged down in semantics."
   - Homer J. Simpson, BABF07.