Aug 2010 Semantic Mediawiki intro

Wikis are commonly used for group content development. Semantic Mediawiki adds easier to use forms and the ability to annotate distinct content such as places, people and dates for reuse in interactive views and queries. In this session, we'll look at how semantic wikis can be used to develop content for indigenous and linguistic communities, with a practical, hands on focus including how to create pages, categories and simple ontologies. We will focus on processes to make sites inclusive, and examine fair terms of re-use.

Web

• International
• Focused on presentation
• Anyone can create a site
  • Network effect
• Hyperlinks

Wikis

• Portland Pattern Repository - 1995

• Personal wiki
• Group
• Organization
• Topical

Wikipedia

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Wikipedia-logo.png

• 2001
• Anything accepted as notable, neutral point of view

Mediawiki

• Hundreds of thousands of sites
• Hundreds of extensions
• Page, not content manager

Wiki use and editing

On any wiki with critical mass:

• Readers
• Drive by editor
• Topic editor
• Nerd core

How to use a wiki

• Categories
• Recent changes
  • wp vs small site
• Page history
• Page discussion
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Trust_%28monopoly%29 - tags and backstory
• User pages
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rjwilmsi

Editing wikis

• Wikis typical use their own markup (syntax)
• Rich/wysiwyg editors create messes
  • Typical word processors adding junk, can't re-use for headings, can't compare versions

Progressive learning

• = heading 1 =
• * Bullet point
• [[Wiki link]]
• View source to learn from others
• Edit sections to compartmentalize changes

Brackets must be matched!!!!

Elements of markup

• Headings, bullets, tables, dividers
  • HTML code - http://www.asiancanadianwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page
• Links - onsite and off
• Templates

Semantic

Adding meaning through relationships.

• Triples - expressing relationships
  • Subject, predicate, object

• David lives in Montreal.
  • David: Subject
  • Lives in: predicate
  • Montreal: object

• Montreal is a city.
• A city is a place.
• Montréal is the English spelling of Montréal.

Web of data

http://semantic-mediawiki.org/w/images/smw.gif

• The text is the database.

• Making statements across web sites.
• Creating views based on multiple web sites.
• Across wikipedia: Places with populations between 100 and 10,000 with a
• Ontologies
  • Classes (categories)
  • Properties
  • Inference
    • If a person (class) has a child, they're a parent

Licensing

trends

hands on

sites

thoughts