[LRUG] Linked Data & Ruby

[Matthew Willson]

>> What is missing is the real use case of semantic/connected data for  
>> current
>> trend of web applications.
>
>
> We publish all our /programmes and /music data as RDF.
>
> And we're researching how to publish using an RDF RESTful application
> service layer
>
> URIplay are using  /programmes rdf to build their service
>
> http://uriplay.org/
>
> Maybe developers have yet to realise the potential?

If the RDF is genuinely being used by unstructured / semi-structured  
spider-like clients then great; if it's just being used as a  
structured data source by structured clients, though, then it seems  
like there'd be nothing particularly "semantic webby" about the use of  
RDF as opposed to some other structured media type for the data in  
question.

To me it seems one of the main issues with the semantic web concept is  
the issue of trust. It seems those who are genuinely doing broad,  
useful inference as a result of semi-structured spidering of the web  
(Google?) are using heavily statistical, 'fuzzy' techniques to asses  
trust, reputation, weight things accordingly, infer facts, beat SEO  
tricks etc - but these seem incompatible with the very black-and- 
white, logical inference model that goes with RDF databases, that  
demands total trust if you're going to base inferences on someone's  
facts. (what if they lie, what if they introduce an inconsistency into  
my database?). A lot of it has the smell of the slightly-naive poster- 
boy logic-driven AI techniques from the 80s and 90s which were rapidly  
fell out of favour as we headed into the 00s.

Not that there aren't answers to some of these issues, I know... but I  
think a lot of us still need a lot of persuading about practical  
advantages of the  semantic web at this point. A start, for me, would  
be to replace RDF triples (noun predicate noun) with a 'quadruple'  
which includes the entity asserting the fact (entity asserts noun  
predicate noun), using some kind of secure open standard for identity  
with a signature...

-Matt