RE: HumanMarkup Reservations

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

Oh not ignoring that aspect.  There were several 
threads pleading with some of the contributors 
to scope down the claims to reasonable goals. 
It took us awhile to figure out what was reasonable, 
but the personal need to get press attention is something 
of a disease.  I only council not to spend 
inordinate amounts of time on slashdot and other 
kibitzing lists trying to defend this.  I am 
an entertainer and a media person as well. 
The problem is you can spend a lot of time 
arguing with critics instead of rehearsing. 
Lots of work to do and the longer it takes, 
the more likely it is to founder.  If folks 
are really interested, tell them they should 
pick up a pike and hit the front lines.

There is a very good article called Semiotics 
for Beginners by Daniel Chandler out on the 
web.  I used it to get a handle on some of the 
concepts.  If you like, I can also send you  
a text file of unedited notes and abstracts 
from these.  There weren't published because 
they are unattributed but make good reading 
if you just need a Jolt cola sort of read.

I also have to credit or blame Eliot Kimber 
for pointing me in the direction of semiotics 
as a relevant topic.


Len
http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h


-----Original Message-----
From: cagle@olywa.net [mailto:cagle@olywa.net]


Len,

> We spent a lot of time here nailing this thing
> down.  Don't start piling up new timber unless
> we are adding a garage.  People should read
> the examples and prototype work.   Discussions
> that veer off into why the semantic web won't
> work, schemas suck, etc. should be ignored.
> Done that already.  Don't confuse the tools
> with the content.

I'll plead mea culpa on this, and am reviewing the documents. I realize that
a significant amount of work has already been done on this; but am
responding to things as I encounter them.

> And which you should learn to ignore.  Did anyone
> who read all the early email think the results
> would be otherwise?

While to a certain extent I agree with you, I also think that there may be a
very distinct danger if the media is ignored too much. This is getting into
their domain, in a way that business processes or schema seldom do, and I
could see it becoming a flashpoint if that aspect is not carefully managed.
I am in the media -- I write articles for trade publications, but I've had
pieces picked up more than once that have appeared in the general
publications arena -- and I know that pretending that the media doesn't
exist or is irrelevant in cases like this becomes an open invitiation to
perhaps unwelcome (and certainly not unbiased) media coverage. Just my two
cents worth.