[topicmapmail] Wiki/WebLog application built on top of topicmaps...

[Guy Murphy]

Problem with creating a user has been fixed...

Actually it's a temporary hack put in place... the remote server has a
different string representation of dates than my local one, and user
accounts in the only place where I treat a date actually as a date... in the
topicmap its a string piece of metadata... anyhow, you can create accounts
ok now.

Thanks Colin.

Let me know of any probs you encounter.

 - Guy

----- Original Message -----
From: "Guy Murphy" <guy.murphy@easynet.co.uk>
To: <topicmapmail@infoloom.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:02 AM
Subject: [topicmapmail] Wiki/WebLog application built on top of topicmaps...


> Hi.
>
> I'd like to tentatively announce a Wiki/WebLog application built on the
.NET
> platform using a TopicMap[-like] back-end, for anybody that might have an
> interest.
>
> I've been looking for a while now of a way to bring the benefits of
> topicmaps to the "average user" whoever that might be, and Wikis/Blogs
seems
> to be a good/popular/useful point at which to do it.
>
> I say TopicMap[-like] as the back-end doesn't implement some of the
> fine-points of the TopicMap model... associations aren't topics for
> instance... but it has topics, occurrences, associations etc.
>
> The application seeks to bridge the gaps between Wikis and WebLogs and
offer
> each the strengths of the other.
>
> The application is very close to beta now, with most major features being
> complete I am currently working on DateTime associations to allow users to
> view recently changes resources, and working on back-up topics associated
> with the original to provide simple versioning of resources. And lastly
once
> versioning is done the automatice tracking of citation relationships
(which
> needs versioning to do cleanly)... once that's done I'll regard the
> application as beta and start fixing bugs.... the citation relationships
is
> a big goal because I feel it will relieve the urge to manually create a
lot
> of relationships.
>
> Anyhow, for the curious you can find it at
> http://eu.webmatrixhosting.net/Fusax/conclave.aspx ... this is a free test
> server in Russia which most of the time is really good but occasionally a
> router goes out enroute to Russia, and since just before Christmas their
> database has occasionally gone down. If you catch it at a bad time, simply
> try again later.
>
> I'd encourage people to create an account and make comments onsite if they
> feel so inclined.... follow the "UserLogin" link at the top, and then the
> "CreateUser" link there, or use the "GO" box at the top to go directly to
> "CreateUser".
>
> As a side note if I were to do this application again I would choose an
> Association DataModel rather than a TNM one for the reason that I've found
> that an annoying aspect about enforcing bidirectional relationships is
that
> one side can't be uninterested in the relationship. By way of concrete
> example...
>
> We have a simple relationship of... created(user, topic)... which is
formed
> between a topic representing a user and the topics they create.
>
> Now 100 topic creations later, each topic that's created has a single
highly
> useful link by virtue of the "created" association to the user that
created
> it... the user on the other hand has 100 "created" associations from their
> topic, 95 of which they aren't remotely interested in.... Now I'm aware
that
> others might be interested in what topics a user has created, but I'm
> looking to fulfil pragmatic user requirements not purity of form.
>
> It would seem to me that with an Associative DataModel I can fulfil a
> two-way relationship if I (or more normally a user) desires, or simply
> exhibit a relationship from one side.... so the created topic can maintain
a
> relationship with the creator but the user can remove or not track in the
> first place the topic they created.... remembering that this is just one
> type of example, there are many relationships that fall into this
category.
>
> One solution to this problem is to change the relationship of "created"
> associations where the user wishes to filter to created(user,
blind-topic)..
> or similar, and then filter out display of the "blind" relationship...
it's
> doable but I'm now getting into special cases, and dangerously close to a
> hack.
>
> It would seem that the Associative DataModel (such as that used by
> Semantica) offers me more choices than the TopicMap.
>
> Any thoughts on the matter would be appreciated. It's easy to loose sight
of
> things when you're in the middle of them and somebody might have a fresh
> take on this that I'm overlooking.
>
>  - Guy Murphy
>
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