[topicmapmail] DMOZ in XTM

[Lars Marius Garshol]

* Jan Algermissen
| 
| Yes, exactly! There is no point in maintaining an ontology (any kind
| of data, actually) as an XTM document,

True.

| propably not even as a topic map in a topic map engine[1].

Eh? If you are going to make use of the features of topic maps, the
best way to do that is to actually represent the data as a topic map.

| I realized this after converting some thesauri into XTM...it felt so
| useless, given that the thesaurus was already stored in a suitable
| format.

Of course, but a thesaurus doesn't make use of the extra topic map
features. It's only when you tighten it up and add structure that the
real benefits of storing it as a topic map are felt.
 
| Why don't you, for experimental purposes, write a CGI that mimiks
| XTM based communication with www.dmoz.org, by scraping DMOZ's HTML
| and turning it into XTM. I did that once for Google's link: feature
| - it's fun and very educating.

It would also reproduce all the weaknesses of DMOZ. If you did this
you'd have the same old structure, but now in XTM.

-- 
Lars Marius Garshol, Ontopian         <URL: http://www.ontopia.net >
GSM: +47 98 21 55 50                  <URL: http://www.garshol.priv.no >