[topicmapmail] Representing a person's world view as a topic map

[Robert Cerny]

Hello Denver,

I have never used Topic Maps to represent my world view, but i use them 
to support my memory by taking notes in a topic map. I have written my 
own solution, called Topincs [1]. It is a server based solution, which 
comes with a browser based topic maps editor and will receive a 
simplified Wiki view shortly.

Since a large part of my knowledge acquisition takes place in the web 
browser, there is a couple of tools (bookmarklets), which allow you to 
add topics, resources and occurrences to a map quickly. It usually takes 
less than 4 clicks and a little bit of typing. Someone was kind enough 
to put some movies on youtube to illustrate, how that works [2].

If setting up your own Topincs is too cumbersome for you, drop me a 
note, i can provide you with your own private store on topincs.com.

Best regards,
Robert

[1] http://www.cerny-online.com/topincs/
[2] http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=topincs&search=Search

Denver Gingerich wrote:
> As I write articles on my blog to express my views, I am constantly
> reminded of the inadequacy of static articles to show relations
> between different concepts.  Tagging articles can help, but it
> requires the author to be very diligent in selecting the correct tags
> and tagging previous articles as new tags are added.  Since each of
> the blog articles are essentially a piece of my world view and they
> are often quite interconnected, it would seem to make sense to arrange
> my ideas in a topic map instead of a list of articles (not that I
> would never write articles; they would be linked from the topic map).
> By doing this, I would allow people to see how different topics are
> linked in my head and how I arrived at certain conclusions (by
> analyzing the sequence of topics leading up to a particular
> assertion).  It also allows me to create an increasingly complete
> representation of my world view over time as I see new links in my
> thinking that aren't represented in the topic map.
>
> Has anyone attempted to use topic maps to represent their world view
> before?  If so, what sorts of tools have you used?  Are there
> particular things to watch out for?
>
> A large part of what guides my thoughts are articles that I read in my
> daily perusal of various news sites.  As a result, it would be very
> nice if I could quickly add a URL to my world view topic map when I
> see something that is relevant to how I think.  The key here is
> "quickly"; if I have to edit an XML file by hand, it is unlikely that
> I will add a lot of these links to my topic map.  Ideally, I would be
> able to login to my web server and use some sort of GUI tool (maybe a
> Java applet) to add the URL with links (edges in the map) to the
> relevant topics.  What tools would you recommend for doing this?
>
> Denver
> _______________________________________________
> topicmapmail mailing list
> topicmapmail at infoloom.com
> http://www.infoloom.com/mailman/listinfo/topicmapmail
>
>
>   


-- 
Robert Cerny
Software Development

Web:      http://www.cerny-online.com
Email:    robert at cerny-online.com
Phone:    +49 (0) 160 960 55 113
Address:  An der Embsmühle 25, 65817 Eppstein, Germany