Ontology Is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags (2005)

#1

Post by zdw » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 9:44 PM UTC

Ontology Is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags (2005)
shirky.com

Re: Ontology Is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags (2005)

#2

Post by mayneack » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 10:10 PM UTC

All I see is a giant ad for ED pills.

This is what I see: https://archive.fo/rZchC over time: https://archive.fo/http://www.shirky.com/writings/ontology_o...

Re: Ontology Is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags (2005)

#3

Post by oftenwrong » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 10:15 PM UTC

mayneack wrote: post #2

All I see is a giant ad for ED pills. This is what I see: https://archive.fo/rZchC over time: https://archive.fo/http://www.shirky.com/writings/ontology_o...

There may be malicious software on your computer.

Re: Ontology Is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags (2005)

#4

Post by jszymborski » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 10:17 PM UTC

oftenwrong wrote: post #3

mayneack wrote: post #2

All I see is a giant ad for ED pills. This is what I see: https://archive.fo/rZchC over time: https://archive.fo/http://www.shirky.com/writings/ontology_o...

There may be malicious software on your computer.

this redirected on both GP and archive.fo's servers... I can't replicate, but I think we can rule out malicious software on GP's computer.

Re: Ontology Is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags (2005)

#5

Post by nafey » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 10:23 PM UTC

mayneack wrote: post #2

All I see is a giant ad for ED pills. This is what I see: https://archive.fo/rZchC over time: https://archive.fo/http://www.shirky.com/writings/ontology_o...

Me too. Sibling comment says it might be due to malware. Should I be concerned?

Re: Ontology Is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags (2005)

#6

Post by oftenwrong » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 10:23 PM UTC

jszymborski wrote: post #4

oftenwrong wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There may be malicious software on your computer.

this redirected on both GP and archive.fo's servers... I can't replicate, but I think we can rule out malicious software on GP's computer.

That makes sense.

Re: Ontology Is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags (2005)

#7

Post by ChuckMcM » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 10:33 PM UTC

I enjoyed this piece, mostly because I disagree so strongly with it :-). Clay takes the topic of Ontology, contextualizes it into an impractical domain, and then calls it overrated. Cars are overrated too because they can't cross oceans right?

When done correctly, ontology combined with knowledge graphs can make an impractical problem much more practical. Consider for the moment the problem of 'fake news'. What characterizes 'fake news' is that it has facts or concepts that are not in alignment with "true" facts (authoritative). And without getting into the debate of what is and isn't true, you can take a document, a knowledge base populated with trusted facts, and a topic ontology and score that document for alignment with the existing data set. Whether you use that for checking Wikipedia articles or flagging fake news its a very powerful combination.

Re: Ontology Is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags (2005)

#8

Post by ChuckMcM » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 10:36 PM UTC

mayneack wrote: post #2

All I see is a giant ad for ED pills. This is what I see: https://archive.fo/rZchC over time: https://archive.fo/http://www.shirky.com/writings/ontology_o...

That is rather odd, on Chrome/Win10 I see the original article, and looking at the page source it seems rather innocuous (no scripts or ad banners etc).

What browser and OS are you using?

Re: Ontology Is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags (2005)

#9

Post by sharpercoder » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 10:38 PM UTC

The same is so true for programming, in particular OOP. In my experience, code is much easier to change when a loosely coupled set of interfaces is built as opposed to an hierarchy of classes.

Re: Ontology Is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags (2005)

#10

Post by wheels » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 10:40 PM UTC

This article is 14 years old, and dates back to a time when the debates about the "semantic web" had a lot more wind in their sails. (I made similar arguments around that time...)