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Update of the RDF and SPARQL (RDF star) families of specifications

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Re: Update of the RDF and SPARQL (RDF star) families of specifications

#22
post #2

In the nicest possible way, and from a position of ignorance of the "Semantic Web": is anyone actually doing anything with these technologies outside of academia?

Google's authorisation system Zanzibar (https://research.google/pubs/pub48190/) is not explicitly using SPARQL, but it's a good example of the sort of thing that a graph-based data model can do. I _think_ Zanzibar can be implemented with SPARQL: we implemented something very very close (and more powerful in some ways) with it

Re: Update of the RDF and SPARQL (RDF star) families of specifications

#23
post #2

In the nicest possible way, and from a position of ignorance of the "Semantic Web": is anyone actually doing anything with these technologies outside of academia?

Adobe developed the XMP metadata format that embeds RDF packets inside almost any kind of file. It is heavily used in Adobe products and also others, see

https://ontology2.com/essays/LookingForMetadataInAllTheWrong...

Re: Update of the RDF and SPARQL (RDF star) families of specifications

#24
post #2

In the nicest possible way, and from a position of ignorance of the "Semantic Web": is anyone actually doing anything with these technologies outside of academia?

We were using in production to power our machine learning already half a decade ago, in the region's highest valued startup.

Was also told by some of my colleagues that they were earning a lot consulting in the medical world with semantic data.

Re: Update of the RDF and SPARQL (RDF star) families of specifications

#25
post #11

I wonder if RDF could actually be used to implement "trigger warnings". List triggering tags in your browser, and then the triggering content can be tagged and blocked by your browser. No censorship involved, just responsible disclosure.

You’re seeking a technical solution to a social problem. There have been a number of attempts at very similar things; they always fail because practically no one is interested in putting in the effort required, if they even know about it.

> no one is interested in putting in the effort required, if they even know about it

There is a sizeable web subculture with a focus on an accessible, sustainable, semantic, open standards etc. web with different flavors.

When you browse sites, read blogs etc. that typically load fast, have a nerd feeling to them and prominently display RSS and some of the more niche open web stuff, then you might be visiting a site of someone who would implement such a feature with a blink of an eye.

Re: Update of the RDF and SPARQL (RDF star) families of specifications

#26
post #2

In the nicest possible way, and from a position of ignorance of the "Semantic Web": is anyone actually doing anything with these technologies outside of academia?

The schema.org markup that goes into websites for SEO and smart snippets in search engines is all RDF, usually as JSON-LD. Millions of people use RDF every day without even knowing it.

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structu...

Re: Update of the RDF and SPARQL (RDF star) families of specifications

#27
post #6

I am extremely glad to see RDF being worked on and improved. It's an extremely powerful, general data model. It gets a bad rap because if its unfortunate association with the XML syntax and the fact that many of the reference implementations were written at the peak of overdesigned OO cruft. This type of semantically precise yet flexible data model is going to become increasingly important as a bridge between highly…

> ...unfortunate association with the XML syntax

XML isn't great for every use-case, but it's really become the Nickelback of formats. Let's be real, it's pretty brilliant for some things, and I think RDF is a good example of where it shines.

Re: Update of the RDF and SPARQL (RDF star) families of specifications

#28
post #2

In the nicest possible way, and from a position of ignorance of the "Semantic Web": is anyone actually doing anything with these technologies outside of academia?

FWIW, RDF does enable a lot of research into useful things, so even though those cases are "academic", they aren't w/o practical outcomes as the subtext of the question implies.

RDF is great for annotating protein interactions, for example.

Re: Update of the RDF and SPARQL (RDF star) families of specifications

#29
post #9
post #6

I am extremely glad to see RDF being worked on and improved. It's an extremely powerful, general data model. It gets a bad rap because if its unfortunate association with the XML syntax and the fact that many of the reference implementations were written at the peak of overdesigned OO cruft. This type of semantically precise yet flexible data model is going to become increasingly important as a bridge between highly…

This draft seems incomplete / hard to navigate. Apparently one of the new features of RDF 1.2 is „Quoted Triples“ where triples can be used as Subject / Object. But unfortunately it seems at least the Turtle representation doesn’t support this yet? Also the „what’s new in SPARQL 1.2“ is rather empty. Feels like the linked documents are in a very early stage of a draft.

N3 (Notation 3), a superset of Turtle, can represent quoted triples.
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