Semantic Web

Who defines the terms?

The vision

Everybody.

Standardization can only go so far, because we can't anticipate all possible future needs. Berners-Lee 2001

... allows rules from any existing knowledge-representation system .... Berners-Lee 2001

... enables anyone to define a new concept, a new verb, just by defining a URI for it somewhere on the Web. Berners-Lee 2001

Realistic?

Caveats (Marshall 2003):

• Would synonymy proliferate?
• Could term authorities gain trust?
• Is nothing straightforward, not even toilet paper?
• Would changing knowledge force disruptive restandardization?
• Would content creators comply with the definitions (today they evade HTML)?

Is HTML evasion audience-driven? If so, would machine audiences drive ambiguity control?