knodules.org: a little knowledge can be a wonderful thing

KNODULES.net

a little knowledge can be a wonderful thing

Knodules don't describe the world directly but articulate linguistic distinctions, generalities, and connections for a limited domain across an engaged community. Knodules characterize "what a community can agree on" including articulating differences which they don't agree on.

knodules:vocabulary are (relatively) small knowledge bases used by groups or individuals to organize particular pools of content or other information. Knodules help people share knowledge and organize activity while making it easier to navigate and search large and complex documents or collections.

Key concepts for understanding how knodules distinguish and connect meanings:

dterms are 'disambiguated terms' which have exactly one meaning in the domain of the knodule. These may be words in a natural language (like 'bank' or 'platypus') which are unambiguous in the given domain. Alternatively, they can also be compound dterms which disambiguate a potentially ambiguous term (like bank:institution or Paris, Texas);
synonyms are natural language terms which are sometimes used, in the context of the domain, to refer to a dterm (or the concept it identifies);
genls are dterms which are broader in application than a particular dterm; for example, animal could typically be a genl of dog. The genl relation is also domain specific; in some domains, pet might be a a genl of dog, but in another domain it might not. The inverse or mirror of genls is specls: if x is a genl of y, then y is a specl of x.
roles are dterms which imply a context and can be used to describe the relationship of another term to the context. For example, mother is a role which is defined with respect to some children (more on knodule semantics)
drules are cues to help disambiguate natural language to dterms and generally consist of a synonym and a set of other dterms (called contexts). For example, a drule for fish:animal (distinguished from fish:food), might have the synonym of 'fish' and a context of the dterm swimming.

That's it. beingmeta developed knodules as a lightweight representation scheme which is simple, rooted in natural language, and computationally useful for search and browsing. beingmeta is developing tools to help users semi-automatically create knodules and for linking knodules to one another to allow search and browsing over larger collections.

Open-source tools are being actively developed by beingmeta to allow the use of knodules from a range of programming languages, including Javascript, Python, Perl, PHP, and Java. Knodules are also used by beingmeta's WebEchoes social browsing site and the new sBooks platform. We are actively developing tools and services to help individuals and communities create high-quality effective knodules for their content or problem domains.

Microformats for describing knodules make it easy to author or embed knodules in various contexts. The three core microformats are for plaintext, embedded HTML, and XML.

The plaintext microformat is a simple text format for describing knodules. Described in detail here, the plaintext microformat looks like this:

which introduces the dterm Al Gore with synonyms 'Albert Gore Jr.' and 'Goracle', a genl of Nobel laureate, a genl of US vice-president with respect to Bill Clinton, and a drule which says that the word 'Gore' probably refers to the dterm Al Gore in the context of the dterm Bill Clinton.

The html microformat defines attributes which can embed knodule information as attributes in HTML content. This microformat is detailed here and looks like:

<p dterm="Pallas Athena" synonyms="Athena"
   genls="greek goddess" drules="Athena&Zeus" roles="mother.Ulysses">
Athena was the greek goddess known for wisdom and as the mother of Ulysses.
</p>

If you're being strict, you can use attributes defined in the http://knodules.net/ namespace, but most knodule tools work even if you use raw attributes (though they might not validate against your chosen DTDs).

Of course, we have to have an xml microformat, which is described in detail here. The XML microformat looks like this:

<dterm dterm="Ken's dog Rufus" domain="example.knodules.net">
  <synonym>Rufus</synonym>
  <synonym>RUFUS!</synonym>
  <genl>dog:animal</genl>
  <genl>deceased</genl>
  <genl>friend</genl>
  <role role="guardian">Ken Haase</role>
  <gloss lang="en">Rufus was among my best friend for many years across
    many nations and organizations.  He is missed.
  </gloss>
</dterm>

which should be relatively self explanatory. Note that this explicitly indicates the 'domain' (which is a unique ID) for the knodule. The XML format also provides for the specification of information in attributes as well as embedded elements. The designated namespace for the XML microformat is also http://knodules.net/ and we will eventually have a formal DTD and schema.