Talk:Topic map

message: Finally, I moved the "Topic map" site to "Topic Maps". Please do not change that. "Topic Maps" is not a plural, but the name of the technology.
--Lheuer 15:55, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it shouldn't.  I've taken it out. -R. S. Shaw 01:33, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Anybody familiar with the current status of this thing?  After poking around a bit, it seems to me there was a flurry of activity on it in 1999-2001, and almost nothing has happened since.  Have they ever been used in non-toy applications? -R. S. Shaw 01:33, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Status?

message: The article should explain whether the ISO standards simply define a data interchange format, or whether the standard actually contains content which establishes a standardized ontology of topics. -- Beland (talk) 20:17, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Context 

message: This 2003 ref helps describe the analogous parts of two projects. The conclusion says "In short, it does appear that it is possible to live with both RDF and topic maps." -- Grantbow (talk) 23:12, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: That sort of nonsense was shot down in 2000, but it didn't become obvious to the muggles until the RDF documentation stack was redrafted in 2004. It still comes up. The RDF world is still All Just Doing It Wrong and there will always be a few HyTime / Topic Maps advocates that will maintain that. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:47, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  I wanted to compare the specs, not judge them. They are analogous and were built with different goals and histories. Though it is dated the 30-page ref (specifically that picture) is also one of the best comparisons I have seen of the two stacks of specs. I emailed Lars and he said ISO Topic Maps are now dead, so the market seems to have judged Topic Maps as wrong already. A few people still are making a living selling Topic Maps, and there are still a few Topic Map software installations, however the absence of any further statements from him is an indicator of where things have gone. People are well advised not to adopt Topic Maps these days. Grantbow (talk) 17:44, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  The trouble is that Topic Maps in 2003 were judging RDF as "RDF-from-1999" and seeing it as "a metadata format". At that time (i.e. 1999) there was perhaps something to support their criticisms of RDF. By 2000 though, it was painfully obvious that the Topic Maps community's view of RDF was well out of date – particularly once you start looking at RDF Schema / DAML / OIL / OWL.  In 2003, this well-known paper was just embarrassingly out of date. To be fair though, RDF wasn't generally well understood anywhere outside of a few buildings in Bristol and Boston until the 2004 documentation updated the W3C's public-facing explanation of what RDF was for. Ten years on and RDF still suffers from misunderstandings like it being "an XML format about metadata" etc. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:58, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, fast forward 9 years--are Topic Maps a thing or should this article all be re-written, with some sort of citations/evidence, in the past tense???  — Preceding unsigned comment added by DrKC MD (talk • contribs) 22:09, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: ISO Topic Maps vs. W3C RDF