[rdfweb-dev] open, collaborative, people encyclopedia

Hendy Irawan gauldong at gmail.com
Fri Apr 8 21:47:09 UTC 2005


Is there already an open, collaborative, people encyclopedia in the =

Internet?
User Stories =

   =

   - Rudy had just read a part of Refactoring, and was liked the way the =

   author wrote this book. So he looked up Martin Fowler in the encyclopedi=
a. =

   It turned out there are three Martin Fowlers. The first is a garbage =

   collector, the second is a circus clown, and the third is chief scientis=
t at =

   ThoughtWorks, who also happened to be the author of Refactoring (BTW, th=
e =

   encyclopedia claims to sort the results based on popularity). A click on=
 the =

   third Martin Fowler lists his friends, enemies, colleagues, along with o=
ther =

   books he'd written (with links to Amazon).
   - Amy had lost David, her child. She posted him on the encyclopedia, =

   with complete details including his eye color, shoe size, and brand of =

   T-shirt he was wearing. She tagged him with "missing person". Several =

   minutes later Mark, found a child having amnesia, so he reported this to=
 the =

   police and, in addition to that, he also posted this child to the =

   encyclopedia, giving a few details. The encyclopedia turned out to alrea=
dy =

   had matches to what he posted (furthermore, David is a "missing person")=
, so =

   Mark clicked on David, and he thought that David was exactly like the ch=
ild =

   he found. So he clicked on Amy, David's mother, to contact her and bring=
 the =

   good news. It turned out that Amy was in the same kindergarten as David =
(at =

   least, the encyclopedia said so).
   - Ilias wants to meet his long-lost friend, Diana. So he searches for =

   "Diana". The first results give him over a thousand Diana's. The =

   encyclopedia suggests several criteria for narrowing down the results: o=
n =

   gender (there were several male Diana's), on age, on location. So he cli=
cked =

   out the criteria that best matches his Diana. Several seconds later, he =

   found his long-lost friend, Diana, who happens to be his neighbor for th=
e =

   past 18 months (at least, that's what the encyclopedia said).
   - Microloft wants to hire several new engineers. Instead of posting a =

   vacancy, Bill, who happens to be the recruitment manager, decides to sea=
rch =

   the encyclopedia for people that matches his criteria, namely skills in =

   software development, and that they should be at most 3 "hops" away from =

   him. One candidate had several very nice comments from Steve Jobs (Bill'=
s =

   good friend), and Bill immediately asked him if he'd join the company. T=
he =

   remaining candidates were invited for an interview. =



Good thing, or PSS? (Pure Shit Stuff)

-- =

Hendy Irawan
http://www.gauldong.net
http://dev.gauldong.net
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