XML Vocabularies for Online Communities: Past, Present, and Future By William Barnhill

The ProblemOnline communities growing at ever-increasing ratesUsers experiencing networking overloadXML vocabularies used by communities must aid social network analysis and optimizationOtherwise social networks will keep decreasing in value as they increase in size

The GoalsA reasonable working definition of Social Network healthA list of suggested requirements for an XML vocabulary, or combination of vocabularies, that aid in creating and maintaining high levels of Social Network healthSelection of one such vocabulary combinationDescription of the benefits such a combination would bring to enable an as yet fictional ideal community

Proposed measurements for Social Network (SN) Health We propose Social Network health is proportional to...The benefit the average SN member derivesInter-connectedness (Reach) among membersThe number of connected, healthy Social Networks [modified Reed's Law]Speed at which good ideas are propagatedThe percentage of the networks members who are Mavens[1] (experts who love to teach)The percentage of the networks members who are Connectors[1] (who know members of many networks)[1] See The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell

Proposed measurements for Social Network (SN) Health, Pt. 2We propose Social Network health is inversely proportional to:Social Network member turnover rate# of connected Social Networks with low healthAllen distance = Abs(#members 50)Average Dunbar distance (D) of membersD(m) = abs(# of m's stable relationships - 150) Speed at which bad ideas are propagatedPercentage of the networks members who are Leeches (love to learn, but only take information/energy, not contributing it back to the group)

What is Social Software?Wikipedia:applications which facilitate virtual connection and collaboration between people on a network. It is sometimes described succinctly as "connection comes before content."K. Eric Drexler, promoted by Clay Shirky: software that supports group communicationsTom CoatesSocial Software can be loosely defined as software which supports, extends, or derives added value from, human social behaviourAnother working definitionSocial software is software that aids in one or more of the formation, maintenance, and/or securing of one or more social networks.

History (1970s-2000s)1970sEIESPLATOEmail: cc line1980sGroupwareCSCW1990sGroupwareSocial Software slow growth2000sSocial Software takes offSource: http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2004/10/tracing_the_evo.html

Current EffortsBlogging becoming mainstreamCommunitiesIDCommonsPlanetWorkRyzeLinkedInTribes.NetLiveJournalNon-text blogging (voice, photo, and others)Purchase circlesFolksonomiesSocial Network Analysis tools - BlogDex

Vocabulary Challenges Tool and content authors in domain are often not graph theory experts, and want to read/write raw dataNo well-defined set of required information to describe a personVocabulary will likely be extended within a short time for specific types of networksFor many networks, keeping data within communities of trust is a necessityThe amount of data within a Social Network can be very large, requiring efficient parsing

Vocabulary features A Starting PointStart with DyNetML Requirements for Data Interchange, *http://casos.isri.cmu.edu/dynetml/index.htmlcontained in easily parsed & human-readable text filesallow an entire dataset, w/computed measurements, in one fileprovide maximum expressive power (see next slide)allow developers to extend it in a fashion that will not break existing softwareflexible enough to be used as both input and output of analysis tools.

Features for expressivenessTyped nodes (types may include "person", "resource", "organization", "knowledge", etc)Multiple sets of nodes of the same type (to express multiple units within the company, etc)Multiple typed attributes per nodeTyped edgesMultiple typed attributes per edgeMultiple graphs (sets of edges), and dynamic network data, expressed within the same file

Proposed additional featuresAlternative forms of data, XML and otherwise, should be cleanly embeddable within the data interchange format to enable extension and adoptionThe number of elements and attributes should be minimal to ease understanding, ideally just resource identifiers, resource data, and related resources (i.e. metadata)The general meaning of a data set should not require a background in graph theoryBuilt-in data interchange access control

Some XML vocabularies for possible use by Social SoftwareDyNetMLXFNFeed variants (Attention, RSS, Atom)OWL/RDFXDI

DyNetMLProduced at CMU by Maksim Tsvetovat, Jeff Reminga, Kathleen M. CarleyAdvantages:Very rich representation of social network as graphVery helpful for Social network analysis, easy conversion to other SNA formats (UCINET DL)Disadvantages:Primarily for Social Network Analysis, unwanted overhead for Social Network Syntax is geared to time capture of SN metricsVery close to XML representation of a generic graph, requiring some graph theory background

XFNA lightweight method of annotating links to indicate a personal relationship with the person responsible for the linked resourceEx: Advantages:Easily understood, is rel attributeEasily extendedEasy to embed with existing web pagesDisadvantages:Relationship data onlyXlink with less features and so less complexityWhat about non-HTML?

Reviewing feed variantsThe variants: RSS, Attention, AtomAdvantages:Widespread adoption and dual support for RSS/AtomFormat easily understood and parsedClear winner in tracking/publishing streams of discrete items, ex: blogsDisadvantages:Data syndication, work would be needed to use in all aspects of an online communityFractured formats, varying tool compliance element is weak for expressing rich relationships

Reviewing RDFResource description format (not necessarily XML)Advantages:Rich metadata captureOnly four underlying concepts (Resource, Property, Statement, XML statement expression)Large body of work (FOAF, etc)Disadvantages:Implementation of RDF is complex, not understood well by manySyntax is verbose, and can be difficult for humans to readToo many ways of encoding the same network/graph

Reviewing XDIXDI: OASIS XDI TC effort to create secure distributed data access protocol using Extensible Resource Identifiers (XRIs). The XRI specification is architected by the OASIS XRI TC. Advantages:Rich access control on traversal of links between resources (link contracts)Simple core concepts and implementation: XRIs, linked resources, and data. This means format easily understoodRelationships also can be expressed as triplesMeets all our requirementsDisadvantages:New, not much to build on yet

What we didn't choose and whyNote: They are all useful within an online community, but our goal was to pick one or two that are the best for general use within our online community. The reasons for this for many, primarily to keep the design clean and to prevent duplication of effort since there is significant overlap in purpose. DyNetML: Didn't meet our additional requirements, and too formal for easy understandingXFN: Links only, HTML specificFeed variants: Definitely needed in our online community, but for syndication, not general useRDF: Too complex for general use by itself in our use case, but ideal for semantically describing data.

What we did chooseXDI + RDFFOAF RDF for...data about community members simple interpersonal relationships XDI for...data about the communityAccess control contracts linking FOAF data by embedding within XDISharing personal data that would require non-standard FOAF propertiesExtensibility through data sharing dictionaries

How XDI/RDF can help community membershipA key point in XDI is that data is consumed from its natural home. You can view community participation as a set of data interchanges: participating in a chat, sharing your real name and an email address, sharing the information necessary to deduct payments, etc.Joining an XDI-enabled community then becomes a matter of negotiating data sharing control data (links)Groups can act as individuals in these negotiations, allowing two groups to establish data sharing contracts

How XDI/RDF can help form communities of trustBecause XDI has fine-grained control over data sharing, you could specify different privileges to shared data on an individual or a group basisXDI is based on XRI, the OASIS specification for uniform abstract identifiers. Persistent XRIs enable long-term trust relationships, including reputation mechanisms that can operate within and across group and community boundaries.Control of data is never relinquished by the authority on that data

How XDI/RDF can help build Social BridgesUsing XRIs and secure data sharing online communities can, if members allow, automatically share information with other trusted groups, spontaneously forming communities of interest from user's FOAF descriptions of themselvesEndorsements and reputation information can be propagated through trusted groups, creating community chosen expert individuals and expert groupsSince groups can act as individuals with their own identity, a group can create trusted data sharing links with other groups as easily as individuals create these links between themselves

Where to go for more information on XDIOASIS TC The XDI standards committee site: *http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=xdiOASIS TC The XRI standards committee site: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=xriThe DataWeb: An Introduction to XDI: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/6434/wd-xdi-intro-white-paper-2004-04-12.pdfThe Social Web: Creating An Open Social Network with XDI: http://journal.planetwork.net/article.php?lab=reed0704

See XDI in Action

The XDI TC will be holding a general presentation and demonstration for other OASIS members and staff at 1 pm (the second hour of lunch) on Wednesday.