You're still missing a vital step.

Currently your assertion is that the creator /of a web page/ is Jefferson,
which is clearly false.

The page (...) is a transcription of the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration of Independence is written by Jefferson.
Jefferson is Male.

And it's not very hard given the right mindset -- its just a fully expanded
relational database, where the identifiers are URIs.  Yes, it's not 1st
year computer science, but it is 2nd or 3rd year rather than post graduate.

Which is not to say that people do not have great trouble succinctly
articulating knowledge, but like any skill, it can be learned. Just look at
the variation in the ways of writing papers ... some people can do it very
clearly, some have much more difficulty.

And with JSON-LD, you don't have to understand the RDF, just a clean
representation of it.

Rob



On Sun, Nov 3, 2013 at 1:45 PM, Eric Lease Morgan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>
> Cool input. Thank you. I believe I have tweaked my assertions:
>
> 1. The Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson
>
> <rdf:RDF
>   xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
>   xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" >
>
>   <rdf:Description
>   rdf:about="
> http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html">
>     <dc:creator>http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79089957</dc:creator>
>   </rdf:Description>
>
> </rdf:RDF>
>
>
> 2. Thomas Jefferson is a male person
>
> <rdf:RDF
>   xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
>   xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/">
>
>   <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n7908995
> ">
>     <foaf:Person foaf:gender="male" />
>   </rdf:Description>
>
> </rdf:RDF>
>
>
> Using no additional vocabularies (ontologies), I think my hypothetical
> Linked Data spider / robot ought to be able to assert the following:
>
> 3. The Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson, a male
> person
>
> <rdf:RDF
>  xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
>  xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
>  xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/">
>
>   <rdf:Description
>   rdf:about="
> http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html">
>       <dc:creator>
>         <foaf:Person rdf:about="
> http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79089957">
>           <foaf:gender>male</foaf:gender>
>         </foaf:Person>
>       </dc:creator>
>   </rdf:Description>
>
> </rdf:RDF>
>
> The W3C Validator…validates Assertion #3, and returns the attached graph,
> which illustrates the logical combination of Assertion #1 and #2.
>
> This is hard. The Semantic Web (and RDF) attempt at codifying knowledge
> using a strict syntax, specifically a strict syntax of triples. It is very
> difficult for humans to articulate knowledge, let alone codifying it. How
> realistic is the idea of the Semantic Web? I wonder this not because I
> don’t think the technology can handle the problem. I say this because I
> think people can’t (or have great difficulty) succinctly articulating
> knowledge. Or maybe knowledge does not fit into triples?
>
> —
> Eric Morgan
> University of Notre Dame
>
> [cid:6A4E613F-CE41-4D35-BDFA-2E66EE7AF20A]
>
>