Classification of Skeptical Resources

SkeptInq@aol.com
Fri, 14 Aug 1998 08:58:50 EDT


In a message dated 8/13/98 12:59:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
kjetil.kjernsmo@astro.uio.no writes:

<< Subj:         Classification of Skeptical Resources
 Date:  8/13/98 12:59:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time
 From:  kjetil.kjernsmo@astro.uio.no (Kjetil Kjernsmo)
 Reply-to:      kjetil.kjernsmo@astro.uio.no (Kjetil Kjernsmo)
 To:    skeptinq@aol.com

 Hello!
 Is there any chance you will forward this to the announcement list?
 Kjetil
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Dear fellow Skeptics!

 I am the webmaster of the site of norwegian skeptics at
 <URL:http://www.skepsis.no/>. On this site, I tried to make a directory
 tree that would make sure I would never have to move anything, just add
 them. Recently, I started to research classification schemes like Dewey and
 Library of Congress Classification Scheme among others, because
 building a good directory tree proved difficult. I soon found however,
 that none were quite appropriate for my purpose. Now, this was just my
 story, more importantly, is the possibility of building a really good
 catalogue of skeptical literature online.

 I hope that the online skeptical community will join me in developing a
 new classification scheme for online resources.

 The benefit from doing this will have many aspects. It has of course the
 obvious uses existing classification schemes have for printed material.
 The primary purpose is though, to use it for online material. The use
 of classifications for online material has to a large degree been
 neglected, but I'm sure it will become important. We might use
 it for classifying articles we publish on our servers, for establishing
 Yahoo-style subject catalogues of links, and so on. In the future, data
 included in web documents may be used to index all skeptical information
 in a subject catalogue and search engine by a single carefully
 designed robot.

 We should make our classification easily implementable within W3C's
 work-in-progress "Resource Description Framework"
 <URL:http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-rdf-syntax/>, and have a close look on the
 element sets that will be used in the future for metadata, such as the
 Dublin Core set <URL:http://purl.oclc.org/metadata/dublin_core/>

 To let the online skeptical community come together and discuss and build
 the classification scheme, I have made a mailing list. I hope that people
 with interest in the classification and especially librarians with
 experience from other schemes will subscribe to the list and join the
 discussion. To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
 classification-request@lists.skepsis.no with the word "subscribe" in the
 Subject:-line.

 I will also make a homepage at
 <URL:http://www.skepsis.no/english/classification/>
 where the work will be described as it progresses, and all messages to the
 list will be archived.

 Also, please don't hesitate to forward this note to other skeptics or
 skeptical forums where people may be interested in the scheme and/or help
 building it.

 Best Regards,

 Kjetil
 --
 Kjetil Kjernsmo
 Graduate astronomy-student                       University of Oslo, Norway
 mailto:kjetikj@astro.uio.no  WWW-homepage:http://www.astro.uio.no/~kjetikj/
 President, Norwegian Association of Physics Students   Webmaster@skepsis.no