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The new thing about the Semantic Web is not the semantics, it's the Web

11 November 2025

In my 2025 ISWC keynote (publication of recording is pending) I was using some text which I considered a quote: “The new thing about the Semantic Web is not the semantics, it's the Web.”

Now I thought the quote was by Chris Welty, and I thought it was in his 2007 ISWC keynote (what a nice recall!), but I didn't have the time to actually check it and I could be wrong.

On arrival in Nara I met Natasha Noy, and asked her if she remembered the quote. She did not, but said it didn't sound like something that Chris would say, and it sounded more like something Jim Hendler would say.

So in the talk itself, I had the quote, but said that I was unsure to whom to attribute it.

Later, Juan Sequeda and I were trying to figure out where the quote is from. Juan just asked Chris via messenger (he wasn't in Nara), but Chris said it's nothing he remembers saying. I think he also thought it sounds more like something Jim would say.

I asked Gemini, and Gemini thought it was Tim Berners-Lee. Gemini Deep Research on the other hand was guessing Jim Hendler, with input from Dean Allemang and maybe Tim Berners-Lee. Juan asked a paid version of ChatGPT, and that actually found the quote (“In the Semantic Web, it is not the Semantic which is new, it is the Web which is new”) in the Semantic Web FAQ by the W3C, attributed to Chris Welty. Finally, I asked ChatGPT (free version), and it attributed the quote to -- well, Denny Vrandečić. Myself. Very funny

So, I finally watched the 2007 keynote, and indeed: he gets very close to the quote, by combining what he said: “The emphasis is on Web, not on Semantic.” (24:20-25:00) and “It wasn't the KR in Semantic Web that was novel, it was the Web that was novel.” (39:40-40:00).

Now I can confidently attribute the quote to Chris Welty.

Update: there has been a twist to the story! Kingsley Udehen found the quote in slides by Tim Berners-Lee wrapping up ISWC 2005, Slide 3, two years before Chris' keynote. But -- attributed to Chris Welty! So the conclusion stands, just with an even older provenance.

Simia

Kicking off the naming contest for Abstract Wikipedia

15 October 2025

Before we started Abstract Wikipedia, it was always clear that "Abstract Wikipedia" was just a working name for the project, not the name that the Website would eventually get. It was intentionally chosen to be minimally descriptive --it is abstract in the sense that it captures encyclopaedic content abstracted from a concrete natural language-- but also not a very good name, because it is confusing: people confuse it with a Wikipedia of Abstracts (short summaries of articles), or think of math or art.

Thus we are kicking off a naming contest and were inviting all Wikimedians to join! Already, more than a dozen names are there, and you can suggest more, and vote for your favorites.

Let's find the best possible name!

Simia

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