Whenever I read an article, blog post or a comment that disses the Semantic Web, RDF or RDF/XML, I wonder why so many people find it necessary to try to belittle another technology or approach. It is almost always clear — at least to me — that there are no facts or knowledge to back up the claims, but it seems there are always enough readers out there that come away with the impression of facts instead of opinions.

I don’t know much about Topic Maps, Django or FreeBSD, but you don’t see me trying to argue that they are inferior, somewhat misguied or simply plain wrong. Even if that may be the case, I wouldn’t know, and I refuse to argue for or against something I don’t know anything about.

Perhaps those people out there feel out-of-the-loop for not understanding, and then pick arguments against another view instead of arguing for their own view? Perhaps they are trying to push an inferior technology and feel a need to make alternatives look inferior as well?

I don’t know.

But I do know, that the next time I see an “argument” against the Semantic Web, I will check the new GetSemantic Argument Wiki, and I hope that you will too.

In the meantime, please take 8 minutes of your day to watch Tim Berners-Lee talk about his vision for the web. That’s real.