LocalNaming
GlobalNaming is essential.
But so is LocalNaming.
Like RDF follows from XML, LocalNaming follows from GlobalNaming.
Consider this wiki, for instance: We use LocalNaming to powerful advantage.
You should be able to use local names to refer to things, when operating in particular roles and communities.
I've been working on a thing called the Local Name Server. Code is available for a simple server. Could you put a link here, please. guest
Ideally, you could write "LocalNaming" in your mail client, and your mail program (MUA) would link the word to this page.
Or, you'd IM a friend about "LocalNaming," and the words would be linked to this page.
IRC bots could be configured to extend their link database by a Local Name Server. And of course, could add entries to namespaces within a local name server.
If you write up a nice blog entry, or put some document or manifesto in your blog, you could give it a local name. On the wiki you participate on, you could default the wiki to your blog's name space. Then you and your peers on the wiki can refer to your blog document by Local Name.
And of course, in your blog, you could write about a wiki page just by using it's name on the wiki.
You don't just have to link to wiki pages. You could assign local names to important threaded discussions, local names to pictures, local names to static pages, local names to torrents, local names to this, local names to that- pretty much anything you can refer to by URL, you could refer to by a local name.
Consider your web browser..! You don't have to type in URL's any more, or even search through book marks! You just type: "LocalNaming," and you're taken to this page. (Because: you've previously configured your local name server to default to the ESW wiki's namespace.)
We could probably get rid of 95% of the URL's in our life, since we're talking about things already familiar to ourselves in most cases. Unless you are a programmer, you get to never see a URL again, except on the sides of buses and what not.
Hell, corporations could even get in on the game. The world's business would set up a name space, and manage it on their own. They would collectively advertise it, and recommend "Business" as the name of their name space. The bus sides would then say, "Visit Honda:Asimo to see our great robot!" ... which would link to the Asimo page. Everyone would have defaulted their LNS to the "BigBusiness" gateway to the big business' namespace that itself gateways to Honda's nameserver, which keeps an entry for "Asimo," which they point to a web page on the Asimo robot. This codifies what we already do in spoken language- if we say "Honda," we assume that you're talking about the big Japanese business.
I have already coded up a primitive proto-Local Name Server.
It is insecure. It is slow. It is XML-RPC. But, it works, it is interesting, it is a good study case for further development. There are interesting problems to solve in it, if any one is interested. (Namely, we only want to make a minimal number of trips to a LNS, if possible- a walk across namespaces, or a series of defaults, might result in a server being visitied multiple times.)
It features defaulting ("if the name isn't in this namespace, check these other name spaces"), and WikiFeatures:IntermapWalking, which is like old mail "bang paths," as described on GlobalNaming.
(If WikiPedia:Bang_path's scare you, remember that: (A) You are linking by namespaces, not computers. Thus, chains will be short. (B) You still have URL's at your command. (C) You don't have to use Intermap Walking. It's only there for your short term-convenience. It is completely re-pointable and re-configurable, unlike the old bang paths.)