Thread:Semantic-mediawiki.org:Community portal/Some questions about SMW/reply (5)

> for a way to automatically import all vocabulary

A semi-automatic approach is being described above by [1].

> without the need to create things one by one each time.

As I mentioned earlier "SMW is used under the premise of explicit type declarations." which means you need at least to declare a connection between a property (Property:A) and its external representation (imported from::foaf:name) otherwise how should the system (SMW) know the attributive connection between an internal and external term.

To import something without making an explicit declaration is not how SMW ought to work. One can write a tool that would help with those assignments but since each wiki uses individual named properties to assign values, it can not be assumed that Property:Foaf:name on wiki-A means (in terms of its entity description) the same thing as Property:Foaf:name on wiki-B (even though the common sense would dictate such conjecture) because those assumption are not declarative.

SMW does not reserve the foaf/dc (or any other) namespace for exclusive use by an external vocabulary making it therefore not feasible to assume that Property:Foaf:name represents an external foaf:name entity (this is where we use imported from to assign the meaning of an external vocabulary to a property of one's own choosing).

> things one by one each time.

You only create a declaration once per property.