mudlondon
mudlondon is a kind of collaborative mapping project. it consists of geographical models which are represented as RDF graphs. you can wander round them, like a MUD or MOO, with a bot interface which you can use to create and connect new places.
it is an experiment in gonzo geographical data collection, with location grid data extrapolated from and converted between different sources on the internet, and new connections made between them.
it is a semantic web project; it provides a scheme for semantic web identification of places via unique uris. the interaction with people aspect uses FOAF, in the hope that friend-of-a-friend networks can benefit from collaborative filtering as well as collaborative mapping.
there is a model of london which has an instant messenger bot interface and is addressable via the web.
mudlondon
a model of london, with grid location data about places and the connections between them.
seeded with a model of the tube (subway) network, giving postcode and tube interconnection information for each station, scraped from tubeplanner.com. postcodes become co-ordinate data with the help of Streetmap.pm. there is some information from grubstreet, the open-source guide to london, in there.
there is an IM bot interface to mudlondon. It talks jabber as mudlondon@jabber.earth.li, and AIM as mudlondon. here's a snapshot of navigation/interaction with the bot:
the user is encouraged to connect new places to the model, augmenting it with his or her own mental map, annotating with descriptions, known postcodes (which are automatically converted and cross-referenced with other grid location data). ref erences to external URLs, reviews etc can be added and annotated in the RDF model.
there is a REST-style web interface to mudlondon, which the bot also uses as its brain. you can access it directly and it will return you RDF/XML. for example, http://space.frot.org/a_space/London/Bethnal_Green_Road will show you the metadata for Bethnal Green Road (substitute space for underscore in the url) and the names and urls of any connections to it. the uri is intended to be uniquely identifying in semantic web terms; i understand there will be duplicates in names and am looking for semantically pleasing ways of solving this.
to search for a place name, try http://space.frot.org/find_space/Beth. there are also methods for creating, connecting and annotating spaces.
i had thought of doing a regular html web interface for humans but would like it to be complimentary to, rather than just additional to the bot interface.
rdf model of london's tube system
SVG map of london's tube system (buggy)
