Automatic Linking

By requiring automatic links to answer the question ``What's that?'', automatic linking becomes more precisely defined:

A link is a definition.

(Of course, ``definition'' now means ``definition home page''.) The task now becomes to develop

1. some kind of dictionary associating each term with its most definitive home page, and
2. software for recognizing terms in on-line documents and providing associated links.

The Open Dictionary addresses item 1 so as to enable item 2. To fulfill this role, the following characteristics are highly desirable, as they would be for any link-database dictionary:

• It should be organized hierarchically according to context in order to provide a unique definition for each term in each context.
• It should be available on the Web for global dissemination.
• Subsets of it should be downloadable to support automatic linking systems.
• Subsets should be definable based on link attributes, such as context and educational level.
• The dictionary should be extensible by users so that members of arcane disciplines can provide missing definitions for terms in their field.
• It should be free, in part because it is built by users.
• It should accommodate competing definitions, including ways to rank competing definitions.

The following additional features are also desirable:

• The dictionary context hierarchy can be made browsable on the Web, like any directory website. In this view, ``directories'' can correspond to ``contexts'', except for lowest-level directories which can be associated with a word or phrase (and all of its equivalent phrasings). The links appearing in a lowest-level directory would then consist of all the competing definitions for that term. (For an example of competing definition display in this format, see
  http://www.w3k.org/od/pages/Top/Mathematics/Exponential/.)

• The dictionary should be searchable, like most websites, thus making it function as an on-line dictionary. However, unlike conventional dictionaries (even those on-line), the context of the search can be specified. For example, one could search for the term ``exponential'' under the context ``Mathematics''.

• The ranking system for competing definitions can be split into two types: (1) a popular ranking, to which anyone may contribute, and (2) an experts ranking, to which only experts may contribute. There are various systems for creating a ``web of trust'', such as Advogato's Trust Metric.

• Links in the dictionary should be periodically checked to make sure they still exist. When a link stops working for an extended period of time, it can be moved out of the dictionary to a special holding area of the website. The link's contributor can be notified automatically via email and encouraged to try to repair and resubmit the link.