Extension/NeoWiki/Concepts

NeoWiki provides the mechanism for storing and querying structured data directly in wiki pages and replaces Semantic MediaWiki in BlueSpice.

Basic terms

To get started, you need to understand just a few simple key terms:

Schema

The Schema defines a type of Subject. It contains a set of property definitions.

• Example schemas: Person, Role, Document control

Galaxy already includes some useful schemas and users add their own based on their use cases.

Property

A key-value pair. The key is defined in a Schema and the value is added for each Subject.

• Page properties: A wiki page also has built-in properties such ascreationTime or LastUpdated.
• QM properties: Properties might also be pre-defined by extensions. For example qm/state is provided by extension ContentStabilization.

Subject

"Data about one thing." A Subject is created by adding a Schema to a wiki page and by providing the values for its properties.

Galaxy displays Subjects by default in the info panel of a wiki page.

Some other useful terms that are related to the key terms:

Relation

A typed, meaningful connection between two Subjects.

It creates the "edges" that turn your collection of Subjects into an actual knowledge graph.

The connection is created by defining a property type in a Schema as Relation to another Schema.

Example: The property Document owner in Schema Document Control can be of type Relation. The Relation can be defined as has role and point to Schema Role.

Page

Page is a MediaWiki concept, also known as "Wiki page". A page has:

• A title: shown in the URL and in the page title
• An id: persistent numeric ID
• Content: wikitext
• Subjects (optional): list of Subjects
  • Main Subject: optional identifier of a Subject in the page's Subjects list. Indicates which Subject represents the same entity as the page itself.
  • Child Subjects: any additional subject on the page

In the following visual representation, there a two wiki pages (wiki page 1, wiki page 2) that have their Document type and Owner defined in a Subject. The Subject properties are defined in the Schema Document control. The wiki can now include those pages in a Metadata report based on their common Subject.

Comparison between NeoWiki and Semantic MediaWiki

If you have used Semantic MediaWiki before to create structured data in your wiki, you can compare NeoWiki concepts with SemanticMediaWiki's approach.

Concept	In NeoWiki	Semantic MediaWiki (SMW)
Page	A regular wiki page.	In SMW, a page and "the thing it describes" are usually the same. It is the subject in a Subject-Predicate-Object relationship. So the page "Berlin" could have a link to the page Germany. Both could be linked via the predicate "Is capital of". Predicate and object are expressed in the property [[Is capital of::Germany]]. In NeoWiki, a page is more like a container. It can hold one or more structured records, called Subjects.
Subject	A structured, well-defined "record" that lives on a page. It is explicit, structured and schema-conformant.	SMW does not include the concept of a subject on a page. The page actually is the subject, it describes the "thing" the page is about (implicit). Subobjects on a page are sometimes used in SMW to create data objects on a page.
Property	A single named piece of data belonging to a subject. It is strictly defined and typed in a schema.	SMW provides properties as a loose page annotation in the form of [[Property::Value]].
Schema	The blueprint for a Subject. It defines the properties and any types of constraints. It provides the input form for a subject.	There are no predefined schemas. Wiki admins need to create a way for users to fill in property values. It is necessary to manually create templates and forms to collect property values on a page.
Relation	A typed, meaningful connection between two Subjects — the "edges" that turn a collection of Subjects into an actual knowledge graph. A Relation says how two things are connected, not just that they are.	SMW allows users to create relationships between pages (e.g., page "Berlin" could have property [[Is capital of::Germany]] , while in NeoWiki relations link subjects on pages.