  Shared reference is an essential aspect of meaning. It is also indispensable
for the semantic web, since it enables to weave the global graph, i.e., it
allows different users to contribute to an identical referent. For example, an
essential kind of referent is a geographic place, to which users may contribute
observations. We argue for a human-centric, operational approach towards
reference, based on respective human competences. These competences encompass
perceptual, cognitive as well as technical ones, and together they allow humans
to inter-subjectively refer to a phenomenon in their environment. The
technology stack of the semantic web should be extended by such operations.
This would allow establishing new kinds of observation-based reference systems
that help constrain and integrate the semantic web bottom-up.
