Re: "metadata" as "data about data"

On 5 March 2015 at 16:43, Joao Paulo Almeida <jpalmeida@ieee.org> wrote:
> Would you please provide an example where the text we use could lead to
> conceptual confusion?
>
> I don't understand the disclaimer suggested by Dan. What is meant by
> "absolute" distinction?

The idea is that a statement like "Dan Brickley works for Google" is
not inherently metadata versus data. It can be considered data, or
considered metadata, depending on context and application. Therefore
we should be careful not to give people the idea that there exists any
deep important distinction between the two. In a 1990s context, this
explained the very general approach taken in the RDF design. In the
context of your document, the value is not so much that it would avoid
conceptual confusion, but rather that it avoids presenting a
(naturally) confusing distinction as a clear one.

Dan

> best regards,
> João Paulo
>
> On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 1:26 PM, Dan Brickley <danbri@google.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 5 March 2015 at 16:20, Christophe Guéret
>> <christophe.gueret@dans.knaw.nl> wrote:
>> > Hi Dan,
>> >
>> > Thanks for this! Funny thing is that I was sitting in a meeting with KOS
>> > people today and when I asked them to comment on our document they also
>> > pointed out that this definition of metadata would not fit everyone.
>>
>> Some debates are destined to go on forever :) Thanks for considering
>> the suggestion...
>>
>> Dan
>>
>

Received on Thursday, 5 March 2015 16:48:42 UTC