Re: FOAF spec revised - addtion of foaf:focus, a skos extension linking topical and factual information

I'm on the metro to SAA so this will be brief, but I think the phrase is in
Z39.19 which is online at a url I could access if could operate my laptop
with my feet :-)

3g signal is strong so I may try from the Evo.

On Aug 10, 2010 4:34 AM, "Dan Brickley" <danbri@danbri.org> wrote:
> +Cc: Leigh
>
> On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 4:03 PM, Leo Sauermann <leo.sauermann@gnowsis.com>
wrote:
>> uh, didn't Dan's mail begin with
>>
>> "we just published the new version"
>>
>> that implies - its fixed. comments to change it aren't helpful, I guess.
>
> We have a few mechanisms in hand here, to allow a little flexibility.
>
> Each term in the FOAF namespace has a vs:status property, whose values
> were originally borrowed from Debian: 'unstable', 'testing', 'stable'.
> To these we recently added a new option, 'archaic', which is a kinder
> gentler and more Webby variant on deprecation. In a global system it
> strikes me as a bit rude to deprecate RDF vocabulary unless there is
> some strong reason to do so. People may have used it in good faith,
> and if the meaning was clear, likely it still remains clear. But there
> is of course a need to avoid vocabularies accumulating clutter over
> the years, hence 'archaic' which is intended to indicate the term is
> somehow old-fashioned or falling from widespread usage. I added retro
> CSS sepia colouring to the spec too, and these terms are currently
> sorted to show up last in the documentation.
>
> (see http://www.w3.org/2003/06/sw-vocab-status/note for draft note on
this)
>
> A second mechanism is the SKOS spec itself. FOAF has always served a
> dual role: as a language for describing, and as an experimental
> testbed for Web-scale informational-linking. Unlike a W3C
> Recommendation, the overhead for getting something into FOAF is fairly
> low and informal. However if our implementation experience from
> foaf:focus leads to a clearer idea of the design options, we could use
> that to prepare a proposal for a new W3C property in SKOS itself.
>
> This is always a pragmatic balancing act. If, say, today someone came
> up with a new property name suggestion which was universally applauded
> for being clear, not already in use, etc etc., we could probably
> switch foaf:focus with little cost and it might not even be worth
> keeping the old name in the spec as 'archaic'. If however we leave it
> there for say 3 months, and people start to publish data that uses it,
> and write code and SPARQL queries and OWL axioms etc., then I think it
> would be somewhat anti-social to completely delete the term from FOAF.
> If we left it for two weeks and then had a great idea for a new name,
> probably we could talk to all the relevant implementors, and see if
> they were happy to switch.
>
>> you usually discuss before and then publish an ontology. Also, afaik its
not
>> very common and not good to change the property identifier after
publishing.
>
> Yep, as I say it's a balancing act. When we started FOAF, the spec was
> created by documenting terms that people used 'in the wild', which is
> how we ended up with mess like firstName vs last_name. It is hard to
> get implementation feedback on things that haven't - to some extent -
> been documented. So that's how we ended up with the current rough
> process, which is that things flagged 'unstable' have some risk of
> being changed under your feet. That said of course it's best to avoid
> needless change.
>
> With foaf:focus I think it's still unclear, but the discussion is more
> than welcome, since even if foaf:focus stays as-is, debate here can
> inform future plans for SKOS. If we get a bright idea for a new and
> better property name in the very near future, it isn't too late to
> switch and either mark 'focus' as archaic, or if nobody screams, even
> consider deleting it in favour of the (currently theoretical)
> better-named successor.
>
> But I would also like to see actual data and usage too, rather than be
> stuck forever on the naming problem. The larger question of how
> SKOS-like modelling and OWL-like modelling connect won't be addressed
> by a single property, so we'll have plenty of future opportunities to
> reconsider things. My main hope is to make sure those discussions are
> grounded in real data published in the Web; having a reasonably-well
> documented property out there and usable is an essential ingredient
> for that. So I hope Simon's concern that 'focus' is already used
> doesn't prove too much of a showstopper, since I don't yet since
> another usable naming suggestion.
>
> cheers,
>
> Dan
>
>> the remarks are intereesting for the "rdf:comment" section though.
>>
>> my 2c
>> Leo
>>
>> It was Bernard Vatant who said at the right time 09.08.2010 15:55 the
>> following words:
>>
>> Hi Dan
>>
>> Although I loved foaf:focus at first sight because of the convergence
>> metaphor (see http://blog.hubjects.com/2010/03/foaf-focus.html) I would
tend
>> to follow Simon's argument.
>> Maybe I miss something, but are not we speaking about referent here, in
the
>> semiotic sense.
>>
>> So why not foaf:referent ?
>>
>> Bernard
>>
>> 2010/8/9 Simon Spero <ses@unc.edu>
>>>
>>> Dan-
>>>
>>> can i suggest using a different word  than focus, as this is term of art
>>> in controlled vocabularies. It is used when referring to
>>> modified/specialized "terms".
>>>
>>> Possible labels that might work could be  isReferredToBy ; SKOS concepts
>>> are intentional-with-a-t, so reference is a natural label;
>>> isFoafProxyForIntentionReferencedBySKOSConcept is awful ComputerDeutch.
>>>
>>> Foaf person "Paul The Octopus" isReferredTo by SKOS Concept "#PTO1".
>>>
>>> Where "#PTO1" isSubjectOf "#document" "Decideabity and tractablity of
>>> logical inference with binary serial octacles".
>>>
>>> (The halting problem has time complexity PTO(1) but other tasks may
>>> require an infinite series of questions.)
>>>
>>> On Aug 9, 2010 8:19 AM, "Dan Brickley" <danbri@danbri.org> wrote:
>>> Hi SKOS folks
>>>
>>> http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/
>>> http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/20100809.html#term_focus
>>>
>>> Just to let you know, there's a revision of the FOAF specification
>>> today. It includes a new term, foaf:focus that links a skos:Concept to
>>> the thing that the concept stands for.
>>>
>>> This notion has been discussed many times here over the years,
>>> sometimes as "skos:it", but never made it into W3C's REC-track SKOS
>>> spec. FOAF has long contained a cluster of topic-oriented properties
>>> (topic/page, primaryTopic), and in FOAF we have a long-standing
>>> concern with describing the areas of interest and expertise for people
>>> and other agents (eg. organizations, groups, projects). The addition
>>> of foaf:topic is intended as a modest and pragmatic bridge between
>>> SKOS-based descriptions of topics, and other more entity-centric RDF
>>> descriptions. When a SKOS Concept stands for a person or agent, FOAF
>>> and its extensions are directly applicable; however we expect
>>> foaf:focus to also be used with places, events and other identifiable
>>> entities that are covered both by SKOS vocabularies as well as by
>>> factual datasets like wikipedia/dbpedia and Freebase.
>>>
>>> Other relevant changes: the overview of FOAF at the top of the spec
>>> now more clearly separates two informal sub-sets of FOAF terms: "Core
>>> FOAF" terms and "Social Web" terms. The distinction is made with
>>> regard to whether a term is useful in describing someone or something
>>> who lived before the Web / internet. Only the more universal
>>> characteristics of groups, people etc are considered 'core FOAF';
>>> things like 'homepage', 'openid', 'weblog' are in the "Social Web"
>>> layer. Previously, we mistakenly gave the impression that FOAF was
>>> only for describing modern-day online accounts; hopefully the new
>>> formulation more accurately conveys an interest in capturing
>>> historical information too. There have also been some other textual
>>> changes that attempt to indicate more clearly what we're attempting
>>> with FOAF - essentially the combination of social and informational
>>> networks.
>>>
>>> Re the "Core" subset, brief excerpt: "Core - These classes and
>>> properties form the core of FOAF. They describe characteristics of
>>> people and social groups that are independent of time and technology;
>>> as such they can be used to describe basic information about people in
>>> present day, historical, cultural heritage and digital library
>>> contexts. In addition to various characteristics of people, FOAF
>>> defines classes for Project, Organization and Group as other kinds of
>>> agent."
>>>
>>> Also, various older terms (used in early demonstrations and
>>> prototypes, plus some spelling variations) are now marked 'archaic',
>>> both in human and machine-readable documentation.
>>>
>>> Feedback on the current design and description are welcome, either
>>> here or on the foaf-dev list. My hope is that with foaf:focus we can
>>> begin today gathering real-world implentation experience and data that
>>> could inform any future revisions to SKOS itself. If W3C were to
>>> eventually charter and complete an effort to update SKOS with matching
>>> functionality to foaf:focus, we would of course update FOAF
>>> accordingly to indicate the new mechanism. In the meantime, foaf:focus
>>> is available for use, experimentation and collaboration. I hope it
>>> proves useful when linking topically structured and factually based
>>> RDF information.
>>>
>>> cheers,
>>>
>>> Dan
>>>
>>> ps. one thing the spec currently lacks is an example of the new
>>> property. I'm waiting on this point, as several people are working on
>>> related datasets, and I hope soon we'll have real-world examples to
>>> illustrate foaf:focus's usage.
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Bernard Vatant
>> Senior Consultant
>> Vocabulary & Data Engineering
>> Tel:       +33 (0) 971 488 459
>> Mail:     bernard.vatant@mondeca.com
>> ----------------------------------------------------
>> Mondeca
>> 3, cité Nollez 75018 Paris France
>> Web:    http://www.mondeca.com
>> Blog:    http://mondeca.wordpress.com
>> ----------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>> --
>> Leo Sauermann, Dr.
>> CEO and Founder
>>
>> mail: leo.sauermann@gnowsis.com
>> mobile: +43 6991 gnowsis
>> http://www.gnowsis.com
>>
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