Re: Contexts of use, a semantic idea

This looks interesting.

> So, try this for size. We introduce a notion of a 'context of use'
> into the RDF concepts/semantics. Every IRI has a unique referent *in
> a given context of use*. It might have several of them at once,
> however. A CoU can be defined very broadly and can be user-defined,
> but it must satisfy some conditions.

> 1. It MUST be agreed within a community of use in such a way that
> every participant can determine the conditions defining the CoU.

Yes

> 2. Every CoU MUST specify precise conditions which locally,
> syntactically determine for every occurrence of every IRI token
> whether that occurrence is governed by the CoU.

In practical terms, the context is the 4th slot in the quad?

> 3. No IRI occurrence can be in two CoUs simultaneously.

> 4. To resolve cases that would violate 3., one CoU can override
> another, so that any IRI token which satisfies the conditions for
> both CoUs is assigned to the first and not to the second. This may
> require agreement between the communities which use each CoU.

Do you have an example where collisions of CoU, especially two non-web 
ones, might arise in one graph?

> 5. There is a default CoU, which is the entire Web. All other CoUs
> override the Web CoU. Any IRI token which is not in a more
> restricted CoU is in the Web CoU.

> If we go with this idea (which has wider utility, I think) then we
> don't have to keep getting so anal about 'naming' versus
> 'association' , which I think is going to be widely seen as very
> confusing and puzzling.

"Associates" is certainly a word used to avoid directly "naming".

It's an indirection:

(<URI>, G)
     ==>
<URI> :something :X .  :X :somethingelse G

> I realize this is a new idea and only a brief account, and it will
> need some tightening up, but I think it is worth spending some effort
> on as it will fix a lot of problems. And it just *seems* right.

	Andy