RE: Media types for the Semantic Web

> From: public-sw-meaning-request@w3.org 
> [mailto:public-sw-meaning-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Mark Baker
> 
> BTW, is this on topic for this list?  I can't tell any more. 8-/

I'd like to ask a couple of questions about how this thread (and 
"self-descriptive assertions") relate to applications. Much of the 
below is probably obvious, but I'd like to be sure I'm clear (and if 
what I'm calling obvious is actually nonsense, I'd like to know about 
it...) 

Assume a future world in which a variety of models have been accepted 
into general use for the description of various domains, and ordinary 
authors and developers are using them in combination as appropriate to 
specific applications. 

Example: To answer queries like "who played Sam Spade?" a hypothetical 
SemanticHollywood.com would want to promulgate movie-specific 
metadata. But it would also be good to be able to answer queries like 
"what cases did Spade and Archer work on?" 

For the second type of query, it's clear that from an economy of effort 
point of view as well as a whole-ecology-factoring point of view, it's 
better if our hypothetical developers describe Sam using an externally 
available domain model that covers private investigators, rather than 
adding corresponding classes to a motion picture ontology. (Granted, this is some ways down the road.)

Is the graph that describes Sam the fictional detective an example of a 
non-asserted graph in the sense of this thread? Non-asserted in the 
sense, for instance, that we don't want someone who's actually trying 
to employ a San Francisco detective to get a hit on Sam? 

If this is correct, then it seems to me that an (unspoken) background 
belief for your proposal (Mark) is that reification is not suitable (too awkward, too abstract, wrong-grained?) as a mechanism to 
characterize certain statements/graphs as non-asserted: fictional, 
hypothetical, proposal, performative in various senses... 

Am I on track this far? If so, from my peanut gallery seat I have no 
opinion about whether media type is an appropriate answer, but it does 
seem to me that there's an important question. 

(a) Is the implicit position of the anti-media-type principals in this 
thread that reification is a sufficient answer to this type of question? Or that this is not a single question with a single 
answer? Or that there is no issue at all?  

(b) More generally, what views are people willing to express about how 
the pragmatics of non-factual statements may develop over time? 

Thanks for your patience, 
Mike

Received on Wednesday, 31 March 2004 14:24:52 UTC