Re: [OPEN] Guideline for when standard definitions are inadequate (was philosophy of SWBPD (was Re: [OPEN] and/or [PORT] : a practical question))

>There is no guarantee that after long careful thought, the 
>dc:subject as currently defined will be adequate to the needs of 
>someone doing very careful modeling of subject [class/part] 
>hierarchies.  This raises a general concern: while we always want to 
>use existing standard definitions when we can, sometimes there may 
>be a need to differ.

Michael, WHAT the hell are you taking about? What 'existing standard 
definitions' ?? Even if they exist (I know of no such case, where 
there is a single existing standard definition of any concept in any 
ontology. RDFS and OWL disagree about the exact meaning of 'subclass' 
for example.), WHY would we want to use them?

>This results from the truth that "there will never be one true 
>ontology" even in rather narrow domains, but rather different 
>ontologies will serve different purposes.
>
>It would be good if we could come up with some useful things to say 
>about this situation.

Might be better to worry about what to say when the oceans freeze over.

Pat


>Here is a draft candidate 'best practice" guideline for this case:
>
>Try to use standard definitions where possible, if not, then try to 
>pull out common pieces of both definitions, and make the 
>relationship between them explicit. If that is not possible, then in 
>clear natural language, articulate how the new definition relates to 
>the standard one, as well as why the standard one was inadequate to 
>your purposes.  If you think that there are serious problems with 
>the standard one that warrants being upgraded, then make those 
>recommendations to the appropriate body.
>
>Mike
>
>
>
>  -----Original Message-----
>From:	public-swbp-wg-request@w3.org 
>[mailto:public-swbp-wg-request@w3.org]  On Behalf Of Jeremy Carroll
>Sent:	Thursday, March 25, 2004 12:26 AM
>To:	Jim Hendler
>Cc:	Christopher Welty; Bernard Vatant; Ian Horrocks; SWBPD; 
>public-swbp-wg-request@w3.org
>Subject:	Re: ALL: philosophy of SWBPD (was Re: [OPEN] and/or 
>[PORT] : a  practical  question)
>
>
>Chris:
>>  Well, "mismodelling their world" is not limited to classes as instances.
>>  I find it rather dangerous to make such statements.  People use subclass
>>  incorrectly, too, but that wasn't a reason to remove that axiom from OWL
>>  DL.  People just mismodel their worlds, I hope we can offer some advice
>>  on both how to do some of these things and how NOT to do it.
>>
>
>
>
>>  See, it's this kind of converse that makes me nervous -- somehow the
>>  idea that the people who prefer separating class from instance (as Ian
>>  is quoted by Jeremy) are right and those who prefer to use metamodeling
>>  (like Guus as quoted to WOWG. I don't have time to dig up the mail) are
>>  somehow mismodeling.  This is nonsense --
>
>
>
>I agree with both these points ... but that doesn't mean that any use of
>classes as instances is well-modelled, and at least in this specific case,
>remembering Ian's reservations, it seems to me that classes as instances is
>   misguided (when using dc:subject). I am well aware that many others in
>this group know much more about subject hierarchies and modelling than I
>do, but we shouldn't shy away from making judgements.
>
>My concern was about the implied relationship between *dc:subject* and
>*rdf:type* both of which are already defined.
>If, after thinking about it (which I haven't), I thought that metaclasses
>were an appropriate modelling tool for this case, I think I would need to
>use a new property instead of *dc:subject* in order to express its
>relationship to *rdf:type*.
>
>On the 'philosophy of SWBPD' topic, I hope that Network Inference, and/or
>others coming from the DL camp will participate in this WG, since I think
>we will be less able to represent (and forge) the consensus of the
>community without input from that part of it. (Certainly I am an unlikely
>champion of that school of thought !)
>
>Jeremy


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Received on Thursday, 15 April 2004 17:54:02 UTC