[VM] "Reference by description" - was Re: [PORT] Concept identification and reference

On Thu, Nov 04, 2004 at 01:06:49PM -0000, Alistair Miles wrote:
> So the choice I see boils down to:
> 
> When describing best practise for creating RDF descriptions of thesauri
> without official URIs, do we ...
> 
>  (a) attempt to remain neutral about whether people make up unofficial URIs,
> and rely on the owl:sameAs machinery to cope with multiple published URIs
> for the same concept, or ...
>  (b) actively encourage the publication of these thesauri with concept nodes
> as blank nodes, and additionally publish guidelines on how reference by
> description may be used to refer to such concepts from other RDF
> descriptions (which may depend on rules technology without any current
> standard implementations).

Alistair addressed the question above to the PORT task
force [1], but it is potentially relevant to the VM TF.

Leo argued strongly against option "b", pointing out that
robust guidelines have yet to be formulated [2].

In the revised VM draft (to be posted very soon to a Wiki), I
have penciled in Alistair for a few words about the dilemma of
coining multiple URIs for the same thing in order to get work
done but am assuming that non-URI-based methods for "reference
by description" will _not_ be covered in the VM note.

Tom

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2004Nov/0025.html
[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2004Nov/0028.html

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Dr. Thomas Baker                        Thomas.Baker@izb.fraunhofer.de
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