[PORT] SKOS Core 2nd Review: subjectIndicatorUse-1

Re: change proposal subjectIndicatorUse-1 [1]

I'll implement the required changes to the RDF/OWL description of SKOS Core asap.  This change requires no corresponding changes to either the SKOS Core Guide or the SKOS Core Vocabulary Specification.

Responding to Ralph's comments:

> The intent within the SKOS Core namespace document [2] appears to
> have been simply to help locate a human-readable definition of the
> Class or Property.  While having such a triple may be useful, the
> function can be performed (with looser semantics) by rdfs:seeAlso.

Yes, this was exactly the intention.  I have no problem substituting rdfs:seeAlso, let's discuss this as a proposal for addition at the next review.

> I question whether it should be considered good practice to use
> a URI with an HTML fragment identifier as a subject indicator.
> As subject indicators must define exactly one subject, it is
> left to the (human) reader to decide how much of the document
> fragment identified by the URI comprises this subject indicator.
> The HTML fragment identifier _could_ denote a section (e.g. div,
> paragraph, or span) of the document but in the particular case
> of the SKOS core spec the fragment identifiers appear within
> short targets; e.g. [3] without clear markup to denote (to a
> machine) the totality of the intended definition.

This is valuable feedback for the published subjects technical committee at OASIS (they do use frag ids in some of their examples I believe).

> Bernard Vatant noted in [4] that this triple in the SKOS Core
> namespace might lead to confusion in Topic Maps environments
> so it seems wise to remove it from the SKOS namespace document
> now and reconsider the broader implications.

Agreed, this is additional motivation for making the change.

Cheers,

Al.

[1] http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core/review-2#subjectIndicatorUse-1
[2] http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core
[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/swbp-skos-core-spec/#hasTopConcept
[4] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-esw-thes/2005May/0002.html


---
Alistair Miles
Research Associate
CCLRC - Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Building R1 Room 1.60
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United Kingdom
Email:        a.j.miles@rl.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1235 445440

Received on Thursday, 29 September 2005 13:57:10 UTC