Re: schema.org/sameThingAs proposal

On 6/22/12 11:21 AM, Dan Brickley wrote:
> The idea is similar to W3C's existing 'owl:sameAs' relationship, but
> more flexible / loose, since with schema.org markup (and
> rdfa/microdata in general) it is very common to see mixing of
> identifiers for things, and identifiers for pages-about-those-things.
>
> Basically all sameThingAs says is, "whether these are direct or
> indirect identifiers doesn't matter for now; they point to the single,
> same real-world entity".
So you want:

Equivalence by Name -- sameAs
Equivalence by Value -- content equivalence basically
Equivalence by Intent -- nebulous layer above which could carry the 
semantics you seek i.e., the are loosely equivalent in some way 
understood by the claim maker, at best.

Thus, Instead of "same" you would have "equivalent" where the other 
equivalences become subproperties that hook nicely into the pattern 
already established re. rdf:type.

So you have:

equivalentByName
equivalentByValue
equivalentByIntent.

"same" is a problem vector for those that see the label and then 
interpret relationship semantics literally. You've already seen the 
distraction it creates for Linked Data :-)

-- 

Regards,

Kingsley Idehen 
Founder & CEO
OpenLink Software
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