Re: Should we adopt SKOS?

Category should be a subClassOf Thing.

guha

On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 10:28 AM, Jason Douglas <jasondouglas@google.com>wrote:

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> On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 10:00 AM, Dan Brickley <danbri@danbri.org> wrote:
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>> +Cc: Jamie
>>
>> On 9 January 2013 16:29, Richard Wallis <richard.wallis@oclc.org> wrote:
>> > Coming from the bibliographic world, specifically chairing  the Schema
>> Bib
>> > Extend Group[1] (who are building a consensus around a group of
>> proposals
>> > for Schema.org extensions for bibliographic resources, before submitting
>> > them to this group), I am identifying situations where being able to
>> model
>> > things as SKOS[2] Concepts held in ConceptSchemes would make a great
>> deal of
>> > sense.
>> >
>> > Working with colleagues we were finding ourselves almost reinventing the
>> > SKOS model in [proposed] Schema.org vocabulary.
>> >
>> > The introduction of External Enumerations[2] provided the ability to
>> link to
>> > lists of things controlled by external authorities.  An approach used
>> widely
>> > in the bibliographic and other domains – Library of Congress Subject
>> > Headings[4] for example.  Many of these authorities are modelled using
>> SKOS
>> > (Concepts within ConceptSchemes) which introduces a consistent
>> structured
>> > way to describe relationships (broader/narrower), language specific
>> > preferred labels, etc.
>> >
>> > Sub-typing Intangible for Concept and ConceptScheme, it would be
>> > comparatively easy to introduce SKOS into Schema.  The benefits I
>> believe
>> > being to add even more value to External Enumeration; providing a
>> flexible
>> > simple-ish yet standard pattern for marking up lists of concepts and
>> their
>> > interrelationships; provide a very easy way for already published
>> > authoritative lists of concepts to adopt Schema.org and provide valuable
>> > resources for all to connect with.
>> >
>> > For instance VIAF[4] the Virtual International Authority File, a well
>> used
>> > source of URIs and authoritative names for people and organisations
>> > (compiled and managed by the bibliographic community but used widely) is
>> > already in SKOS.  SKOS is also used in many other domains.
>> >
>> > I could see this adding value without significant impact on the rest of
>> > Schema.
>> >
>> > What do others think?
>>
>> I've been thinking in this direction too (and had brief discussion
>> with Jamie, cc:'d, w.r.t. Freebase's approach).
>>
>> SKOS has done well and a great many controlled vocabularies in the
>> thesauri, subject classification and code list tradition are expressed
>> using it. SKOS handles various cases where 'class/object/property'
>> models don't capture things well. I'd like to have a way of reflecting
>> SKOS-oriented data into schema.org descriptions without going
>> 'multi-namespace'. There are also already various corners of
>> schema.org where different loose notions of 'category' are slipping
>> in.
>>
>> My current preference would be to call a new type "Topic" or perhaps
>> "Category" rather than the more esoteric / vague "Concept", even while
>> borrowing most structure and terminology from SKOS.
>>
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> +1 to a top-level, independent peer to Thing for this.  While Category
> might not be the most precise term for these, it has the advantage of being
> very clearly distinct from Thing -- and I worry that Topic and Concept
> aren't.
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>> Do you have a strawman list of what you'd hope to include, from a
>> bibliographic perspective?
>>
>> Dan
>>
>> > ~Richard
>> >
>> > --
>> > Richard Wallis
>> > Technology Evangelist
>> > OCLC
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > [1] http://www.w3.org/community/schemabibex/
>> > [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/skos-reference/
>> > [3] http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas/ExternalEnumerations
>> > [4] http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects.html
>> >
>>
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