"lastname" and "firstname" are not culturally neutral

Web Ontology Language (OWL) Use Cases and Requirements
W3C Working Draft 31 March 2003

| O11. String manipulation
|
http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-webont-req-20030331/#obj-string-manipulatio
n
| 
| The language should support string concatenation and simple pattern
| matching. These features can be used to establish interoperability
| between ontologies that treat complex information as a formatted
string
| and those that have separate properties for each component. For
example,
| one ontology may represent a person's name as a single string
"lastname,
| firstname," while another may have a property for each.

The concepts "lastname" and "firstname" are not culturally neutral.  
What is more, they are fairly meaningless, as one culture or person will

place the family name last, while another culture or person will place 
the given name last.  If the purpose of such a formatted string were to 
enable, say, sorting by family name, then this purpose would not be 
achieved by the construction "lastname, firstname".

Please replace "lastname" with "family name" and "firstname" with "given
name".

Thanks,
Misha



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Received on Wednesday, 2 April 2003 05:22:22 UTC