RE: How to name what you get back? was: Terminology Question concerning Web Architecture and Linked Data

Hi Chris,

how about the term "particulars"? 
It has a slightly philosophical touch, as it used in Theory of Forms. 
But I think it describes what you are looking for: something concrete about
a concept.

Georgi

--
Georgi Kobilarov
Freie Universität Berlin
www.georgikobilarov.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: semantic-web-request@w3.org [mailto:semantic-web-request@w3.org]
> On Behalf Of Chris Bizer
> Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2007 5:48 PM
> To: Frank Manola
> Cc: Tim Berners-Lee; www-tag@w3.org; semantic-web@w3.org; Linking Open
> Data
> Subject: How to name what you get back? was: Terminology Question
> concerning Web Architecture and Linked Data
> 
> 
> Hi Frank, Pat and Bernard,
> 
> thanks a lot for all your ideas and comments.
> 
> So what we are having on the table right now is a definition:
> 
> "The term XXX refers to the description of a non-information resource
> that a client obtains by dereferencing a specific URI that identifies
> this non-information resource."
> 
> and various proposals for the term:
> 
> Pat Hayes:
> - represented description
> - redirected description
> - redescription
> - transmit
> - infon
> 
> Frank Manola
> - associated representation
> 
> Bernard Vatant:
> - description
> 
> Some (of course subjective) comments: Like Bernard already stated,
> "redescription" sounds temporal. You describe something, then you
> redescribe it afterwards. Transmit and infon sound like Sci-Fi to me.
> Redirected description is a good explanation of what is happening, but
> maybe a bit to technical, process-oriented.
> I think Frank's term "representation" does not work from the technical
> side, as you get redirected to an information resource, which has a
> representation and this representation contains the data we are
> talking about. But the representation of this information resource
> might also contain lots of data about other resources. For instance,
> when you think about a vocabulary definition as in the "Best Practices
> for Publishing RDF Vocabularies" guide
> http://www.w3.org/TR/swbp-vocab-pub/. I like Frank's idea of using the
> word "associated" as this term in also used throughout the TAG
> "Dereferencing HTTP URIs" document
> http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/httpRange-14/2007-05-31/HttpRange-14.
> 
> So, when I try to merge all these ideas and thoughts, I end up with
> "associated description".
> 
> What do you think about this term?
> Anybody strongly disagreeing?
> 
> A problem that remains with this term is that it is rather technical
> and therefore does not work well as a replacement for data item in the
> introduction of our tutorial.
> 
> For instance: The sentence "A basic tenet of Linked Data is to use RDF
> links to interlink data items from different data sources." would
> become "A basic tenet of Linked Data is to use RDF links to interlink
> associated descriptions from different data sources." Cough, cough :-)
> 
> But anyhow, the term "associated description" will work in the
> remaining technical chapters of the tutorial and we can save ourselves
> in the introduction by saying "A basic tenet of Linked Data is to use
> RDF links to interlink data from different data sources".
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Chris
> 
> 
> --
> Chris Bizer
> Freie Universität Berlin
> Phone: +49 30 838 54057
> Mail: chris@bizer.de
> Web: www.bizer.de
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Frank Manola" <fmanola@acm.org>
> To: "Chris Bizer" <chris@bizer.de>
> Cc: "Tim Berners-Lee" <timbl@w3.org>; <www-tag@w3.org>;
> <semantic-web@w3.org>; "Linking Open Data"
> <linking-open-data@simile.mit.edu>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 10:44 PM
> Subject: Re: Terminology Question concerning Web Architecture and
> Linked Data
> 
> 
> 
> Chris--
> 
> This probably indicates that I haven't gone back far enough in the
> prior discussion (or still don't understand various details of the
> Web architecture), but what's wrong with "representation"?  That is,
> you're asking for "a term for "the information which you get about
> the thing identified by it when you look up a URI".  I thought what
> you got back when you dereferenced a URI was a "representation".  And
> I thought that the difference between dereferencing the URI of an
> information resource vs. that of a non-information resource is that:
> 
> (a) for a non-information resource there's supposed to be some
> indirection messaging that goes on between the original dereferencing
> and you getting a representation back, and
> 
> (b) the representation you get back doesn't contain all the
> "essential characteristics" of the identified resource.
> 
> But you still get a representation back.  That is in fact what your
> tutorial says. Under the heading "Dereferencing HTTP URIs", the last
> sentence of the bullet that describes what happens for non-
> information resources says "In a second step, the client dereferences
> this new URI and *gets a representation* describing the original non-
> information resource" [my emphasis].
> 
> I think I understand the sort of distinction you're getting at,
> something like, as Pat suggests, the difference between getting a
> copy (of sorts) of the thing itself vs. getting a "description" (in
> some sense) of it, but if that's it, I'm not sure an entirely new
> piece of terminology is what's needed.  Operationally the only way we
> have of knowing whether a URI names an information resource or a non-
> information resource is (at least in the tutorial) whether
> redirection happens when we dereference it.  In the scenarios we're
> talking about, the redirection is (as I understand it) ultimately to
> the URI of an *information resource* (with its own URI) that
> describes (in some sense) the original non-information resource.  The
> draft TAG finding a http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/
> httpRange-14/2007-05-31/HttpRange-14 refers to this redirected-to
> information resource as an "associated information resource" (without
> necessarily intending to introduce that as a defined term).
> Following those lines though, how about calling what you're after an
> "associated representation"?  That is, when you dereference the URI
> of a non-information resource, what you get back (after redirection)
> is an "associated representation" (the details of the association
> being determined by the details of the redirection).
> 
> -Frank
> 
> On Jul 25, 2007, at 12:44 PM, Chris Bizer wrote:
> 
> > Hi Frank,
> >
> >> I'd seriously suggest you look for some alternative  to "data
> >> item" for the concept in question.
> >
> > OK, but this leads to a question which I accutally wanted to try to
> > avoid asking on this list.
> >
> > Hmm, I will do it anyway and see what happens ;-)
> >
> > Question 4: What term should we use instead?
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Chris
> >
> >
> > --
> > Chris Bizer
> > Freie Universität Berlin
> > Phone: +49 30 838 54057
> > Mail: chris@bizer.de
> > Web: www.bizer.de
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Frank Manola" <fmanola@acm.org>
> > To: "Chris Bizer" <chris@bizer.de>
> > Cc: "Tim Berners-Lee" <timbl@w3.org>; <www-tag@w3.org>; <semantic-
> > web@w3.org>; "Linking Open Data" <linking-open-data@simile.mit.edu>
> > Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 6:07 PM
> > Subject: Re: Terminology Question concerning Web Architecture and
> > Linked Data
> >
> >
> >> Chris--
> >>
> >> I appreciate that we run into terminology conflicts all the time
> >> around here, but I'd seriously suggest you look for some
> >> alternative to "data item" for the concept in question.  An awful
> >> lot of people (particularly those involved with databases) are
> >> used to seeing "data  item" refer to something like a property or
> >> attribute (like "name" or  "age").  More specifically, they're
> >> used to seeing records as  containing multiple data items (or
> >> their values).  From that point of  view, the sentence "When you
> >> interpret the Web of Data as a set of  interlinked databases, a
> >> data item would equal a record in a specific  database." looks
> >> particularly strange.  As I say, I understand the  inevitability
> >> of terminology conflicts, but ...?
> >>
> >> Cheers!
> >>
> >> --Frank
> >>
> >> On Jul 25, 2007, at 10:12 AM, Chris Bizer wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>> Hi Tim,
> >>>
> >>>> I can't think of a term for "the information which you get about
> >>>> the thing identified by it  when you look up a URI" which works
> >>>> for me.
> >>>
> >>>> It has of course the term "Representation" which connects an
> >>>> Information Resource and the (metadata, bits) pair which you get
> >>>> back, which is different.
> >>>
> >>> As we did not want to repeat the definition all over the
> >>> tutorial, we ended up with a term called "data item".
> >>>
> >>> Within section 2.1 of the tutorial, we define the term as: "The
> >>> term data items refers to the description of a non-information
> >>> resource that a client obtains by dereferencing a specific URI
> >>> that identifies this non-information resource." (http://
> >>> sites.wiwiss.fu- berlin.de/suhl/bizer/pub/LinkedDataTutorial/
> >>> #aliases)
> >>>
> >>> Note that the definition is a bit more specific than your
> >>> sentence above, as it is restricted to non-information resources
> >>> and not things in general (assuming that your term "thing" refers
> >>> to non- information resources as well as information resources).
> >>>
> >>> We were also struggling to find a good word that matches the
> >>> concept and have chosen "data item" in the end as it somehow
> >>> relates to the overall term "Linked Data" and as we hope that
> >>> people from the database community will understand the second
> >>> informal definition of the term: "When you interpret the Web of
> >>> Data as a set of interlinked databases, a data item would equal a
> >>> record in a specific database."
> >>>
> >>> Cheers
> >>>
> >>> Chris
> >>>
> >
>

Received on Thursday, 26 July 2007 16:29:16 UTC