Bnodes or all-URIs? Straw poll will do. [was: Re: Help needed: *brief* online poll about blank-nodes]

With schema.org and HTML5 we seem to be in the era where structured
data on the Web gains mass.

But these initiatives don't remotely consider "some placeholder in between".

What does it mean for bnodes?

Should the cool people disparage existentials and only hang around
bars with named universal quantifiers? (next thread, I promise)

Personally I'm half convinced by Ian Davis & others and the approach
at Talis: it doesn't cost that much to mint URIs that resolve, it
works in practice.

But intuitively I feel a lot more comfortable allowing nodes in the
graph over which we know nothing apart from their existence, and
although being able to resolve something from an node identifier seems
desirable, allowing gaps feels closer to the real world, the one we're
modelling. Either way, the query languages still work.

So I don't want to drop bnodes, but have to quote Dan Connolly again:
[[
Are there parts of traditional logic and databases that, if we set
them aside, will result in viral growth of the Semantic Web?
]]
http://www.w3.org/2006/09dc-aus/swpf#(7)

Or maybe it doesn't matter whether we have them or not, both worlds
can coexist. Why did I have to type so much before that crossed my
mind?

Boo, now I'm feeling tired, the whole weight of angle brackets
onwards. Wake me up if you have a significant celestial event :)

Cheers,
Danny.



-- 
http://danny.ayers.name

Received on Saturday, 18 June 2011 23:34:41 UTC