Re: [Fwd: RE: "information resource"]

Hello Chris,

Chris Lilley wrote:

>On Thursday, October 14, 2004, 3:40:00 PM, Stuart wrote:
>
>
>SW> [shifting discussion to www-tag rather than the comments archive]
>
>SW> TAG members,
>
>SW> In his response [1]  to our revised definition of the term "Information
>SW> Resource" Patrick makes it clear that he is not satisfied with the 
>SW> change that we propose.
>
>SW> Short version
>SW> --------------
>SW> I think that we have two key questions to answer (hopefully at our 
>SW> telcon on Monday):
>
>SW> 1) Do we accept the first of Patricks suggested change from:
>SW>        the set of  resources for which "...all of their essential 
>SW> characteristics can be conveyed in a message."
>SW>     to:
>SW>        "An "information resource" is a resource which constitutes a body
>SW> of information."?
>
>To my mind no. This undoes all the careful work we did in Basel.
>  
>
I don't see how it does that...  what does it undo?

>Currently, we have the notion of something whose entire essence is
>digitally conveyable (eg a particular edition of an etext) and something
>which clearly has information, but whose essence can only be measured or
>approximated without conveying its entirety (a dog, a book in the
>abstract without mentioning edition or translation).
>  
>
How is that different from saying that the nature of the resource is 
information?

I'm confused by your reference to a dog here...I think by our Basel defn 
a dog is *not* an (Basel defn) "Information Resource".

>To take an example, a resource for my fictional dog might return as a
>representation its veterinary records (blood test results and so on) -
>clearly a body of information, and clearly not conveying the entire
>essence of the dog.
>  
>
A "resource for my fictional dog"... are we speaking of one or two 
resources here?


Are you arguing that the dog is or is not an IR?

>However, if the resource were described as 'vet records for fido' then
>that would be conveying the complete essence.
>  
>
Yes... the vetinary records are an IR. They are information, they are a 
body of information, and as you say "their complete essense can be 
conveyed in a message."

>SW> 2) Do we define an additional term for resources that are web accessible
>SW> (that can be interacted with via an exchange of representations) - 
>SW> Patricks proposal being for the term "Web Resource"?
>
>I was previously in favor of this, but in Basel shifted by previous
>position so that the newly redefined Info Resource was as good to me as
>the previous Web Resource, without having to be troubled by whether it
>was temporarily offline, currently reachable, had ever been online and
>so forth.
>
>SW> Long version
>SW> --------------
>SW> Patrick offers a counter proposal  (near the enf of [1]) that retains
>SW> pieces of our revised definition that he likes.
>
>SW> Substantive changes that Patrick suggests is to define terms for *both*
>SW> "Web Resources" and "Information Resources".
>
>That might work. Depends on the definitions of the two terms and which
>of them we are usually talking about when discussing resources in
>webarch.
>
>  
>
<snip/>

Regards

Stuart

Received on Thursday, 14 October 2004 16:59:19 UTC