Re: Candidate message to TAG re httpRange-14 resolution

On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 7:52 AM, Harry Halpin <hhalpin@w3.org> wrote:
>> On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 10:46 PM, Pat Hayes <phayes@ihmc.us> wrote:
>>> Jonathan makes an important claim in the center of his case:
>>>
>>> "...  because most useful
>>>>
>>>> predicates are either defined only on information resources or
>>>> undefined on information resources.  "
>>>
>>> I wish (and once believed) that this were true, but unfortunately it is
>>> not. The most obvious example is simply a date of creation, which can
>>> apply both to a material thing (eg a date of birth) and to an
>>> information resource (eg a birth certificate.)
>>>
>>> OK, he does say 'most', but the point is that there are some important
>>> ones that this is not true of, and this is enough to rather damage the
>>> case for tolerating the ambiguity.
>>
>> Completely agree.  I was looking for a way to acknowledge the
>> existence of the argument without agreeing with it, and didn't do a
>> good job. Shall I just not mention it?
>
> I mean, if someone is going to make ambiguous statements, we can't stop
> them.

Correct - anyone *can* say what they like, but they can be held
accountable for what they. You have to imagine the conversation that
follows from a misunderstanding. "You said that the license applied to
R!" "No I didn't, I said it applied to S!" "But don't you use the URI
to refer to R? That's what everyone else does." "No, nobody says I
have to so I don't feel bound by that convention." "Then how was I
supposed to know you meant S instead of R?" "You were supposed to read
the content of R. It's obvious if you do that." "But I'm just a stupid
search engine.  I only look at the copyright statement. You expect me
to read and understand the whole document so that I know the URI is
supposed to mean S instead of R?" "Yes, it's my URI so I get to use it
however I like." "If I grant you this plausible deniability, how can I
ever hold anyone accountable for anything they say?" "That's your
problem. You're using the wrong technology for that." "Judge, what do
you say?"

Yes, you can poke holes in this story, but my point is the form of the
story, not the details. Meaning is burden of proof. If there's no
accountability (or as Alan R says no way to be wrong) there is no
semantics. If it turns out the "semantic web" has no semantics any
more maybe I will need to initiate the creation of a new technology
(and attending social system) that does.

Jonathan

Received on Monday, 31 January 2011 14:46:18 UTC