Re: information resource note #573

On Fri, 2011-05-13 at 08:59 -0400, Jonathan Rees wrote:
> OK, I've dealt with your comments as best I could.

Here are my comments on the latest draft at
http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/awwsw/ir/latest/ 


1. Kudos!  I think this is getting *very* good, and I would definitely
endorse it.  I think you've done a very good job of tying in existing
AWWW terminology, per my previous comment.  I do have a few more
editorial suggestions though.


2. This is a bit confusing:
[[
It will be useful to have a term to apply in the situation where
metadata does not explicitly specify a particular subject, so define a
"metadata predicate" to be metadata of this sort.
]]
because a predicate *always* specifies a particular subject.  For
example, if I write ":s :p :o ." then the subject is the particular
subject :s, regardless of what :s is.  I suggest rephrasing this
sentence as:
[[
It will be useful to have a generic predicate for the situation where
the same metadata may apply to more than one kind of data, so define a
"generic metadata predicate" to be metadata of this sort.
]]


3. Use "generic metadata predicate" throughout, where you previously
used "metadata predicate".


4. s/true of documents have/true of documents that have/


5.  s/"is an HTML document"/"is-an-HTML-document"/
or: s/"is an HTML document"/"is_an_HTML_document"/
or: s/"is an HTML document"/":isAnHtmlDocument"/
or something similar.


6. s/true of one and/true of one format but/


7. Again, for this:
[[
Put more formally, if M[] is a metadata predicate, then for any G and S,

   1. if G generalizes S, and M[G], then M[S].
   2. if M[S] for all S such that G generalizes S, then M[G]. 
]]
I still think it would be helpful to the reader to say what G and S are.
E.g., is G a galaxy and S a star?  AFAICT they are not currently
excluded, but it would be helpful to lead the reader's thinking in the
right direction.  Also, it would be helpful to say a little more about
the "generalizes" relation and (IMO) it would be stylistically nicer to
define M using an "iff".  

Therefore, I suggest merging in something like this:
[[
Given a set of specific information entities, we can hypothesize a
generic information entity G that is is said to "generalize" all of the
specific information entities in this set.  We can write the relation
between G and a member S of this set as "G generalizes S".
]]
and changing the formal definition to:
[[
Put more formally, if M[] is a metadata predicate, then for any generic
information entity G,

  M[G] iff (for all S such that G generalizes S, M[S]).
]]


8. Regarding:
[[
We can say that "information resource" (the conventional term in Web
architecture) is a near-synonym for "generic information entity" as
above, with the possibility understood that in some cases an information
resource will have only one specialization.
]]
I think we should add: "and with the exception that the class of generic
information entities has not been defined as disjoint with any other
class."  The reason for this exception is to avoid perpetuating debates
about what is or is not a generic information entity, as we had with IR
vs. non-IR.  This makes it clear that there is no a priori disjointness.


9. s/for any nonempty class of representations/for any nonempty set of
representations/


10. I think it would be good to add a formal definition for onWebAt,
like this:
[[
For any information resource (a/k/a generic information entity) G, and
any URI U,

  (G onWebAt U) iff (for all S, S isAuthorizedFor U iff 
  G generalizes S).
]]


11. Regarding the diagram:
a. I think "(for dereference)" can be deleted, as I don't think it adds
anything.
b. I suggest changing '("has")' to '("has representation")'.  You area
already using the term "representation" (in the AWWW sense) -- and I
think that is good -- so I think it will help tie the diagram to the
prose.
c. One of the pages on the diagram indicates its type: "(information
resource)".  I suggest changing that to "(information resource a/k/a
generic information entity)", and adding similar type labels to the
representations if it doesn't look too crowded by doing so.


12. s/Those who don't care about talking about the Web/Those who don't
care about talking about entities on the Web/


13. s/in question to what for them is a better use/in question to other
uses/


14. Change:
[[
In Turtle, this could be a different URI, or a blank node such as
[ir:onWebAt "http://example/hen"]:
]]
to:
[[
In Turtle, this could be a blank node such as [ir:onWebAt
"http://example/hen"] or a different URI:
]]


15. Down at the end, I think it would be good to say something
explicitly about how one can determine whether an IR is ir:onWebAt a
URI.  (This is where the httpRange-14 resolution comes in.)  In
particular, the usual practice is to dereference the URI, and see if you
get an HTTP 200 response code.  If so, then by the httpRange-14 rule,
you conclude that the IR is ir:onWebAt that URI.  

Pseudo-n3 rule (more like a macro) that expresses this rule:

  { "?u" ir:yieldsHttpResponseCode 200 . } =>
    { <?u> ir:onWebAt "?u" . } 

or an actual n3 rule, using log:uri :

  @prefix log: <http://www.w3.org/2000/10/swap/log#> .
  { ?r log:uri ?u .  ?u ir:yieldsHttpResponseCode 200 . } =>
    { ?r ir:onWebAt ?u . }

http://www.w3.org/2000/10/swap/doc/Reach.html#More


16. Up front under the document title, after listing yourself
(separately) as Editor -- since you did the writing work -- I suggest
listing the other active members of AWWSW as "Contributors", since the
document is the result of quite a prolonged effort by the group.

Thanks!

-- 
David Booth, Ph.D.
http://dbooth.org/

Opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect those of his employer.

Received on Friday, 13 May 2011 21:29:24 UTC