Re: "machine readable"

I think this discussion needs to be based more on the specific contexts. Whether it is the best term depends on the context in which the term is used. 

I think that there are some places in the BP doc where “machine readable” alone does make sense, but it is too low a bar to use alone in some places where we currently have it. I think it’s fine in the list of challenges, and in BP6, but not in BP7 (“in a machine readable, standardized form” would work there) or BP8 (could be “in a machine readable and standardized format”). In BP12, it is passable, as the sentence that follows it discusses standardized formats. For BP21, “machine readable” alone is not sufficient. Pondering that BP leaves me wondering (again) how we think people should make a machine readable representation of the reason a resource is no longer available.
-Annette
--
Annette Greiner
NERSC Data and Analytics Services
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
510-495-2935

On Apr 27, 2015, at 8:07 AM, Steven Adler <adler1@us.ibm.com> wrote:

> Since we don't have robots with the ability to "read" data like humans do, I agree it is the wrong term.  But it is the term everyone uses and imperfect as it is it is what it is and we have to use it too.
> 
> 
> Best Regards,
> 
> Steve
> 
> Motto: "Do First, Think, Do it Again"
> 
> <graycol.gif>João Paulo Almeida ---04/24/2015 01:23:35 PM---Dear All, I too find the qualification ³machine readable² quite problematic.
> 
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> From:
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> João Paulo Almeida <jpalmeida@ieee.org>
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> To:
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> Phil Archer <phila@w3.org>, Annette Greiner <amgreiner@lbl.gov>, Eric Stephan <ericphb@gmail.com>, Ig Ibert Bittencourt <ig.ibert@gmail.com>, Yaso <yaso@nic.br>, Public DWBP WG <public-dwbp-wg@w3.org>, Bernadette Farias Lóscio <bfl@cin.ufpe.br>
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> Date:
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> 04/24/2015 01:23 PM
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> Subject:
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> Re: "machine readable"
> 
> 
> 
> Dear All,
> 
> I too find the qualification ³machine readable² quite problematic.
> 
> I raised this last year in the scope of the UCR document:
> 
> 
> > About the whole ³machine readable² debate, it is of course a different
> >story:
> > http://www.w3.org/2013/dwbp/track/issues/36
> 
> > Similar to Makx, I find it hard to live with the sloppy ³machine
> >readable² qualificationŠ  but, in order to come to a constructive
> > suggestion for this other issue as well, perhaps we could say:
> 
> > R-FormatMachineRead(able)
> 
> > Metadata should conform to standard formats that aim at facilitating
> >automated processing
> 
> 
> 
> I would prefer avoiding machine readable. ³Structured² could help
> informally, but is also not precise.
> 
> We need to state the quality we want this artifact to have. Perhaps it is
> that it is "amenable to automated processing", but this could of course
> also be interpreted as vague and too broad.
> 
> Makx said "Maybe the requirement is rather that data should be published
> in formats that are appropriate for its intended or potential use?² This
> is the key aspect: making explicit the quality that the artifact needs to
> have such that it can be used.
> 
> I would say that ³structure² is needed because we use the structure to
> document interpretation rules to establish the semantics of "structured
> data². But that is not enough...
> 
> Regards,
> João Paulo
> 
> 
> 
> On 24/4/15, 1:47 PM, "Phil Archer" <phila@w3.org> wrote:
> 
> >Good points, Annette.
> >
> >I think this is what the 1st and 2nd stars of LOD are getting at.
> >
> >* Available on the web (whatever format) but with an open licence, to be
> >Open Data
> >** Available as machine-readable structured data (e.g. excel instead of
> >image scan of a table)
> >
> >Note that here, Excel is included in machine readable. The keyword here
> >is structured.
> >
> >So I think we should focus on the word structured, as you suggest, and
> >be very cautious about using the phrase machine readable, perhaps
> >avoiding it altogether.
> >
> >Phil.
> >
> >On 24/04/2015 15:42, Annette Greiner wrote:
> >> Re the definition of machine readable as "Data formats that may be
> >>readily parsed by computer programs without access to proprietary
> >>libraries. For example, CSV, TSV and RDF formats are machine readable,
> >>but PDF and Microsoft Excel are not.²
> >>
> >> I disagree with this definition. All proprietary computer file formats
> >>are machine readable. If we want to talk about nonproprietary formats,
> >>we should call them nonproprietary formats. If we want to talk about
> >>structured data formats, we should call them structured data formats.
> >>
> >> I just did a search through the BP doc ² for ³machine readable², and I
> >>think there are two ways it gets used. In the introduction, it is used
> >>in the sense of making it easier for machines to parse and do useful
> >>things with data. That could be clarified by changing it to ³more
> >>readily machine readable² or some such. Elsewhere, it gets used to mean
> >>giving structure to the data. In this latter case, which is the
> >>majority, I think we should change it to ³structured².
> >> -Annette
> >> --
> >> Annette Greiner
> >> NERSC Data and Analytics Services
> >> Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
> >> 510-495-2935
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >-- 
> >
> >
> >Phil Archer
> >W3C Data Activity Lead
> >http://www.w3.org/2013/data/
> >
> >http://philarcher.org
> >+44 (0)7887 767755
> >@philarcher1
> >
> 
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