Re: Revised wording for Choose the right formalization level

Hi Phil and All,

Maybe I am too late to raise issues concerning this BP (BP16 - Choose the
right formalization level)... But there could be quick fixes, so, there we
go:

The following paragraph is not about the right level of formalization, but
about the scope of the vocabulary:

"Keeping things very simple is always attractive but there is a danger: the
drive for simplicity might lose some data that provides important
information, such as the geographical location of the bus stops that would
prevent showing them on a map."

The examples with SKOS is much better than this one with respect to the
kinds of formal constraints one may include or exclude from a vocabulary,
so perhaps the example about the geographical location of bus stops could
be suppressed altogether.

There is a statement which is technically incorrect in my view:
" using a complex vocabulary (ontology) will facilitate complex tasks such
as reasoning"

Actually, the relation between the "complexity" of the vocabulary and
reasoning is quite intricate. A more expressive formal theory may hamper
automated reasoning, e.g., by making it computationally untractable. A
quick fix could be:

" using a complex vocabulary (ontology) may serve as a basis for tasks such
as automated reasoning."

Finally, there is some text in this fragment which is quite hard to
understand. I don't think the line of reasoning is clear to the reader:

"If the nature of the data is such that the likely use is in a research
context where the fact that A, B and C are true, and that D is not true,
leads to the conclusion E, then something like an OWL Profile would clearly
be appropriate [OWL2-PROFILES].

But a list of bus stops is a list of bus stops."

regards,
João Paulo


On Thu, Apr 28, 2016 at 8:53 AM, Antoine Isaac <aisaac@few.vu.nl> wrote:

> Perfect!
> Thanks a lot, Phil.
>
> Antoine
>
>
> On 28/04/16 11:21, Phil Archer wrote:
>
>> Done. As in, I removed that line and re-inserted the schema.org example.
>> although I moved it to the implementation section, right after the bit
>> about SKOS.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 27/04/2016 21:42, Antoine Isaac wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Phil,
>>>
>>> This is a good re-write! I'd support it except for two minor comments:
>>>
>>> - I'd remove "It is always simpler to create your own vocabulary than to
>>> reuse someone else's, but in doing so, you isolate your data from the
>>> rest of the Web and make it harder for others to use." this may be too
>>> close to the previous BP, and I feel that without it the text read also
>>> well.
>>>
>>> - I'm quite keen on having the schema.org example as it shows how
>>> ontological commitment has been systematically minimized for the benefit
>>> of a community. And to me it reads a bit more concrete than the bus stop
>>> (or maybe it's just the rendering of it in this new BP)
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Antoine
>>>
>>> On 27/04/16 19:12, Phil Archer wrote:
>>>
>>>> During a call with Annette, Antoine and the BP editors yesterday I
>>>> took an action to rewrite the Choose the right formalization level BP
>>>> taking into account various comments. I have done this as can be seen at
>>>> http://philarcher1.github.io/dwbp/bp.html#ChooseRightFormalizationLevel
>>>>
>>>> I've added it to my pull request should others think it's an
>>>> improvement. It's a hard one to write since it is all about judgement
>>>> rather than anything concrete.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>