[dxwg] semantics of the dcat:bbox attribute could (should?) be more explicit (#1392)

JoepvanGenuchten has just created a new issue for https://github.com/w3c/dxwg:

== semantics of the dcat:bbox attribute could (should?) be more explicit ==
The http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#bbox attribute is somewhat vague (or perhaps lends itself to misinterpretation) dcat describes resources (data-sets) and while I suspect that this attribute is intended to say something about what the resource is about, it could also be interpreted as the (physical) nature of the resource itself. A somewhat forced  example: an old fashioned phone-book is about a region or a municipality but simultaneously a phonebook has a bounding-box (describing how thick it is for example and where it lies on my shelf). 

In general, naming an attribute after its type (or range in rdfs terms) is not specific enough to be clear about its intent (although that might be a personal preference). While the the spec mentions the range is 'intentionally generic' the technical origin of this concept (CAD drawing, BIM etc, where this is a mathematical construct to represent a 3 dimensional object ) will most likely cause most people (and people programming machines) to ignore the 'intentionally generic' part of the spec.

My suggestion would either be to rename this attribute to make its intent more clear (dcat:subjectBoundingBox for example), or elaborate in the description on its intended meaning (phone book vs region the phonebook covers)

Please view or discuss this issue at https://github.com/w3c/dxwg/issues/1392 using your GitHub account


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Received on Tuesday, 24 August 2021 21:34:45 UTC