Re: [dxwg] Attribution does not cover most MARC relators and other roles (#1521)

Let me recapitulate.

### The problem
The original problem is that DCAT offers no way to express relations between resources and agents (in the sense of volitional things such as persons and organizations) when the agent bears no responsibility for the existence of the resource.

`prov:Attribution` only covers the subset of resource-agent relations where the agent "bears some responsibility for the existence of the resource", like author and creator, but excluding cases like dedicatee, addressee, recipient. These latter cases are typically relations that we need to cover in our use cases, where we need to describe government documents and their relations (to put it simply). The problem is not that we cannot figure out a way to capture these cases, the problem is that we would like to do it, for obvious reasons, in a way that uses DCAT vocabulary. 

### Independent problems in the background
In the background of this original problem there are many (indirectly) related problems that can and should be put aside to keep the discussion focussed. 

One problem is that `prov:Agent` is defined as a relational entity, a role. You are only a `prov:Agent` with respect to the activities you bear some responsibility for. To define organization and person as subclasses of this is obviously wrong but a very common mistake in upper ontologies, as is well-known in the formal ontology community. This causes a lot of confusion. But the original problem has a clear scope and can be solved independently of the `prov:Agent`-problem. 

Another problem in the background is where to draw the line exactly between being and not being responsible for the existence of an entity. Personally, I would include painter but not collector (of a painting), but then there are others who argue that inclusion of collectorship is totally in the spirit of `prov:Attribution`. Nobody seems to argue, though, that dedicatee, addressee, recipient, stakeholder, and many other such relations can meaningfully be included.

Proposed solution 1
The best solution seems to define a new L2 DCAT relation that covers all and only resource-agent relations, called 'dcat:Involvement'. The property relating resources to instances of this relation would be `dcat:qualifiedInvolvement`. The property relating instances of this relation to agents (volitional things, `foaf:Agent`s) would be `dcat:involved`. This solution is the exact parallel of `dcat:Relationship`. 

Then, `prov:Attribution` is the subset of those `dcat:Involvement` relations where the agent is responsible for existence of the resource. The general preference that says 'be as specific as is feasible' would be relevant here. Different people will make slightly different choices about the exact delineation of attribution, but that is independent of this solution (they will do so anyway). Other people may choose to use `dcat:Involvement` in all cases because, for them, making the distinction is too expensive.

This solution is elegant because it does not change existing notions and has minimal impact. A clarifying note can explain very briefly and clearly why `dcat:Involvement` is needed.

### Proposed solution 2
Another solution would be to generalize the notion of `dcat:Relationship` to include resource-agent relations alongside resource-resource relations. This changes the semantics of an existing DCAT notion, and there are additional complications in the choice of properties to use.

As in Proposed solution 1, `prov:Attribution` would be a subset of this generalized class, selecting those relations where the agent is responsible for existence.  A choice that needs to be made in this solution is which property to use to relate instances of `dcat:Relationship` to agents.

**Option 1**
Use `dct:relation` for all cases. As @kcoyle remarked, this may be outside existing conventions of using this property, but it would be consistent with its normative definition.

**Option 2**
Use `dct:relation` for resource-resource relations, and a new property, say, `dcat:involved`, for resource-agent relations.

Given this complication, I think that I would prefer Proposed solution 1.



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Received on Monday, 4 July 2022 08:12:49 UTC