RE: reference: a challenge for skos

Some of us have spent much of our working lives trying to explain to
people the difference between a thesaurus as described in ISO 2788 and a
thesaurus designed to provide inspiration for creative writing. It's all
about the difference between controlled vocabulary ( in which one term
is allowed to have only one meaning and one concept must always be
described by the same term) and natural language (where authors write
what they want and readers interpret the words with equal freedom). The
people listening to the explanation generally nod (it is all so obvious)
and think they have understood. But they haven't. And they won't. People
don't get the idea until they have actually used a thesaurus at the
sharp end, preferably for several months and with a Quality Controller
sitting on them. 

So I agree with the last 2 sentences of the conclusion below. And I am
sceptical about the idea that you can put an explanation (especially a
high-falutin polysyllabic explanation) on the web and set people's
thinking straight.

Have a good weekend
Stella

*****************************************************
Stella Dextre Clarke
Information Consultant
Luke House, West Hendred, Wantage, Oxon, OX12 8RR, UK
Tel: 01235-833-298
Fax: 01235-863-298
SDClarke@LukeHouse.demon.co.uk
*****************************************************



-----Original Message-----
From: public-esw-thes-request@w3.org
[mailto:public-esw-thes-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Miles, AJ
(Alistair) 
Sent: 10 August 2004 16:48
To: 'public-esw-thes@w3.org'
Subject: reference: a challenge for skos



I came across this just now ...

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000589.html

... interesting.

Short extract:

... the authors of SKOS are trying to solve a different problem, namely
how to let people who are putting explicit semantics in their web
documents do so in a way that allows for variable concept labels and
partly-related alternative conceptual schemata. Fine -- but some people
may think that this will help to represent the content of the
ordinary-language documents that ordinary folk write, especially when
the documents are scientific or technical in character. But it won't. 


---
Alistair Miles
Research Associate
CCLRC - Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Building R1 Room 1.60
Fermi Avenue
Chilton
Didcot
Oxfordshire OX11 0QX
United Kingdom
Email:        a.j.miles@rl.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1235 445440

Received on Friday, 13 August 2004 17:38:24 UTC