Re: subject indicators ... ?

* Stella Dextre Clarke
|
| Just trying to catch up with this one. I guess such a property could
| be useful. 

I think RDF needs something like this, even if the structure of RDF
makes it difficult to maintain the precise information
resource/concept distinction of topic maps. Together with a kind of
"best practice" this would allow the same thing to be approximated
within RDF.

| The purpose seems to be to point to the place where you can find out
| the most authoritative information available about a concept. 

I think "authoritative description" is probably the best way to put
it. It doesn't have to be the most authoritative information, since
that may well be provided by someone else who happened to create
something unsuitable as a subject indicator. (Either because it's not
precise enough or because many different concepts are described in the
same resource and cannot be reliably distinguished.)

| I begin to wonder whether the name should involve something like
| "source" or "authority", although I don't have any objection to
| "indicator", except perhaps that it is vague. 

I think both "source" and "authority" are misleading, since the
indicator can in principle be created by anyone. The chief virtue of
the term "indicator" is that it's been in use for ~4 years already in
a different community.

-- 
Lars Marius Garshol, Ontopian         <URL: http://www.ontopia.net >
GSM: +47 98 21 55 50                  <URL: http://www.garshol.priv.no >

Received on Thursday, 7 October 2004 11:34:24 UTC