RE: candidate and deprecated concepts

The difference between a deprecated concept and a deprecated term may
not be as clear as you might wish. (And even the word "deprecated" is a
bit strange to me in the context of thesauri. We usually just say
non-preferred.) It is unusual to drop a concept altogether. Normally one
provides a lead-in entry pointing to the broader concept that covers the
scope of the preferred term that is now to be "deprecated". 
It is conceivable that if it was decided that a large subject area with
perhaps hundreds of concepts was now out-of-scope, then all the
corresponding terms might be dropped without trace ( although this is
not usually recommended). The thesaurus might well be renamed or
rebranded to mark the transition. 
Much more likely would be to decide that that subject area should be
indexed at a much shallower level of specificity. So, for example, in a
thesaurus for agricultural products, it might be decided that tropical
products should no longer be covered in detail. Where previously you had
Bananas, Pineapples, Brazil nuts etc as preferred terms ( with a
hierarchy of BTs such as Tropical fruits all the way up to Tropical
products), you might leave just one term "Tropical products" to cover
all of these. In the thesaurus you would organise entries such as
"Bananas USE Tropical products" - perhaps hundreds of such entries. Now
where is the "deprecated concept"? All we have is one very broad concept
taking in tropical products at all levels of detail, and lots of
non-preferred terms. 

So the idea of a "deprecated concept" just feels a bit alien. 

I don't warm, either, to the idea of a concept getting "replaced" by
another one, unless they are so close that you would treat the two as
quasi-synonymous. You are hardly going to replace Bananas with Washing
machines?

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: 07 October 2004 15:42
To: 'Leonard Will'; 'public-esw-thes@w3.org'
Subject: RE: candidate and deprecated concepts



I'm actually thinking about supporting candidate/deprecated *concepts*
(and not terms), which brings a slightly different set of requirements.

Al.

---
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



> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-esw-thes-request@w3.org 
> [mailto:public-esw-thes-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Leonard Will
> Sent: 07 October 2004 15:20
> To: 'public-esw-thes@w3.org'
> Subject: Re: candidate and deprecated concepts
> 
> 
> 
> In message
> <350DC7048372D31197F200902773DF4C05E50C7D@exchange11.rl.ac.uk>
>  on Thu, 7 
> Oct 2004, "Miles, AJ (Alistair)" <A.J.Miles@rl.ac.uk> wrote
> >
> >The paradigm (as I understand it) in the thesaurus world is
> for terms (or
> >concepts) to go through three stages: candidate, accepted,
> deprecated (i.e.
> >replaced).
> >
> >We can use dcterms:replaces and dcterms:isReplacedBy to
> describe concept
> >replacements I think (although how to handle replacement
> with combinations
> >is uncertain yet).
> 
> If use of a term is discontinued, it is good practice to
> retain it as a 
> non-preferred term, with a USE pointer to the term or combination of 
> terms that should be used in future for the concept that it 
> represented. 
> A history note should indicate when it was used for indexing.
> 
> I don't think that you need to distinguish between "deprecated" and
> "non-preferred" terms, which you would express as altLabels. 
> As you have 
> noted, you do however have to handle combinations such as:
> 
> "physics education  USE  physics  AND  education"
> 
> Leonard
> -- 
> Willpower Information       (Partners: Dr Leonard D Will, 
> Sheena E Will)
> Information Management Consultants              Tel: +44 
> (0)20 8372 0092
> 27 Calshot Way, Enfield, Middlesex EN2 7BQ, UK. Fax: +44
> (0)870 051 7276
> L.Will@Willpowerinfo.co.uk               
> Sheena.Will@Willpowerinfo.co.uk
> ---------------- <URL:http://www.willpowerinfo.co.uk/> 
> -----------------
>

Received on Thursday, 7 October 2004 16:41:53 UTC