RE: candidate and deprecated concepts

Hi Stella,

> 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".

... but this *is* to drop a concept, and say 'now use this concept instead',
surely?
 
> 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"? 

The 'deprecated concepts' are all of the concepts that where previously
reified in the thesaurus by the presence of a preferred term which is no
longer preferred.

(I.e. Every preferred term in a thesaurus reifies a concept.  Non-preferred
terms expand upon and refine the meaning of a concept.  If you change a term
from preferred to non-preferred, you are essentially dropping a concept from
the thesaurus.)

> 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?

But in the above example, you are suggesting that the concept with prefLabel
'Bananas' should be replaced (in indexing metadata) by the concept with
prefLabel 'Tropical products'.

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

I am sensitive to this.  I'm just looking to find a way to model and to
represent (in RDF) at least some of the features of the change process ... I
have the idea that this information explicitly captured would be valuable.

Al. 

> 
> Stella
> 
> *****************************************************
> Stella Dextre Clarke
> Information Consultant
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> 
> 
> -----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
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> > L.Will@Willpowerinfo.co.uk               
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> > ---------------- <URL:http://www.willpowerinfo.co.uk/> 
> > -----------------
> > 
> 
>

Received on Friday, 8 October 2004 14:44:29 UTC