RE: subject indicators ... ?

If I've understood correctly, the idea is to point (using a URL) to a
place where a definition of the concept appears. (And this is not the
same as pointing to a place where an example appears, as seems to
assumed in Chaals's reference an example of a good idea being considered
by others to be an example of a bad idea). Rather than pointing to that
other place, is it not better just to give the text of the definition?
There could be an advantage if the text is too long or complex to
import; or if the aim is to allow the definition to vary according to
the dictat of the owner of the resource pointed to. For the sake of the
integrity of the original scheme, it would seem safer to be sure what
the concept is and not leave it to someone else's control! ( That way
you can be more confident of the relationships with other concepts in
the same scheme.)
Stella

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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
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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: 21 September 2004 18:16
To: 'Charles McCathieNevile'
Cc: 'Bernard Vatant'; public-esw-thes@w3.org
Subject: RE: subject indicators ... ?



But isn't the whole point of the pubsub approach that you define
'subjects' by reference to the web resources that uniquely describe
them?  

I.e. you publish a web resource for each of your 'subjects' that defines
only that subject (the 'subject indicator'), and because a subject
indicator defines only a single subject, then you can use the URL of the
subject indicator as an identifier for the subject?

(Have I got that right?)

How is that different from talking about 'the subject as uniquely
defined by the subject indicator with URL X' ... which you would surely
represent in RDF using an IFP?

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 Charles 
> McCathieNevile
> Sent: 21 September 2004 17:29
> To: Miles, AJ (Alistair)
> Cc: 'Bernard Vatant'; public-esw-thes@w3.org
> Subject: RE: subject indicators ... ?
> 
> 
> 
> The idea is something like a "definedBy" property, except
> that it means
> "definedBy" in a human-readable sense, right?
> 
> I agree with Bernard that there is a problem in making it an
> IFP, which is a
> bit like the one that can arise if foaf:homepage is an IFP.  
> If two people
> work for the same organisation, and co-own it, that doesn't 
> normally mean
> they are the same person. Likewise if Bernard uses a 
> particular piece of my
> writing as an explanation of "a bad idea" and I use it as an 
> explanation of
> "a good idea", we risk running into problems, because we 
> would be obliged to
> consider the concepts as the same.
> 
> foaf:mbox works more often because it generally matches the
> real world where
> one person has one email address. But that isn't always true 
> - there are
> plenty of people with no email address, and for many years I 
> have had shared
> email addresses - which for people I shared with were often 
> their only one.
> 
> Concepts are harder to pin down, I think. So I would stick to the less

> precise world of having definitions and examples - a definition might 
> be an IFP. Or might not...
> 
> cheers
> 
> Chaals
> 
> On Tue, 21 Sep 2004, Miles, AJ (Alistair)  wrote:
> 
> >
> >Hi Bernard,
> >
> >Thanks alot for your comments, I hoped you would say
> something on this.
> >
> >> What do you imagine would be the range of skos:SubjectIndicator in 
> >> that case? Would you leave it
> open? Or what?
> >>
> >
> >I was imagining to restrict the range of a proposed property 
> >'skos:subjectIndicator' (or just 'skos:indicator' might be
> better?) to
> >resources.  So the usage would be e.g. ...
> >
> ><skos:Concept>
> >	<skos:prefLabel>bananas</skos:prefLabel>
> >	<skos:indicator
> rdf:resource="http://somewhere.org/somedoc.html"/>
> ></skos:Concept>
> >
> >> having
> >>
> >> skos:subjectIndicator 	rdf:type
> >> owl:InverseFunctionalProperty
> >>
> >> would imply considering the object of skos:subjectIndicator as an 
> >> Individual
> >>
> >> I'm not sure it's such a good idea.
> >
> >I may well be missing something here, by why might it be a bad idea?
> >
> >For comparison, FOAF [1] has an inverse-functional property
> 'foaf:homepage',
> >which allows you to uniquely identify e.g. a person, organisation, or

> >company etc. (i.e. the owner of that homepage).
>

Received on Friday, 24 September 2004 09:25:48 UTC