Re: [PORT] progress update

On Fri, 4 Feb 2005 15:50:03 -0000, Miles, AJ (Alistair)  
<A.J.Miles@rl.ac.uk> wrote:

> Hi Chaals,
>
>> Please don't change the URIs. Give them clearer labels and
>> descriptions if you think the human-readable stuff currently doesn't  
>> help much.
>>
>> (I have yet to meet a change of URI that struck me as
>> anything but a bad idea :-(
>
> Yeah, I agree with this.  I'm just thinking that folks will at least  
> initially see this stuff in the raw so to speak, so will see  
> 'skos:Collection' all over the place, and may not like it.  So I was  
> just thinking that if we do want to make a change, now is the time.

Well, maybe this is the push that will help people like Diego make sure  
SKOS tools present the stuff meant for humans, not the raw code that even  
thesaurus geeks generally don't find too lovely...

Ontaria is an example of something that tries to present the  
human-readable information about a resource like a property or class name  
- the URI is also available as a full URI, of course, but it doesn't even  
assume it will be readable. I think this is a good approach.

(Why do we keep presenting this stuff "in the raw"? Surely we can do a bit  
better?)

> Incidentally, what the change would mean:
>
>  - add skos:WhateverGetsChosen etc.
>  - deprecate skos:Collection etc.
>  - add OWL equivalence and DC is-replaced-by statements linking the old  
> & new vocab.

ergo, live with the two until anyone currently using SKOS

> But I'd be happy to leave skos:Collection etc. as is, and maybe add  
> 'Concept array' as an alt-label.  Could also add a comment about  
> equivalence to BS8723 notion of 'array'.
>
>> I think coining new URIs for something is a bad move, since
>> it focusses attention on the wrong aspects of RDF (the syntax, rather
>> than the model).
>> Plus it means people need to keep collecting information
>> about new names for old rope.
>
> Yup.  But these sorts of issues can make a difference.  And given that  
> the biggest anticipated user community for SKOS Core (library science)  
> uses 'collection' to mean something totally different ... well, should I  
> be worrying about this?

No, I don't think so. If you ignore the convenience of namespaces for code  
compactness, and use real URIs for identifiers, the thing suddenly looks a  
lot more like stuff for machines to eat. The kind of shorthand way we (the  
RDF geek community) has of saying things like "dc:title" can cause real  
problems for people who misunderstand the assumptions we are making. As  
for claiming that "rs:hasAltRepres" is anything but gobbledy-gook to mere  
intelligent users...

cheers

Chaals


-- 
Charles McCathieNevile - Vice Presidente - Fundacion Sidar
charles@sidar.org                      http://www.sidar.org
     (chaals is available for consulting at the moment)

Received on Monday, 7 February 2005 10:26:28 UTC