Re: Subjects and perspectives in SKOS : the jack of all trades ...

Bernard wrote:
- or provide a way to express various perspectives, their respective
context, purpose,
rules, and the way to "hub" them (this is where hubjects could be relevant).

The latter option if of course my favourite, even if much less obvious, it's
certainly a
winner in the long run.
 This is precisely what I envision as well. What I'd love to see is a means
by which we could mutually "get at" concept-related information embedded in
other "perspectives" (which I often refer to as belonging to different
communities of practice). Even just in the terminology community, we've
identified multiple communities of practice. And we all have more to gain in
the long run from gentle(wo)manliness than discord because arguing about
perspective is about as useful as arguing about religion or sexual
preference -- it's a synch that we would never all agree on a single view,
and we'd end up losing a lot in the long run if we even tried.
 Bye for now
Sue Ellen

 On 10/20/05, Bernard Vatant <bernard.vatant@mondeca.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Hello all
>
> Browsing all those very interesting ongoing threads about possible
> extensions of SKOS,
> relations with OWL, types of notes, terms-as-concepts, relevancy to
> terminology, etc ...
> keeps bringing me back to the notion of *perspective* as currently
> explored by Michel
> Biezunski [1], which I'm currently trying to bring along with my own
> current ramblings
> [2].
>
> In the following, the *highlighted words* are used according to
> Biezunski's definition. Or
> at least they try to. Michel is in cc and will correct wherever I can get
> it wrong.
>
> According to Biezunski's terminology, a skos:Concept is a *proxy* for some
> *subject*, as
> any URI used in RDF is. The subject expressed by this proxy is in SKOS
> some abstract
> concept, likely to be expressed otherwise in many specific formal or
> unformal ways, in so
> many different schemes (thesaurus, taxonomy, ontology, terminology, ...)
> using so many
> different languages (SKOS, OWL, UML ...) and matching representation
> rules, and those
> expressions used in so many ways, for so many different purposes, in so
> many different
> contexts. A combination of all of those defines a *perspective* on the
> subject/concept.
>
> It's still unclear to me up to where a perspective on a skos:Concept can
> extend, were it
> to be defined. It could include at least the rdf:Description, and/or all
> related
> skos:Concepts in the same skos:ConceptScheme, or go as far as including
> this complete
> scheme, and this is certainly not the end of the story, since a useful
> perspective should
> certainly also include the purpose, ways, rules and context of use.
>
> In any case, this opens different interesting questions.
>
> The same URI can be used in different skos:Concept descriptions. So it has
> to be clarified
> if the proxy for the concept is the URI or one of its rdf:Description.
>
> The same skos:Concept can belong to, or be used in, a variety of
> perspectives. Not only
> because it can belong to various skos:ConceptScheme(s), but because each
> of those schemes
> can be used in different contexts, for different purposes, and in
> different ways :
> indexing and classification (which seems to be SKOS primary purpose), but
> also text mining
> and knowledge extraction, support for translation and publication tools
> ...
>
> Among all possible properties of a skos:Concept, some are only relevant to
> certain
> perspectives. Take for example the various kinds of notes, or properties
> on labels, or
> lexical properties of terms ...
>
> What does that lead us to? Interest for SKOS has attracted a variety of
> users with
> different perspectives (and that is really really good), each of them
> pushing gently (only
> gentle(wo)men here so far, very much appreciated) to allow the language to
> express, inside
> the same description of a single skos:Concept any other property relevant
> to their
> respective perspectives, at the risk of making at the end of the day such
> a description,
> as Stella rightly pointed, the jack of all trades and the master of none.
>
> Practically speaking, that means we are certainly at a point where SKOS
> should
> - either "close its scope", by specifying as much as possible in which
> kind of
> perspectives a skos:Concept is supposed to be used, and stick to the
> properties relevant
> to such perspectives.
> - or provide a way to express various perspectives, their respective
> context, purpose,
> rules, and the way to "hub" them (this is where hubjects could be
> relevant).
>
> The latter option if of course my favourite, even if much less obvious,
> it's certainly a
> winner in the long run.
>
> Enough for today. If there is some interest expressed in that, I can come
> up with more
> formal ideas about it.
>
> Cheers
>
> Bernard
>
> [1]
>
> http://www.mulberrytech.com/Extreme/Proceedings/html/2005/Biezunski01/EML2005Biezunski01.h
> tml
> [2] http://www.google.com/search?q=hubject
>
> ----------------------------------
> Bernard Vatant
> Mondeca Knowledge Engineering
> bernard.vatant@mondeca.com
> (+33) 0871 488 459
>
> http://www.mondeca.com
> http://universimmedia.blogspot.com
> ----------------------------------
>
>
>
>


--
Sue Ellen Wright
Institute for Applied Linguistics
Kent State University
Kent OH 44242 USA
sellenwright@gmail.com
swright@kent.edu
sewright@neo.rr.com