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

Hi,

not sure if I completely understood the current discussion,
but if the proposal is to change

[[
  #myConcept a skos:Concept;
             skos:prefLabel "my concept" .
]]

to something more like

[[
  #myConcept a skos:Concept;
             skos:term [
                  a skos:Term;
                  skos:termLabel "my concept";
                  skos:termType "preferred";
                  ...
                  .
             ] .
]]

(i.e. some sort of middle node between concepts and their
lexical representations), I'd rather prefer the current model.
I can see the utility of the 2nd approach for certain use cases,
(and in fact I proposed something similar for notes some months
ago) but apart from requiring a more or less complete re-design of
SKOS a couple of weeks before the whole initiative ends, I also 
think it'd slow down SKOS' deployment.

I always considered SKOS as being targetted at non-pro info 
organizers (thus *Simple* KOS), and it is actually seen as a 
candidate to bring balance to the force, err, semweb technology
to the masses. The current "core" design facilitates the 
implementation of editors and efficient SPARQL-based browsers,
and also the upgrading of things such as blog categories etc. 
to a machine-friendly format.

Just my 1.5 cents, I may well have missed the whole point of this
thread, in this case I apologize for the blather.

benjamin

--
Benjamin Nowack
Chief Procrastination Officer

Kruppstr. 100
45145 Essen, Germany
http://www.bnode.org/


On 20.10.2005 16:29:14, Sue Ellen Wright wrote:
>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/EML2005Bi
>ezunski01.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
>

Received on Friday, 21 October 2005 08:45:19 UTC