RE: Concept Equivalence, IFPs, skos:subjectIndicator and owl:sameAs (was Re: SKOS Guide and owl:sameAs)

[At Alistair's request I'm reposting this earlier response on-list]

Hello Alistair,

Thanks... as a SKOS newbie, the thread was useful to me from a learning
pov.

One thing you'll spot, if you make it to the end of the thread, is that
I missed the presense of a blank node in the skos:subjectIndicator
example in the guide. The guide presents the example only in RDF/XML
without a diagram - or real mention of the use of a blank node.

FWIW I think I came to a tentative conclusion along the following lines:

There are two (maybe more) kinds of skos:Concepts: 
1) A 'localised' URI named skos:Concept that one wants to maintain as
distinct from similar concepts in other Thesaurii - because, amongst
other things, they have different pasts and futures. Even at a given
instant they may have subtle difference. In general one wouldn't use
skos:subjectIndicator with this kind of concept (because of its
potential to generate equivalences).

2) A conceptualisation of some published subject (eg. the Isaac Newton
example in the OASIS published subjects document). There could be many
published subject indicator documents for a given subject and in this
case you do indeed want skos:subjectIndicator to be an IFP and bring
about Concept merging (and an effective 'cloning' all the subject
indicators for a given subject). In general the skos:Concept whose
subject is indicated would be a blank node - this would avoid generation
of equivalences between URI named skos:Concepts (by not giving them URI
names :-).

I think that with care, those that want to use published subject
indicator can do so without generating unintended equivalences - but it
probably needs clearer motivational examples in the guide.

BR

Stuart

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alistair Miles [mailto:a.j.miles@rl.ac.uk]
> Sent: 23 November 2006 14:59
> To: Williams, Stuart (HP Labs, Bristol)
> Cc: public-esw-thes@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Concept Equivalence, IFPs, skos:subjectIndicator and 
> owl:sameAs (was Re: SKOS Guide and owl:sameAs)
> 
> Hi Stuart,
> 
> Quick comment without having read the subsequent thread in detail ...
> 
> I think you have revealed a potential inconsistency in the design of 
> SKOS. Certainly worthy of an item in the issues list - I'll do that 
> when I get a chance.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Alistair.
>

Received on Monday, 27 November 2006 11:12:12 UTC