Re: FOAF spec revised - addtion of foaf:focus, a skos extension linking topical and factual information

Hi Dan,

I think I buy all the naming arguments below.
But since the Pandora box is re-opened, even though with strong warnings, I'll have one try :-)
How about standsFor? You're using it yourself in the announcement, in fact...


Otherwise:
> (aside: a possibility here might be to declare foaf:focus a sub
> property of inverse of dcterms:isReferencedBy)

I'm not sure we should go that way: DC's property seems very bibliography-style citation-oriented...

Cheers,

Antoine


> +cc: Leigh
>
> On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 3:26 PM, Simon Spero<ses@unc.edu>  wrote:
>> Dan-
>>
>> can i suggest using a different word  than focus, as this is term of art in
>> controlled vocabularies. It is used when referring to modified/specialized
>> "terms".
>
>
> Thanks for the feedback. It seems that words are like Internet domain
> names; all the good ones are taken!
>
> To understand the extent of the "it's already in use" problem, could I
> ask you to post a few sentences using 'focus' from the literature?
> Even one would help.
>
> Naming RDF terms is something of a nightmare, because RDF is designed
> to allow information to flow beyond its original comfort-zone;
> whatever we choose here will show up in all kinds of unexpected
> contexts, including the Web pages of various publishers.
>
> I originally liked the 'skos:it' (and skos:as inverse) since 'it' had
> the charm of being at least easy to spell and quick to type. However
> after bouncing 'it' around in discussions 'it' transpired that 'it'
> was a bit too clever for 'its' own good, as a name. The 'focus' name
> came from discussions with Leigh Dodds, who I Cc: here. Some of our
> notes are in http://wiki.foaf-project.org/w/term_focus (btw each FOAF
> term now has a Wiki page for annotations).
>
>> Possible labels that might work could be  isReferredToBy ; SKOS concepts are
>> intentional-with-a-t, so reference is a natural label;
>> isFoafProxyForIntentionReferencedBySKOSConcept is awful ComputerDeutch.
>
> So I see the logic behind 'isReferredToBy', however I'm cautious for a
> few reasons. Firstly the inverse direction adds a level of confusion,
> so we'd want to have 'references', eg. "skos_3 :references thing_23".
> And since we're operating in the context of RDF, not to mention
> hypertext, there are plenty of other contexts in which 'references'
> gets used - mainly with documents. Which puts us in the awkward
> situation of deciding whether to re-use an existing more general
> purpose term that talks about reference; eg.
> http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms/ has
> http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms/#terms-isReferencedBy
> already --- "A related resource that references, cites, or otherwise
> points to the described resource."  ... or if we proceed with a term
> that is explicitly for use with skos:Concept, we should expect to see
> it accidentally misused by anyone who is fumbling around looking for a
> nice term to use when one thing references, mentions, or identifies
> another thing.
>
> (aside: a possibility here might be to declare foaf:focus a sub
> property of inverse of dcterms:isReferencedBy)
>
>> Foaf person "Paul The Octopus" isReferredTo by SKOS Concept "#PTO1".
>>
>> Where "#PTO1" isSubjectOf "#document" "Decideabity and tractablity of
>> logical inference with binary serial octacles".
>>
>> (The halting problem has time complexity PTO(1) but other tasks may require
>> an infinite series of questions.)
>
> Saying that the concept *references* the real world entity seems a
> tiny bit strong anyway; I guess I'd say 'reference' with regard to the
> concept's documentation, or with regard to a use of the concept in
> some document. But at some level this is all metaphor anyhow; nothing
> is really 'focussing' either. I had hoped 'focus' was a word that came
> with relatively little baggage in this community and amongst Web
> technologists, since 'topic' and 'subject' are already heavily
> over-used.
>
> I think 'references' will prove too general/broad to use directly
> (people will immediately start applying it with document 'mentions'
> and hyperlinks), but I appreciate the feedback and suggestion. Same
> with Bernard's 'referent', even though yes the basic idea is that the
> concepts are proxying / standing in for / indirectly identifying /
> referring to some real world entities.
>
> cheers,
>
> Dan
>
> ps. Another terminology possible ingredient; in FOAF we have a
> property foaf:primaryTopic which points from a document to the thing
> the document is primarily about. It has an inverse, isPrimaryTopicOf
> too.
>
>

Received on Tuesday, 10 August 2010 08:57:26 UTC