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

In Freebase,  I think we ultimately decided to generalize linking of
Subjects with Things at the topic level rather simply.

Subjects - Subjects of this topic. This property is to be used as the basis
of delegated "subjects" properties on other types.
Subject_of - Different things (films, books, songs, etc.) this topic is the
subject of.

However, the use of "focus" is fairly straightforward and easily understood,
I think.  And I can see the logic in the usefulness beyond the mere Subjects
and Subject_of, especially as it concerns the Social Web with People and
Organizations.

A quick use of foaf:focus in Freebase seems it would be similar to a
"Persons Interest" or an "Organizations Sector" or "Organization Focus",
which we have.

Texas Dance Hall Preservation is an organization with a "focus" or rather it
is within the "Organization Sector" of the SKOS Concept of "Dance halls".
 Shown here in Freebase and it's linked relationship to the SKOS Concept of
"Dance halls" :
http://www.freebase.com/edit/topic/authority/us/gov/loc/sh/sh2003000157

Regards,
Thad Guidry
Freebase Community Expert

On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 8:35 AM, Dan Brickley <danbri@danbri.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 3:22 PM, Leigh Dodds <leigh.dodds@talis.com>
> wrote:
> > On 10 August 2010 09:12, Dan Brickley <danbri@danbri.org> wrote:
> >> +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!
> >
> > I wasn't aware of that usage. I can see how it might be confusing to
> > that specific community.
> >
> > I agree with Dan's comments around "references" and similar naming:
> > that situation is already murky, so best not to make it worse. I also
> > don't really think that referencing/referring captures the intent as
> > well as "focus".
> ...
> > Likewise, until now I had seen focus as relatively unused and unburdened.
>
> Thanks to Simon for digging out the citation - I also hadn't seen that
> usage.
>
> "1. The focus, i.e. the noun component that identifies the general
> class of concepts to which the term as a whole refers."
>
> That is pretty close territory, and in fact might answer one open
> question I had w.r.t. foaf:focus which is how to deal with a
> skos:Concept that relates more to a class than an individual. If we
> allowed it to point from a SKOS concept prefLabel'd “Hospitals for
> children” to an RDFS/OWL class which was the set of things that are
> “hospitals”, we might have something acceptably close to established
> usage.  ( “indexes” in the phrase term “Printed indexes”, from the
> IFLA doc also works, while "band" in "broadband" is an example I find
> baffling).
>
> However there is no escaping the overlap, and the terminological
> partial-match at least deserves to be acknowledged in the spec. I
> don't know if the idea of a concept that matches a single specific
> entity fits with their notion of 'focus'; it might just be a different
> use, or [worse] a direct conflict.
>
> I'm also connected over wobbly 3G so my searching powers are a bit
> limited, but if we're going to switch (and 'standsFor' seems the best
> current candidate, thanks Antoine) it'd probably be best to do so in
> the next week. My gut instinct however is to stay with foaf:focus if
> we can characterise it in terms that acknowledge some relationship to
> prior usage.
>
> > Is there scope to leave foaf:focus in FOAF and explore a more general
> > term for inclusion as part of SKOS. One might end up superceding the
> > other if successful.
>
> Yes. One reason I wanted this in FOAF is that getting a W3C group
> through to REC can take a lot of time and money, but it would ideally
> be something handled "in house" by future editions of SKOS.
>
> That said, I don't want to tread on terminological toes here. If
> foaf:focus will really confuse and upset things, now's the time to
> change. I'll try to read around a bit more to get a sense for whether
> things can be made to fit.
>
> cheers
>
> Dan
>
>