- From: Jon Phipps <jonphipps@gmail.com>
- Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2011 08:20:10 -0500
- To: "Maltese Vincenzo (Enzo)" <maltese@disi.unitn.it>
- Cc: Alistair Miles <alimanfoo@googlemail.com>, Tom Morris <tfmorris@gmail.com>, Jakob Voss <jakob.voss@gbv.de>, SKOS <public-esw-thes@w3.org>, Biswanath Dutta <bisu@disi.unitn.it>
- Message-ID: <AANLkTimuJkz=cSm5i5schEs+y3EZo9w8vNmi8+xJkiYV@mail.gmail.com>
Hi Enzo, While I certainly agree that ordering OFTEN carries semantics, there are cases where the order in which the resources are displayed to the user simply does not. The immediate case for us is replication of the order that the resources we're displaying appeared in the original unstructured document (we're expressing structured resources contained in unstructured textual documents). Sometimes the document order provides information necessary to the correct understanding of the resources and the relationship between the resources and sometimes it does not. When it does, we capture the order. Another case for us is language-specific alphabetizing of all or portions of a graph, which makes the display more readable for humans, but conveys no additional meaning to machines consuming the data. That said, I think the original post regarding 'natural' ordering of concepts is a case, like yours seems to be, where it's useful to formally express the meaning of 'natural order' in a way that explicitly states the knowledge behind the data creator's understanding of the ordered relationship between concepts (historical period, year invented, etc.) in a way that can also be used to express that order in a display at a human endpoint. SKOS was quite intentionally designed to be extended in this way. I'd also like to observe that discussions like this often take an understandably RDF-only, triple-store-centric view of data modeling and management that can make relatively simple problems fiendishly complex. RDF neatly solves many problems but often too, the data modeling requirements differ for creation, dissemination, aggregation in an open world, indexing, and display of metadata, and this can present distinct and often unnecessary challenges when RDF is the only tool available. I quite like your paper, by the way, particularly your useful and detailed description of your methodology in defining post-coordination facets. Cheers, Jon On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 6:21 AM, Maltese Vincenzo (Enzo) < maltese@disi.unitn.it> wrote: > Dear Jon, > I'm new to this community, but let me express my viewpoint about this > issue. > > In fact, while we agree (my colleague Bisu in CC and I) that ordering is > purpose oriented, it DOES carry semantics. > As it is explained in the attached paper to appear at GEOS 2011, it gives > implicit semantic relations between coordinate terms. This can be of great > value for usability issues when a user browses a classification scheme. > > Bests, > Enzo > > > -----Original Message----- > From: public-esw-thes-request@w3.org [mailto: > public-esw-thes-request@w3.org] > On Behalf Of Jon Phipps > Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 9:17 PM > To: Alistair Miles > Cc: Tom Morris; Jakob Voss; SKOS > Subject: Re: Ordering concepts in a Tree display > > > Alistair Miles wrote: > > (2) represent your systematic display using some other data format > > (some sort of XML would be ideal, as you get hierarchy and ordering > > easily), in which case you'd have to figure out how to manage your > > systematic display data in addition to your basic broader/narrower > > graph and make sure the two weren't inconsistent, > > Hi Alistair, > > This is the approach we're taking in our upcoming refresh of the Registry, > since we believe that in general ordering for display is a 'local' system > issue rather than an expression of conceptual semantics and is liable to be > highly variable. Not to mention that ordering for human browsing is usually > completely unrelated to semantics. > > We're using JSON to express a 'manifest' that can be easily displayed as an > ordered hierarchy, the ordering of branches and leaves performed and stored > independent of the maintenance of the RDF. > > Nice to have you around, > > Jon Phipps > http://metadataregistry.org > > -- Jon I check email just a couple of times daily; to reach me sooner, click here: http://awayfind.com/jonphipps
Received on Sunday, 6 February 2011 13:21:04 UTC