RE: how to: ordered collection of a Concept

> I don't know how the AAT nowadays ensures the order of siblings in an array

There's a field sortOrder. 
If the values are the same, that means "not ordered", and AAT displays in alphabetical order of the EN label.

> Optionally, an array may have a node label. Optionally also,
> it may have a superordinate concept.

Consider these two cases that actually appear in AAT:

1. C1 < C2,C3:
    C1 (a concept) is parent of C2,C3 which are ordered
2. C1 < GT1 < C2,C3: 
    C1 is parent of GT1 (a guide term), which in turn is parent of C2,C3 which are ordered

Case 2 is clear: we represent GT1 as an Array that is ordered.

My question is how to represent case 1, so it can be distinguished from case 2. 
In case 1 we also need to use an Array (there's nothing else that can be ordered, since a skos:OrderedCollection can't be put under anything).
But it's an *inferior* array: it does not exist separately from C1, it is the *same* as C1.
I agree with Leonard's suggestion to use an Array without node label (which I called *anonymous*, sorry if that caused any confusion).
And we'll connect that inferior array to C1 using subordinateArray.
Is that the best practice then?

> Implementation would proceed more 
> comfortably, I suggest, if the treatment of arrays does not depend on 
> existence of some kind of parent.

I'm not sure what that means.
For a thesaurus consumer (e.g. implementer of a TMS or thesaurus visualization) it's important to understand when to display a level.
In case 1 above, he should *not* display an extra level between the concepts.
Which will happen if we institute a practice "If an Array has no label, then don't display it".
This will work fine for AAT, but if someone makes a whole tree of Arrays without labels, what would that mean?
Oh well, that's for thesaurus consumers to worry about :-)

> Array must have at least one member concept 

Conceivably, it may have only member arrays, and the concepts may come some levels further down?

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> identifier "300106739" for "Iron Age" is not designed for use as a notation...
> the form taken by the notation system of a particular thesaurus can be highly idiosyncratic.
> ISO 25964 ...does not make any assumptions about the way that notation
> will be used, either for ordering or anything else.

If ISO does not pose constraints on notations, how did you judge that "300106739" is not a notation?
I've mapped it to skos:notation because it satisfies the description for notation given in the SKOS Primer and SKOS Reference.
Anyway: when Marsha raised this issue, I've recorded it as an AAT Question, and we'll resolve it a bit later.
If so decided, I'll turn that to dc:identifier.

Received on Friday, 15 November 2013 03:58:40 UTC