RE: skos:closeMatch and skos:exactMatch

I’d like to elaborate on Tom’s answer, who is absolutely right : in a vocabulary you want to distinguish the signified (the concept behind the labels) and the signifiers (the labels that represent the abstract concept). The root identifier of a concept is preferably an abstract key without meaning (numbers, letters, UUID or a persistent ID schema) to which you attach labels (SKOS-XL extends the description and linking of lexical entities). Under this definition, two identical concepts in the same concept scheme would introduce confusion and inconsistency.

All of this because labels change in space and time : if EveningStar is nothing but another name for MorningStar and represents the same thing or concept, using labels is the way to go. If at one point EveningStar becomes a closely related but different entity from MorningStar, they represent different concepts and could be related (like in skos:related : there’s an associative semantic relation, but not in a hierarchical sense). And if in the end the concept behind EveningStar becomes entirely separated from the one behind MorningStar, there simply are no more semantic relations between them (might be useful to throw in a history note though).

The Customer-Client question is to be solved by your own needs and practical limits : is there a business case where you need to distinguish those roles, or are they, as far as you are concerned, used interchangeably ?

Pieterjan Montens

From: Tom Morris <tfmorris@gmail.com>
Sent: vendredi 6 janvier 2023 03:57
To: Michael DeBellis <mdebellissf@gmail.com>
Cc: public-esw-thes@w3.org
Subject: Re: skos:closeMatch and skos:exactMatch

On Thu, Jan 5, 2023 at 6:14 PM Michael DeBellis <mdebellissf@gmail.com<mailto:mdebellissf@gmail.com>> wrote:

If I have two synonym Concepts in two different ConceptSchemes: ex1:TheMorningStar and ex2:TheEveneningStar I can say  ex1:TheMorningStar skos:exactMatch ex2:TheEveningStar. But what if they are in the same Concept Scheme? If I want to say ex1:TheMorningStar is identical to ex1:TheEveningStar there doesn't seem to be a way to do that. Similarly if I want to say they are close but not quite exact synonyms (e.g., ex1:Customer and ex1:Client) What am I missing?

You wouldn't have two identical concepts in the same scheme. Synonyms can be done using altLabels on the same concept.

Tom