Re: [Moderator Action] Re: reportsTo in the Org Ontology

Hi Dave,

>>org:Post is a subclass of org:Organization
>>
>> org:Organization is a subclass of foaf:Person
>>
>> Thus, org:Post is a subclass of foaf:Agent.
>
>Correct.
>
>> This means that the union in the domain and range would be unnecessary
>>(as
>> foaf:Agent would cover all the possibilities).
>
>Yes but foaf:Agent is a more general statement than the current union.
>That generalization wouldn't do any harm but the current approach makes
>the fact that an organization can hold a post more explicit, which is
>desirable.

I was talking about "reportTo", whose domain and range is owl:unionOf
(foaf:Agent and org:Post). This seems unnecessary to me, if you assume
that org:Post is a subclass of foaf:Agent.   [which I argue against, but I
will have to elaborate on this some other time.]

>> Further, it would mean that org:Organization is within also the domain
>>and
>> range of reportsTo. In fact, "reportsTo" can be applied to any
>>combination
>> of foaf:Agent, org:Organization, org:Post, foaf:GroupŠ all with
>>different
>> semantics.
>
>No, they are not different semantics. Certainly in normal life people
>are happy saying they report to a specific person, to a committee or to
>the holder(s) of post (e.g. "I report to the head of R&D"). I don't
>think those are fundamentally different semantics of reporting.
>
>As we have already agreed, it is certainly possible to have much more
>fine grained and nuanced representation of reporting but that is out of
>scope for ORG and should be addressed through extensions (ORG profiles).

Ok, I can agree that this may be outside the scope of this effort. But
notice that you were forced to say report to "THE HOLDER(S) OF" a post (as
opposed to report to the post as is suggested by the ontology.)  [my view
is that you report to the agent qua holder of a post, using the
terminology from the Unified Foundational Ontology]

>> And
>> what about foaf:birthday (a property of foaf:Agent)Š This would also be
>>an
>> unusual
>> property of an org:Post.
>
>True but just because a property exists doesn't mean it can be applied
>blindly to any particular instance. There is no cardinality constraint
>that makes foaf:birthday a required property. Equally I wouldn't use
>foaf:birthday on an org:Organization even though that is not explicitly
>banned.

This is some kind of highly informal constraint on the ontology that in my
opinion should be avoided. If you say that org:Post and org:Organization
are subclasses of foaf:Agent than all statements about foaf:Agent ought to
be meaningful for org:Organization and org:Post, which is not the case
here. 


>> By the way, there are several problems with the non-normative picture in
>> the working draft.
>
>Please be more explicit. If there are specific problems then describe
>them precisely so they can be fixed. Especially at this very late stage
>in the process such general statements are not helpful.
>
>> Including the omission of "specialization" between
>> foaf:Agent, org:Organization and org:Post.
>
>The diagram is not complete, and not intended to be, some links have
>been omitted for clarity. That's one of the reasons the diagram is not
>normative.

I'm sorry if I was unspecific and I was not aware that there were
omissions of specializations. I did not have the time to elaborate, and in
fact, I've asked a colleague to reconstruct the diagram because of the
omissions (that's still ongoing). In my opinion, the diagram should show
that org:Organization is subclass of foaf:Agent and that org:Post is a
subclass of org:Organization. If there is more, I will bring up.


>>>> The semantics of "reportTo" between foaf:Agents
>>>> is that the agents have some kind of reporting relationship in the
>>>> scope of some (undetermined) organization. In this case, it would be
>>>> unreasonable to expect that "reportsTo" is acyclic between
>>>> foaf:Agents...
>>>> In contrast, the semantics of "reportsTo" between foaf:Posts is that
>>>> there exists some kind of reporting relation in the scope of a
>>>> specific organization. In this case, "reportsTo" may as well be
>>>> acyclic, as suggested (?) in the current document in a usage note for
>>>> "headOf".
>>>
>>>That's a different issue. It is possible that the comment on acyclic
>>>relationships is too strong.
>>
>> Ok, so how should this be processed into the current draft? (Sorry for
>>the
>> question, I am new to this!) do we track these issues somehow?
>
>If the working group agrees that that is an issue that should be
>addressed then it gets logged on the issue tracker [2].
>
>That would be a small editorial change and would not affect Last Call so
>I'd be happy to see that logged as an issue.

Thanks, Dave, and especially for the clarification regarding Last Call
status.

Regards,
João Paulo

Received on Friday, 9 November 2012 10:39:07 UTC