a few owl i18n comments (not about language tags)

Hi, (personal comments, chair hat off)

While looking at the OWL2 draft for some information to include in a response about language tags, I stumbled across a few examples with very minor internationalization issues (and one editing problem). None of these are substantive comments. Rather than file them, I thought I would forward for your review.

Section 7.4.2 (Universal Quantification) contains an example using ZIP codes (USA postal codes). In the example, the zip code is restricted to being an integer (as US postal codes are mostly integers, except for the pesky hyphen in the "long form"). The text then says:

--
In United Kingdom and Canada, ZIP codes are strings (i.e., they can contain characters and not just numbers). Hence, one might use the universal expression AllValuesFrom( a:hasZIP a:xsd:integer ) to identify those individuals that have only integer ZIP codes (and therefore have non-UK and non-Canadian addresses). The anonymous individual _:a1 is by the first axiom connected by a:zipCode to an integer data value, and the second axiom ensures that _:a1 is not connected by a:zipCode to other data values; therefore, _:a1 is classified as an instance of AllValuesFrom( a:hasZIP a:xsd:integer ).
--

Comments on this item:

1. "In the United Kingdom and Canada..." and a lot of other countries besides. We should take care not to rely so heavily on an Anglo-Saxon example. I would suggest "Postal codes vary widely between countries. In the UK and Canada, for example..."

2. "...ZIP codes are strings..." should say "postal codes are strings"

3. "...they can contain characters and not just numbers..." isn't quite right. You probably should say "they contain letters and spaces and not just numbers", since "characters" encloses numbers (it encloses many other things). Pedants would probably want you to note that the "letters" are of the ASCII variety, but that's overkill.

4. "... and therefore have non-UK and non-Canadian addresses..." is again problematic. For starters, using a country code is usually more reliable. But assuming for a moment that one is forced to use postal code in this way, you should probably say "...and therefore have a postal code that matches US conventions..."

In Section 8.3.1, you have an example of "first name". As you might be aware, in some cultures the "first" positional name is not necessarily the given name. Comment on this item:

5. Please replace occurrences of "hasFirstName" with "hasGivenName". This makes the example more culture-neutral.

In Section 8.3.2, there is a typo.

6. The example is that hasName and "seLlama" are equivalent properties. However, the comment says: "a:hasBrother and a:seLlama (in Spanish) are synonyms.". Replace "hasBrother" with "seLlama".


Regards,

Addison


Addison Phillips
Globalization Architect -- Lab126

Internationalization is not a feature.
It is an architecture.

Received on Monday, 14 July 2008 15:50:59 UTC