RE: Request for feedback on SKOS Last Call Working Draft

I agree that using the word 'language' to describe every different language tag, including en-GB and en-US and en, doesn't sound right. 

I have another question too.  In example 11 we see 

<AnotherResource>
  skos:prefLabel "東"@ja-Hani ;
  skos:prefLabel "ひがし"@ja-Hira ;
  skos:altLabel "あずま"@ja-Hira ;
  skos:prefLabel "ヒガシ"@ja-Kana ;
  skos:altLabel "アズマ"@ja-Kana ;
  skos:prefLabel "higashi"@ja-Latn ;
  skos:altLabel "azuma"@ja-Latn .


Here there are four prefLabels associated with the same word in Japanese (just spelled in four different ways).  From a semantic point of view, I'm not sure that this makes sense, and I would have expected the kana and romaji versions to be altLabels. What is the value of having more than one prefLabel for a given language when the word being used is exactly the same?  I suppose I could see the use of contrasting "東"@ja with "higashi"@ja-Latn so that non-Japanese people could state a preference to see the transcribed form of the Japanese word (though from a semantic point of view, presumably skos:prefLabel "East"@en would be better?).  But maybe this is idiosynchratic to Japanese, since for Japanese people the hiragana and katakana transcriptions are usually just alternatives to the kanji version. 

On a slightly different tack, what's the advice wrt when one should use, eg., en-GB / en-US / en? I would have thought that one should use en unless there are divergent spellings (eg. colour vs color) or locutions (eg. lift vs elevator), but example 19 shows 

"color"@en , "color"@en-US , "colour"@en-GB .

which seems to present two problems: 

[1] it requires a lot more annotation than strictly necessary, since applications using this data ought to be able to tell that "color"@en  is appropriate for en-US in the absence of a specific "color"@en-US label (three is already doubly redundant here, but there are more varieties of English than this, eg. en-AU,en-IR, etc....)

[2] without this matching capability, you could end up with unnecessary gaps in the data (for example, what about a search originating from an en-AU context? As it stands, the implication seems to be that it wouldn't match this perfectly adequate literal).

I would have expected that processing tools should recognise that a search originated from an en-GB context also matches en in the absence of alternatives with longer subtags.

There is another small issue here related to the "colour"@en declaration.  Why is the American spelling used for en? What would happen if the English spelling were used in some places? Is there a stated policy that en = US English?

Cheers,
RI

============
Richard Ishida
Internationalization Lead
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)

http://www.w3.org/International/
http://rishida.net/



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Felix Sasaki [mailto:fsasaki@w3.org]
> Sent: 24 January 2009 08:19
> To: Ralph R. Swick
> Cc: public-i18n-core@w3.org; chairs@w3.org; ishida@w3.org; public-swd-
> wg@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Request for feedback on SKOS Last Call Working Draft
> 
> I looked at this briefly and have a personal, editorial comment.
> 
> You write for example in sec. 5
> 
> "The following graph is consistent, and illustrates the provision of
> lexical labels in four different languages (Japanese Kanji, Japanese
> Hiragana, Japanese Katakana and Japanese Rōmaji)."
> 
> I would rather say
> 
> "The following graph is consistent, and illustrates the provision of
> lexical labels in four different variations (Japanese written with
> Kanji, the Hiragana script, the Katakana script or with latin characters
> (Rōmaji))."
> 
> Since all examples are Japanese and differ only with regards to the
> script in use.
> 
> I think this concerns sec. 5.1 ("Japanese Hiragana"), 5.4, and 5.5.
> 
> Regards, Felix
> 
> Ralph R. Swick さんは書きました:
> > Dear I18N Core Working Group (and other interested Chairs),
> >
> > The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group requests any feedback
> > you may have on the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS)
> > Vocabulary Reference specification [1].
> >
> >   [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-skos-reference-20080829/
> >
> > This document was published as a W3C Last Call Working Draft
> > on 29 August 2008 [2]. The SemWeb Deployment Working Group
> > requested CR transition on 7 January 2009 [3].
> >
> >   [2] http://www.w3.org/News/2008#item148
> >   [3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/chairs/2009JanMar/0000.html
> >
> > It appears that due to an oversight there was not an explicit notice
> > to chairs@w3.org of the Last Call publication.  Therefore we cannot
> > be assured that you had the necessary notice should you have
> > planned to do an I18N review of this document.
> >
> > The most likely subject matter for I18N consideration is the
> > SKOS lexical labelling properties [4].
> >
> >   [4] http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-skos-reference-20080829/#L2831
> >
> > On behalf of the Semantic Web Deployment Working Group,
> > I request that you to consider whether you wish to offer any
> > comments on the SKOS Reference Last Call Working Draft
> > and to let us know an approximate schedule should you wish
> > to send comments.
> >
> > Thank you,
> > Ralph Swick
> > SemWeb Deployment WG Team Contact
> >
> >

Received on Monday, 2 February 2009 17:27:37 UTC