Re: Planned changes to the VIAF RDF

On 13 April 2011 14:50, Ed Summers <ehs@pobox.com> wrote:
> Hi Jeff,
>
> First, let me just say I'm a big fan of the simplifications that you
> and Thom are proposing ... they are clearly a big improvement. But I
> am wondering about the foaf:focus pattern that you are promoting.
>
> I know I've said this before privately in IRC to various people, but
> it's probably worth asking aloud here. Is it really necessary to use
> URIs to distinguish between the thing itself, and the concept of the
> thing?

As a loose rule, I see value in the latter when the thing figures in
some SKOS scheme, either to be mentioned alongside other related
entities (also indirectly as concepts) or so that
person_123_as_politician, person_123_as_parent, person_123_as_author
could be distinguished as different topics. There is value in that,
both for using those topic URIs to characterise information, but also
to talk in more detail about skills/expertise. Someone might be a
world export on "President George Bush snr. as a manager".

I tend to see your question as a variant on "why both using SKOS RDF
to describe concepts of thing, when I could just describe the world
directly in RDF?".

That's a fair question. I find
http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/REC-skos-reference-20090818/#L1045 still a
useful overview...

Dan

Received on Wednesday, 13 April 2011 13:24:33 UTC