RE: [MODS] Mark Twain Rides Again (was Re: [MODS] MADS/RDF for review)

Here are my random thoughts:

I like the idea of using foaf:focus to tie skos:Concept/mads:Authority
entities to models of reality (foaf:Person, rdaEnt:Person, frad:Person,
frbr:Person, etc.)

As Simon noted, VIAF treats (1) (2) and (3) as distinct individuals. In
principle, the 5xx Related Names
(<http://viaf.org/viaf/50566653/#RelatedNamesContent>) could be used to
relate them in the RDF, but generating the links will require some extra
processing that isn't in place yet. 

On the modeled reality side of foaf:focus, I'm not 100% comfortable with
umbel:isLike to relate (1) (2) and (3). I do like the spec's words
"assert a degree of overlap of sameness", but I'm less happy about the
words that follow: "via the umbel:hasMapping reification predicate". I
can imagine a lightly-defined property named "overlapsWith" that could
be adequate for this and other use cases. Perhaps Dan would consider
adding something like this to the FOAF ontology. If not, I would be
tempted to do it in the VIAF ontology.

On the SKOS side of foaf:focus, VIAF currently uses skos:closeMatch to
"cluster" contributed authority records. We would need to be careful
using it to indicate a relationship between (1) (2) and (3) in addition.
SKOS exactMatch seems too strong in either case. What if we coined two
new subproperties in the VIAF ontology and used those instead?:

viaf:clusterMatch rdfs:subPropertyOf skos:closeMatch . # for clustering
purposes
viaf:overlapMatch rdfs:subPropertyOf skos:closeMatch . # for relating
overlapping concepts

It's possible this hair is important enough to split in the SKOS
ontology itself.

Jeff

> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-lld-request@w3.org [mailto:public-lld-request@w3.org] On
> Behalf Of Antoine Isaac
> Sent: Monday, January 03, 2011 7:59 AM
> To: Metadata Object Description Schema List
> Cc: public-lld
> Subject: Re: [MODS] Mark Twain Rides Again (was Re: [MODS] MADS/RDF
for
> review)
> 
> Hi Simon,
> 
> I'll be quick, as I've not so much though about it--probably the
owners
> of FOAF and VIAF have more insight...
> I'd say that for (1) (2) and (3) there's nothing against creating 3
> instances of foaf:Person, and connecting the mads:Authorities (or
> skos:Concepts directly, in the VIAF approach) to them using
foaf:focus.
> 
> Now comes the issue of gluing the foaf:Persons together. We're still
> missing a standard co-reference mapping link (softer than owl:sameAs)
> for this; perhaps umbel:isLike [1] can be used.
> I'd be much more confident about expressing the relation at the level
> of mads:Authorities/skos:Concepts, using skos:exactMatch -- or
> skos:closeMatch, depending on your feelings (or AACR2's) regarding
> ghosts :-)
> 
> Antoine
> 
> [1] http://www.umbel.org/vocabulary#isLike%20Property
> 
> 
> > [Antoine - I'm adding public-lld to the cc list for this message,
> since there was some discussion dealing with linking VIAF records to
> real-world-objects].
> >
> > It's interesting to consider the relationship between:
> >
> > *(1) Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 *
> > LCCN: n 79021164
> > VIAF rdf: http://viaf.org/viaf/50566653/rdf.xml
> >
> > *(2) Clemens, Samuel Langhorne, 1835-1910 *
> > LCCN: n 93099439
> > VIAF rdf: http://viaf.org/viaf/53367783/rdf.xml
> >
> > *(3) Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 (Spirit)*
> > LCCN: n 82045653
> > VIAF rdf: http://viaf.org/viaf/106965116/rdf.xml
> >
> > [Since VIAF make use of UMBEL, I will use UMBEL/Cyc as a reference]
> >
> >    1. All three of these Thing
> <http://sw.opencyc.org/concept/Mx4rvViA9JwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA> can be used
> to make assertions/claims about the Literary Identity of the creator
of
> a ConceptualWork
> <http://sw.opencyc.org/concept/Mx4rwClAZJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA>.
> >    2. Assertions of authorship made using the three different Things
> state different propositions.
> >    3. (1) and (2) both correspond to names used by the same
MaieHuman
> <http://sw.opencyc.org/concept/Mx4rvVjWoZwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA>, they
> represent distinct Literary identities. Authorship attributions using
> (1) and (2) represent claims that the creation of the intellectual
> content of the work and the creation of the first tangible form of the
> work were both done by that MaleHuman
> <http://sw.opencyc.org/concept/Mx4rvVjWoZwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA>.
> >    4. Authorship attributions using (1) and (3) represent claims
that
> that the intellectual content of the work was produced by the same
> MaleHuman <http://sw.opencyc.org/concept/Mx4rvVjWoZwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA>
as
> in (1) and (2), but that the creation took place after his death, and
> that a different person created the first tangible form of the work.
> This person is given as an added entry.
> >    5. Statements made using (3) are not believed to be true in
> consensual reality.
> >    6. There is a specific rule for this is in the AACR 2. I am not
> making this up :-)
> >    7. FOAF allows for non-existing Persons, so ghosts can be
> foaf:Person. This allows Fictional characters and non Christian
deities
> to be represented as "Names" not "Subjects".
> >    8. FOAF does not specifically allow for non-existent Corporate
> bodies or Groups. This requires fictional entities of this type to be
> handled separately (Ministry of Magic; Miskatonic University; etc.)
> >
> > Simon
> >
> > On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 5:46 AM, Antoine Isaac <aisaac@few.vu.nl
> <mailto:aisaac@few.vu.nl>> wrote:
> >
> >     Hello Bruce,
> >
> >     Would it alleviate your concern if you could use something like
> foaf:focus [1] to link instances of mads:Authority to instances of
> foaf:Person?
> >     This is what VIAF does (e.g., [2]), and there's nothing in the
> the current design of MADS/RDF that forbids it, since mads:Authority
is
> a sub-class of skos:Concept.
> >
> >     Best,
> >
> >     Antoine
> >
> >     [1] http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/#term_focus
> >     [2] http://viaf.org/viaf/24604287/rdf.xml
> >
> >
> >
> >         I've been away from this since my flaming away. Just wanted
> to chime
> >         in on Rob's points ...
> >
> >         On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 3:56 AM, Rob
> Styles<rob.styles@talis.com <mailto:rob.styles@talis.com>> wrote:
> >
> >             Hi all, my 2 pence worth...
> >
> >             Not a regular here, joining you specifically for the
> MADS/RDF discussion.
> >
> >             ** Comments so far
> >             Some of the comments so far are a tad harsh. It's great
> to see LoC
> >             doing this stuff even if it's not exactly as one might
> have approached
> >             it. They know their data, maybe we should try to be a
bit
> more
> >             supportive?
> >
> >
> >         Fair enough. But I do think we need to meet each other half
> way
> >         ("their data" is also "our data" in my view), and I think
> your
> >         comments are helpful (definitely more than mine) towards
that
> end.
> >
> >             ** Conceptual approach
> >             I've worked with library data for a long time and it's
> not simple
> >             stuff. A common first mistake is often to assume that
> something like
> >             the name authority talks about people and organisations
> when in fact
> >             it talks about "bibliographic entities" - the names
> printed in books,
> >             mostly.
> >
> >
> >         Yes, I get this sort of indirection. But as an author of
some
> of those
> >         bibliographic items, I'm still a person. And there needs to
> be a way
> >         to bring these two perspectives together. Concretely, if I
> have a
> >         description of Samuel Clemens in FOAF, I really want to know
> how to
> >         link that to some description of his pen persona/alter ego
> Mark Twain.
> >
> >             These have been modelled and re-modelled over many years
> and authority
> >             data has evolved to meet specific needs. It is not an
> ideal starting
> >             point for publishing Linked Data.
> >
> >             However, I think authority data could be approached
> differently to
> >             MADS/RDF. Where MADS/RDF uses bibliographic terms, many
> of which come
> >             from the record structures employed, I would prefer to
> see real-world
> >             terminology used. So, a class of "Name" would be a good
> thing to have,
> >             then we can talk about names. Where it is possible to
> identify a real
> >             person it would be good to use a class of Person
(ideally
> the foaf
> >             one) and where we know the name is a pseudonym it would
> be great to
> >             have a Pseudonym class too. The current MADS/RDF
approach
> remodels the
> >             authority /record/ where it may be preferable to model
> the authority
> >             /data/.
> >
> >
> >         To me, this (natural language terms, rather than jargon)
> would go a
> >         long way towards resolving some of my impulsive reaction
> against what
> >         I was seeing.
> >
> >             The downside to that approach is that it can make round-
> tripping
> >             between the syntaxes harder. Consider round-tripping
MARC
> and MARC/XML
> >             as compared with MARC and Dublin-Core XML?
> >
> >
> >         So this really comes down to what the priorities are for
this
> effort?
> >         Is it absolutely clean round-tripping with legacy data, or
is
> it to
> >         bring library data into the linked data world? Obviously one
> can try
> >         to do both, but there's some clear tension here.
> >
> >             I would look again at anywhere you have a structure word
> such as
> >             /element/, /list/ or value as they are likely to be
> describing a
> >             record rather than describing things from the world.
> >
> >
> >         Right.
> >
> >         I guess in the end, I'd really like the designers behind
this
> effort
> >         to imagine that people other than library people might also
> want to
> >         use these data in the end, and to imagine how that might
> work.
> >
> >         Imagine a case where some developer somewhere is writing
some
> simple
> >         PHP application and wants to store some bibliographic data,
> but also
> >         wants to be able to link into some LoC SPARQL endpoint to
> enhance it.
> >         How would they do that? How would they know how to get what
> kinds of
> >         data, to present it how to their users?
> >
> >         Right now, MADS RDF seems to me to be only intelligible to
> someone
> >         with a library degree, or with an awful lot of free time on
> their
> >         hands.
> >
> >         And I agree, BTW, with Karen's suggestion that it makes
sense
> to treat
> >         MADS (or insert other library representation) name
> representations (I
> >         don't, personas?) as distinct from foaf:Agent or
foaf:Person,
> but to
> >         enable them to be linked.
> >
> >         [snip]
> >
> >         Bruce
> >
> >
> 
>

Received on Monday, 3 January 2011 17:13:43 UTC