RE: Property "geographic identifier" in LOCN

>>>> I'm all for fighting against the obesity of having so many classes 
>>>> and properties which have exactly the same meaning, so either the 
>>>> resource is more specific and should indeed be created in the vocab 
>>>> or it is not and then, why not plain re-using the existing class/property?

>> Well, yes but do they really have the same meaning? Most vocabularies that we see remain on the level of surface semantics. There are only a few ontologies and ontology design patterns out there that really restrict the interpretation towards the intended meaning, i.e., that really do some semantic
>> engineering. In the most cases you just have to guess whether they actually talk about the same or not. So far, most of us have been very successful in creating a Linked Data cloud that is so convoluted that it is nearly impossible to use. On reuse/misuse of lat and long you may find this article entertaining: 
>> http://stko.geog.ucsb.edu/location_linked_data . For instance, it uses Linked Data to show that humans never landed on the Moon.

>> IMHO, you can just define whatever you want in your local namespace, give it as much semantics as possible (or necessary) and then have an additional layer of axioms that establishes alignments. Many companies will (or do) it this way anyway because they are afraid of giving up control. Will there be a >> FOAF in 5 years from now?

Indeed, I strongly second Jano's statement here. Agreement on one (common) world view will never be reached - and is not really desirable. Many communities use semantic approaches, and their contexts and needs are different. Consequently, resulting ontologies might contradict each other (in parts), which makes full integration impossible. However, using common patterns and establishing alignments is a realistic solution to connect communities and enabling information exchange. We are on a good way!

Maximizing re-use certainly is a valuable principle, but practice shows us that many groups favor new developments instead of (often more expensive) investigation for and adoption of existing bits and pieces. Whilst promoting re-sue, we cannot ignore such practices.

Best,
Sven

Received on Friday, 10 January 2014 16:38:14 UTC