RE: Dataset vocabularies vs. interchange vocabularies (was: Re: DBpedia 3.2 release, including DBpedia Ontology and RDF links to Freebase)

Hi John,

> Do you think the argument is mostly settled, or would you agree that
> duplicating a massive set of URIs for 'local technical simplification'
> is a bad practice? (In which case, is the question just a matter of
> scale?)

In my opinion it's not only about technical simplification. It's a
question of process.
When I want to publish a new dataset, only re-using existing URIs would
mean that I need to find the correct URIs in the first place. That's
difficult: some concepts in my dataset might not be available in others,
some concepts might be available in more than one other. Having to
decide too early restrains me from publishing my data. 

By minting my own URIs, I can split the publishing problem into two
separate task: 1. publish data and 2. interlink data. And the
interlinking task could then even be done by someone else... 

Best,
Georgi

--
Georgi Kobilarov
Freie Universität Berlin
www.georgikobilarov.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-lod-request@w3.org [mailto:public-lod-request@w3.org] On
> Behalf Of John Graybeal
> Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2008 10:54 PM
> To: Richard Cyganiak
> Cc: public-lod@w3.org; Semantic Web
> Subject: Re: Dataset vocabularies vs. interchange vocabularies (was:
> Re: DBpedia 3.2 release, including DBpedia Ontology and RDF links to
> Freebase)
> 
> 
> On Nov 19, 2008, at 5:34 PM, Richard Cyganiak wrote:
> 
> > Interestingly, this somewhat echoes an old argument often heard in
> > the days of the “URI crisis” a few years ago: ““We must avoid a
> > proliferation of URIs. We must avoid having lots of URIs for the
> > same thing. Re-use other people's identifiers wherever you can.
> > Don't invent your own unless you absolutely have to.””
> >
> > I think that the emergence of linked data has shattered that
> > argument. One of the key practices of linked data is: ““Mint your
> > own URIs when you publish new data. *Then* interlink it with other
> > data by setting sameAs links to existing identifiers.””
> 
> So this sounds like you are saying there is a near-consensus of the
> semantic web community.  Except, the previous thread on "URIs and
> Unique IDs" emphasized the view of a number of people that multiple
> URIs for the same concept was "bad" (technical term), especially if
> they are generated en masse.
> 
> Do you think the argument is mostly settled, or would you agree that
> duplicating a massive set of URIs for 'local technical simplification'
> is a bad practice? (In which case, is the question just a matter of
> scale?)
> 
> John
> 
> --------------
> John Graybeal   <mailto:graybeal@mbari.org>  -- 831-775-1956
> Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
> Marine Metadata Interoperability Project: http://marinemetadata.org

Received on Thursday, 27 November 2008 13:44:40 UTC