Re: Associating context with an annotation

On Aug 18, 2012, at 3:56 AM, Sebastian Hellmann <hellmann@informatik.uni-leipzig.de> wrote:

> Hi Jim,
> 
> Am 17.08.2012 19:44, schrieb James Smith:
>>> 
>>> 2. model context change, i.e. which annotations stay valid, when the context changes.
>>> 3. allow to automatically reason, whether two selectors select the same thing. This means "physically" inferring owl:sameAs between the respective Selectors and SpecificResources. (immensely useful to answer queries)
>>> 
>> 
>> These are out of scope as well. We're not trying to create a mechanism to say how two annotations are related, or if the annotation is valid or invalid. Just a way to say that the full meaning of the annotation may not be evident unless it (the target or the body, depending on which part the oax:hasContext is attached) is considered within the context provided by the oax:hasContext part of the graph.
> 
> You are loosing me here. In another email you are vouching to name the property "hasScope", which is clearly a validity criterion such as in "out of scope" == "invalid" .
> Also I am not saying that you can infer that two annotations are the same. I talked about the Target, i.e. SpecificResource and Selectors. Does your idea of context help you to decide whether two targets are the same?

Sebastian,

I think we're working from two different uses of "scope." As an idiom, "out of scope" does mean "invalid," but it's not necessarily obvious that "scope" indicates validity. When used in other areas, scope is about the view: microscope, telescope, periscope, oscilloscope, kaleidoscope. It is this sense of being in view that leads to the indication of validity: being "out of scope" means "out of view" and thus not under consideration.

In that email where I seem to vouch for "hasScope", I'm pointing it out as what I think is the best of the options that Rob listed. I then continue and offer two other options that I feel might be better than "hasScope." I've listed all three options on the wiki.

The purpose of oax:hasContext, oax:hasScope, oax:asReferencedBy, or whatever opaque string we choose to name this property, is to indicate that the annotation is best understood when considered "in (the) view of" some other resource.

This idea of context (where to look for/view the thing we're annotating) does help distinguish between targets, but not between resources. The same resource can be used to present multiple targets in a viewing/presentation of resources. The oax:hasContext, oax:hasScope, oax:asReferencedBy property provides a mechanism for distinguishing between these views/presentations of the targeted resources. 

I'm not sure I understand the question about equality, but I'll take a stab at it. In some ways, equality of two targets (or bodies) is independent of the viewing context, but this depends on what kind of equality is needed. If the viewing context of the annotation isn't important, then the oax:hasContext piece can be ignored. Otherwise, it can help distinguish between two different targets that otherwise would appear identical if their viewing context wasn't taken into account.

Whether or not an annotation is valid or invalid (perhaps superseded by a newer annotation) is something I'm interested in as well, but not something I'm trying to solve with the oax:hasContext property.

-- Jim

Received on Saturday, 18 August 2012 13:35:51 UTC