Re: Primer Review

Dear Deborah,

many thanks for your thorough review and your helpful suggestions.
We implemented most of them as suggested.
The diff

http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php?title=Primer&diff=23739&oldid=23695

should contain mainly the changes made in response to your comments  
for all sections except 9 and 10.
Please find some specific comments below inline.

With best regards
  Sebastian

>
>        1. After we mention “most of the language features” add a
>           sentence saying for a listing of language features, see the
>           Quick Reference document which then provides links into the
>           appropriate sections of the appropriate documents concerning
>           syntax and examples.
We added an according remark to Section 1.1, where we also refer to  
the NF&R document.
>  7. On “ … all four syntaxes “
>        1. Change to “… all five syntaxes”
Well, we consider the RDF-based syntax as one syntax having an RDF/XML  
and a Turtle variant.
>
>  9. I find the following open to confusion “In particular, there is no
>     way to enforce that a certain piece of information (like the
>     social security number of a person) has to be syntactically  
> present.”
>        1. One reading of that for me is that min cardinality
>           restrictions are not there. What I believe this is really
>           aiming at is the open world assumption so that just because
>           a ss# is not there now, does not mean it might not be there
>           later.
The point is that even a class membership "has some ss#" does not mean  
that the concrete ss# of that individual has to be recorded in the  
Ontology (as opposed to e.g. XML Schema). We just know that it has  
one. That's what we mean by "syntactically present."
>
>        2. This paragraph and the next one basically on what owl is not
>           I think belong buried later – not so far near the beginning
>           where I think they have more potential to cause confusion
>           than to help.
Actually, these paragraphs were requested as kind of "setting the  
stage" before going into details.
>
> 13. On the paragraph starting with “One can use basic algebra….”
>        1. This feels out of place – it is a more sophisticated notion
>           than most of the rest of the writing and is only for a
>           subset of users. It should somehow be noted that most will
>           want to skip this. It could be a (granted long) footnote.
Agreed. We will find a way to make this look skippable; that's what  
the editor's note was made for.
>
> 14. On “Thereby we will represent information about a particular
>     family. (We do not intend this example to be representative of the
>     sorts of domains OWL should be used for, or as a canonical example
>     of good modeling with OWL, or a correct representation of the
>     rather complex, shifting, and culturally dependent domain of
>     families. Instead, we intend it to be a rather simple exhibition
>     of various features of OWL.)”
>        1. I do not think the parenthetical adds a lot but it does
>           detract. This is now the third place where it seemed that a
>           thought was more appropriate for a footnote if it was to be
>           kept.
We moved this comment to the parent section, hopefully decreasing the  
danger of detraction. We actually think this disclaimer should be in  
place in order to prevent that the sample ontology is conceived as a  
kind of "modeling best practice" (which it is not).

>
> 25. In section 7, wow – 200 is a seriously large max for human age. I
>     would drop it to at least 150.
Well, you never know what medical progress brings about, but so be it...

>
> 27. On section 9, I agree with the comment by mike smith on may 13
>     that this section could use some rework. The intro sentence of 2
>     ways of thinking about owl 2 seems odd to me as well. I am willing
>     to re-review when the updated 9 is in.

Yes we have changed this in accordance with Mike's review.

Diff for Section 9: <http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php?title=Primer&diff=23689&oldid=23628 
 >
(note that it also shows the removal of some comments which can be  
ignored)

>
> 28. On section 10, I am not sure what goes in this section and what
>     goes in the owl profiles document. It seems like the main thing I
>     would want to get on profiles from this document is a sentence or
>     2 on each profile and why one chooses that profile and a small
>     example. The current version seems to have too much content and I
>     agree with mike that complexity class, links to literature, and
>     history do not belong in this document. I am also willing to
>     re-review when the update to 10 is in.

We have taken out text on complexity classes, literature links, and  
history. The remaining text aids in the choice of profile and points  
out some of the language features. As for the examples, they are  
already quite short, consisting of 4-6 axioms each: With less, it's  
not possible to get a minimum of the expressivity accross.

Diff for Section 10: <http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/index.php?title=Primer&diff=23695&oldid=23689 
 >
_________________________________________________
Dr. Sebastian Rudolph
Institute AIFB, University of Karlsruhe, D-76128 Karlsruhe
rudolph@aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de    phone +49 (0)721 608 7362
www.sebastian-rudolph.de                 fax +49 (0)721 608 5998