Re: PROV-ISSUE-77 (paq-terminology): terminology issues [Accessing and Querying Provenance]

On 22/08/2011 23:30, Provenance Working Group Issue Tracker wrote:
>
> PROV-ISSUE-77 (paq-terminology): terminology issues [Accessing and Querying Provenance]
>
> http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/77
>
> Raised by: Luc Moreau
> On product: Accessing and Querying Provenance
>
>
> Terminology is not always used consistently. Sometimes, it's confusing. I group all these comments in a single issue.
>
> To start with, the word "context" which is overloaded.  Furthermore, some sentences have two occurrences of this word, one with the technical meaning, one with the common sense meaning. In fact, we used to have a good term, "subject of provenance", which we could consider here.

This was discussed on the list when we moved away from "target", and so far the 
term "context" has found favour (and is also consistent with the usage 
associated with link relations).  I'm not aware of any sentences in which the 
uses of context are contradictory: part of the value of this term is that it 
aligns pretty well with its colloquial meaning.  (I didn't set out to write a 
formal document here, but one from which developers could create interoperable 
implementations.)

> Why do we have location_template and provenance_template?
> Shouldn't they be provenance_location_template and provenance_content_template?
> Both are indeed related to provenance.

Indeed they are.  I initially drafted the forms you mentioned, then decided 
against them.  These names appear specifically in a description of a provenance 
service, so adding provenance- to the name isn't needed for disambiguation, and 
does make them more unwieldy.

> The discovery service is sometimes referred to as discovery and retrieval service.  Shouldn't it be consistently referred as discovery and retrieval service? But this is also referred to as provenance service.

Yes, more consistency here would be nice, but I wonder if it comes at the 
expense of more clumsy text.  Technically, it would be a discovery *and/or* 
retrieval service:  either one or the other or both options can be provided.

> The text seems to make the distinction between resource-uri and context-uri. But isn't it the case that a resource-uri is a context-uri?

Not necessarily.  resource-uri might be the dynamic resource, and context-uri 
might be a particular view of it (e.g. see recent discussion with Olaf about 
DBpedia Berlin page.)

> Provenance resource is also mentioned. Is this provenance information?

Roughly, yes,  But if we get to be really nit-picky, provenance information is 
what one gets when retrieving a provenance resource.

> Can we have a better name than provenance-location-uri? First, shouldn't we say provenance-locations-uri?  this would allow us to see that several locations are permitted (whereas we have a singe provenance information template). Is location the right term? why not set provenance-uri?

OK, first suggestion done.

I think provenance-locations-URI is right as it denotes a resource containing 
one or more provenance locations.  I suppose we might say provenance-URIs-URI, 
but I think that begs more confusion than it clears up.

#g
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Received on Thursday, 25 August 2011 13:52:21 UTC