Re: PROV-ISSUE-337 (agent-and-entity): agent should not be a subclass of entity [prov-dm]

On 04/15/2012 10:17 AM, Miles, Simon wrote:
> Curt:
>> I'm suggesting that agents should be just entities and not activities.
>> I'd like to see a good case where an activity is an agent.
>
> Maybe when the activity is an action with an intention behind it and
> we don't wish to model who held the intention and performed the
> action, just the action itself. Doing "touch file.x" was responsible
> for "file.x being backed up", not just a cause of it. "Saying 'shut
> the window'" was responsible for the activity of the window being
> shut. regardless of who said it. Modelling the activities as agents
> and using wasAssociatedWith allows the responsibility to be
> expressed and so blame to later be ascribed.

So the activity performed or directed by a 'hidden agent' is a
modelled as a proxy for that agent, in place of actually expressing
that agent.

You still aren't suggesting that the activity *is* the agent, just
that we use it as an agent in place of one we don't know about yet.

I guess that is ok, but I really don't see the problem with just
making up a largely undescribed agent as a placeholder to describing
that agent more fully in the future.

Curt

Received on Sunday, 15 April 2012 14:34:50 UTC