RE: Re-definition of Linked Data

On Sunday, June 16, 2013 8:01 PM, Pat Hayes wrote:
> On Jun 16, 2013, at 8:15 AM, Markus Lanthaler wrote:
> > Here's a very rough draft about how we could paraphrase this to not
> > make itsound like a definition:
> >
> >  The World Wide Web is a global information space consisting of
> >  documents and other resources connected by hyperlinks. The same
> >  principles that underpin the document-based Web can also be used for
> >  data. In fact, identifying things, i.e. entities and their properties
> >  with IRIs (Internationalized Resource Identifiers as described in
> >  [RFC3987]; a generalized form of URLs) is often beneficial because it
> >  means that those IRIs can be resolved to find more information about
> >  those things. Such data is often called Linked Data. As Figure 1
> >  illustrates, it has the form of directed graphs, meaning that every
> >  property points from a node to another node or value.
> >
> >  <<image showing the default graph of Figure 1, no named graphs yet>>
> >
> >                      Figure 1: A Linked Data Graph
> >
> >  JSON-LD is a lightweight syntax to serialize Linked Data in JSON
> >  [RFC4627]...
> >
> >
> > David, would that address your concerns? Could you (and of course
> > also the rest of the RDF WG) live with something like this?
> >
> > Pat, what about the editorial concerns you raised? Do you think this is
> > enough clarify that the data model is based on directed graphs early
enough
> > in the document?
> 
> Well, it helps, but I think a paragraph that outlines the data model
> would be better, in addition to this.
>
> The problem as I see it is, one could (I hear the sound of ice cracking
> as I type this) have something that fulfilled the description above
> with IRIs as links to other data, etc.., and yet used a completely
> different data model. We could have implemented linked data using Excel
> tables as our local data model rather than graphs. The idea of using a
> node/graph model for storing data locally (the data model that RDF and
> JSON-LD have in common) is really orthogonal to the whole using-IRIs-
> as-links idea that is the heart of LD. So (quickly getting back onto
> firmer ground) I think the document needs to actually say that JSON-LD
> *chooses* to use this node/graph model. It doesn't need to say *why*,
> just quickly describe the basic model, no details, and use the terms
> graph, node, subject/property/value.

Sounds like you have something concrete in mind. Do you have a couple of
minutes to draft something? I think that would help tremendously.


> PS I like the first text better than your replacement, I am afraid. It
> is clearer and more to the point.

Me too :-(


> You could make it less definition- like by the substitution
> 
> > In general, Linked Data
> >  has four properties:
> 
> //
> 
> Although there is no exact definition of Linked Data, it is typically
> has four important properties:
> 
> or some such wording.

I'm afraid that this would just be the start of another endless discussion
but I would certainly be OK with that.
David?



--
Markus Lanthaler
@markuslanthaler

Received on Monday, 17 June 2013 13:36:04 UTC