- From: Guus Schreiber <guus.schreiber@vu.nl>
- Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 11:25:44 +0100
- To: Antoine Isaac <aisaac@few.vu.nl>, <public-rdf-comments@w3.org>
- CC: Yves Raimond <yves.raimond@bbc.co.uk>
Antoine, Thanks for the extensive review, very helpful! We will get back to you with a detailed response. Best, Guus On 07-01-14 23:46, Antoine Isaac wrote: > Dear Yves, Guus, all, > > Trying to follow from a distance what the group is doing, I have read > the latest editor's draft of the RDF Primer > http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/WD-rdf11-primer-20131217/ > > I'm not sure how well it fits your schedule, but I thought I'd share > some comments, see below. It may overlaps or conflicts with previous > comments from group members... I hope this can help you still. > I find it a really great document now--which means that we should seize > the opportunity and make it nearly perfect ;-) > > Best regards, > > Antoine > > ---- > > First a general editorial comment: I like the way notes flag slightly > less essential details. But in a text that is quite compact, having this > many notes may be counter-productive. Perhaps a couple of them can be > integrated in the main text, like the one on IRIs in section 1? > > The rest of the comments are in the order of the sections. > > - 1, "The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a framework for > describing information about resources in the World Wide Web, such as > author and modification time of a Web page or copyright and licensing > information of a Web video." > With earlier comments on the group's list still in mind, I must say that > having this sentence upfront will lead some to think that RDF is for > document annotation. Perhaps it would be good to add a sentence that > makes it clear that RDF can also be used for describing real-world > entities (persons, etc.). > In the same line, the wording 'describing information about resources' > makes me a bit uncomfortable: how about 'describing resources' instead, > or 'expressing information about resources' (as it is put later in the > text)? > > - 1: The URI http://www.example.org/bob is potentially confusing. I am > personally ok with it, especially as it follows the sort of examples > we've seen in the community for years. But in the light of the > discussion on named graphs, perhaps it would be clearer if the IRI was > picked to intuitively denote a document or information source, rather > than a real-world person (that is now identified by > http://www.example.org/bob#me). > > - Or perhaps this problem comes from the two sentences after the one > where Bob's URI is introduced: > "[...]including the fact that he knows Alice, as identified by her IRI. > Retrieving Alice's IRI [...]". > I believe "her IRI" in the first sentence is > http://example.org/alice#me, while reading the second sentence one could > expect http://example.org/alice (having just being presented > http://www.example.org/bob before). > I'm splitting hair obviously, but I can't help thinking that we often > use less-intuitive identifiers that make SemWeb documentation much less > easy to read. > > - 2:"Providing a standard-compliant way for exchanging data between RDF > databases." > -> "Providing a standard-compliant way for exchanging data between > databases." > (as a use case, the first sentence reads a bit as if RDF had been > motivated by the need to exchange RDF data...) > > - 3.2, Note on "RDF is agnostic about what the IRI stands for[...]": I'm > not sure the reference "RDF vocabularies are discussed in more detail in > Sec. 4." belongs there. > > - 3.4.: I'm not fond of the sentence "A blank node indicates an un-named > thing." One could create a blank node for Bob, who is a named individual > in the real world. One could even give an rdfs:label with Bob's name in > the RDF graph with this blank node. I'd rather see the paragraph stick > to the term 'unidentified'. > Actually you could replace the quoted sentence by "They can be used to > denote resources without explicitly identifying them with an IRI." and > remove the current last sentence of 3.4. > By the way, isn't it misleading to write "can be used to denote > resources [...]"? Isn't it always the case? Or at least what happens in > the vast majority of cases? (sorry, I don't have time to check whether > I'm missing something obvious here) > > - 3.5: I know this section has been discussed, so perhaps my comments > will come across as a re-hash, or going against some recent agreement on > the text. Sorry if it's the case... > Even though I really want something on named graphs to be said, I really > find some points quite hard for a primer: > > -- "An RDF dataset may have [...] at most one default graph (i.e. a > graph without a name).": do we really need to mention the constraint on > the default graph, or even default graphs, in this Primer? I believe > that the text could work well without writing about these. > > -- "RDF 1.1 does not specify a particular semantics for the relation > between the "graph name" and the graph": I know the RDF group has > discussed the issue at length, but this sentence sounds a bit like a > joke, without any further precision the motivation. > The issue is that the reference to [RDF11-MT, > http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/CR-rdf11-mt-20131105/#rdf-datasets] doesn't > really work for me: I guess the solution is in the following sentence > there: "This allows IRI referring to other kinds of entities, such as > persons, to be used in a dataset to identify graphs of information > relevant to the entity denoted by the graph name IRI." But I can't parse > it and come with a concrete example (ie., an example with realistic IRIs > involved in realistic triples) that would show me what's at stake. > > -- "RDF provides no way to convey this semantic assumption [...] Those > readers will need to rely on out-of-band knowledge to interpret the > dataset in the intended way.": here "no way" and "out-of-band" read as > if it is impossible to convey the assumptions in RDF at all. As you've > discussed, it seems possible to devise appropriate vocabularies (even > though it's outside of the standard)... > > -- could the last note on named graphs and SPARQL be shortened, and/or > become part of the main text? (e.g., put in the first paragraph of the > section) > > - 4: I would find it easier if the identifiers of classes and properties > in the examples were chosen to reflect their type (i.e., "c", "c1", > "c2", for classes, "p" for a property, "i" for an instance") rather than > their position in the RDFS triples (currently "s" is alternatively used > for a class, a property and an instance). > By the way, following your convention, then the second triple should > have been "s rdf:type rdf:Property", no? > > - 4: it's a bit confusing to find Wordnet in the list of "vocabularies" > there. The elements that Wordnet defines are not directly defined as > properties and classes in the RDFS sense, unlike the elements of DC, > schema.org and SKOS. Shouldn't it be listed in section 7, with the other > databases? > > - 5: the graphs are really beautiful, but their graphic convention could > perhaps be further homogenized, by putting all (typed) literals within > brackets, and "Bob" out of its circle, like Alice and Mona Lisa. > > - 5.3: space missing after "see Fig. 2)" > > - 6: the triple "ex:Species rdf:type rdfs:Class ." is not really > necessary I think. The gist of the example is that ex:Elephant is both > an instance and a class, not that ex:Species is a class. > > - 7. The reference to http://datahub.io/organization/lodcloud could > raise problems. The Data Hub's move from 'groups' to 'organizations' and > the fact that a dataset can be in only one organization has resulted > many datasets disappearing from their original grouping. I'm afraid the > same thing may have happened for the LODCloud group. The LODCloud group > still includes RDF datasets and can be used as a source of example, but > I believe it's not representing the most recent LOD Cloud as we know it > at http://lod-cloud.net/state/. > >
Received on Wednesday, 8 January 2014 10:26:13 UTC