Re: Enough already

Karen,

It seems that I have misinterpreted what is going on with respect to the user/usability assesment. I am sorry if this caused you to feel embarrassed in any way.

Irene
 
> On Dec 13, 2016, at 10:37 AM, Karen Coyle <kcoyle@kcoyle.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 12/12/16 6:13 PM, Irene Polikoff wrote:
>> As I read some of the recent e-mails on this forum and also some of the
>> recent e-mails on the working group mailing list, something just dawned
>> on me that I didn’t realize before. It gave me a possibly new insight
>> into what may be happening in the working group discussions.
>> 
>> It seems that Karen is being considered by some and/or may be
>> considering herself to be the sole or, at least, the main “voice of the
>> user” or user advocate. She is reading the specification with the goal
>> of trying to judge if users will be able to understand and use SHACL.
>> And if she finds something confusing and feels it to be a strong
>> obstacle to adoption, she believes others will feel the same way. I
>> didn’t consider this possibility before because I find such concept to
>> be unrealistic.
> 
> I make no such claims. I am a member of the working group, and like all members of the working group, I make comments on the draft. These statements about me are inappropriate, and, quite frankly, a bit embarrassing.
> 
> kc
> 
>> 
>> First, although each of us has opinions or may be exactly because each
>> of us has opinions, it is impossible for a single person to play a role
>> representing all the diverse population of different SHACL users and do
>> so mostly based on their own judgement. I have not heard other working
>> groups taking such an approach. Has anyone? The best Karen could hope to
>> accomplish (if she has indeed been assigned such a role in the working
>> group) is to interview a statistically significant (50+) number of users
>> who have been using SHACL, collect their input and present it to the
>> working group.
>> 
>> Second, is this something a working group needs/wants to formally do
>> with the first release of the standard? The adoption will hopefully grow
>> and expand, so will the experience of users using it. With this, the
>> feedback may change. I know, for example, when XML first came out, it
>> was new and seemed hard and mysterious to many first time users.
>> Further, we are already getting user feedback directly. A few have
>> recently posted positive feedback to this e-mail forum. And more
>> hopefully will do so soon.
>> 
>> I hear directly or indirectly from some user of SHACL every week. Some
>> have questions about one aspect or another. So far, they have been
>> easily satisfied with simple answers. I have not heard about any back
>> and forth where a user was so confused or perplexed that answering or
>> explaining required more than a single e-mail. I have also not heard
>> about a potential user who looked at SHACL and said: I can’t figure out
>> how to use it, it is broken, it is so over complex that I do not see
>> myself using it. I am not saying such people do not exist. This will be
>> a new thing in the world to many and some people will reject or feel
>> flabbergasted by anything new. But I have not heard such feedback. That
>> is unless we are talking about people who have already decided they will
>> use ShEx and nothing else, even if it satisfies all their requirements,
>> would do.
>> 
>> From what I have seen, there is a growing community of SHACL users
>> already and they seem to be happy campers. A user survey is needed, I
>> can help to get this started.
>> 
>> Irene
>> 
>>> On Dec 12, 2016, at 7:03 PM, Holger Knublauch <holger@topquadrant.com
>>> <mailto:holger@topquadrant.com <mailto:holger@topquadrant.com>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> In these mailing lists and during the discussions, voices "against"
>>> something are much more likely than positive voices. Even if there are
>>> a couple of people agreeing with the issues that someone raises, this
>>> doesn't mean that the silent majority of users find these issues
>>> relevant. We can spend another couple of years word-smithing and
>>> cleaning up corner cases, but at some stage we need to terminate.
>>> Every spec has flaws, esp in its first version.
>>> 
>>> Holger
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 13/12/2016 4:50, Arnaud Le Hors wrote:
>>>> For what it's worth I ought to say that claiming that "There is a
>>>> very vocal minority (of one) holding this debate hostage" is from my
>>>> point of view a mischaracterization.
>>>> 
>>>> If Peter was the only one to raise issues and those were considered
>>>> minor by the WG it would hardly represent a hurdle. The reality is
>>>> that most of Peter's issues resonate with some WG members and
>>>> resolving them is more often anything but easy.
>>>> 
>>>> As Karen pointed out we're interested in implementation feedback. Are
>>>> you implementing SHACL in your product? Can you please tell us more?
>>>> How much do you support: Core, Full (Core+SPARQL)?
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks.
>>>> --
>>>> Arnaud  Le Hors - Senior Technical Staff Member, Open Web &
>>>> Blockchain Technologies - IBM Cloud
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Terry Roach <troach@capsi.com.au <mailto:troach@capsi.com.au>> wrote on 12/10/2016 05:22:51 AM:
>>>> 
>>>> > From: Terry Roach <troach@capsi.com.au <mailto:troach@capsi.com.au>>
>>>> > To: public-rdf-shapes@w3.org <mailto:public-rdf-shapes@w3.org>
>>>> > Date: 12/10/2016 05:26 AM
>>>> > Subject: Enough already
>>>> >
>>>> > If I may interject in this debate, this all seems quite bewildering
>>>> to me.
>>>> >
>>>> > I am a pragmatic, practitioner of semantic technologies;  is a mere
>>>> > consumer of W3C standards. Our company builds products based on your
>>>> > ideas and so maybe I am not accustomed to how these things get
>>>> > cooked up, but take a look at yourselves please. Somebody needs to
>>>> > inject a dose of reality into this conversation.
>>>> >
>>>> > We are very interested in the SHACL standard making it’s way through
>>>> > this process and becoming endorsed so that we can commit to it in
>>>> > our products. There will be no better test of the value and
>>>> > robustness of SHACL than the community of semantic developers
>>>> > applying it in practice.
>>>> >
>>>> > No standard is born perfect, of course it will evolve and I expect
>>>> > we will find issues that will surely be addressed as it matures. But
>>>> > it needs to get out of the door.
>>>> >
>>>> > Perfection is the enemy of innovation here.
>>>> >
>>>> > If there are any substantive issues with the standard, then of
>>>> > course robust debate is great, but that should be in the form of a
>>>> > positive, constructive suggestions. I am just seeing myopic,
>>>> > pedantic grandstanding here.
>>>> >
>>>> > There is a very vocal minority (of one) holding this debate hostage
>>>> > and it is a travesty that the enormous effort that has gone into
>>>> > this piece of work is being held up in this way.
>>>> >
>>>> > Enough already
>>>> >
>>>> > Terry Roach
>>>> > Chief Executive Officer
>>>> >
>>>> > [image removed]
>>>> >
>>>> > Suite 105, International Business Centre, Australia Technology Park
>>>> > 2 Cornwallis St.
>>>> > Eveleigh NSW 2015, Australia
>>>> >
>>>> > M:  +61 421 054 804
>>>> > troach@capsi.com.au <mailto:troach@capsi.com.au>
>>>> > www.capsi.com.au <http://www.capsi.com.au/> <x-msg://159/www.capsi.com.au <x-msg://159/www.capsi.com.au>>
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> 
>>> 
>> 
> 
> -- 
> Karen Coyle
> kcoyle@kcoyle.net <mailto:kcoyle@kcoyle.net> http://kcoyle.net <http://kcoyle.net/>
> m: 1-510-435-8234
> skype: kcoylenet/+1-510-984-3600