Re: Schema.org and OWL

Ok thanks Simon, I didn't know properties could be used anywhere. Each
property description has a list titled "Used on these types", I was taking
those as restrictions.

Martin, when you say:

"The existing set of elements will reach much further than many people
assume, and lots of additional cases could be better addressed by adding an
example as markup rather than adding a new property or type."


I believe that too, and I think if it could have been applied from the
beginning it would have prevented poorly defined types like CreativeWork,
Product, and Intangible from being added. I could be wrong about this, but
I think that because GoodRelations was commercial biased (and
understandably so) it used Product when Thing would have worked with no
loss of meaning, then, when GoodRelations was imported into Schema, the
terminology was kept. I'm just guessing.

Richard's example, "Is an ExercisePlan a CreativeWork or not?", highlights
the problem too. Remove CreativeWork and you no longer have the question.
It's hard to have an agreed meaning for a term when it's not even in the
dictionary.

Michael is spot on. Even if large changes aren't made, at least caution can
be used going forward. For example, the pending extension TouristTrip says
it is an "itinerary", does that mean it is a type of tourist trip, so
TouristTripType perhaps, or a specific instance of a tourist trip, so
Event->Trip->TouristTrip perhaps? A naming convention could help clear this
up. He's also spot on in that ideally a vocabulary is self-describing,
which makes it easier to learn, so that's where patterns and naming
conventions help.

I think different views about this are based on whether you have short or
long term views about Schema. Is it "Wow, Schema has been used for 7
years!", or is it, "Wow, Schema could be used for 97 more!"

If you view it as the latter, and if you think Schema will increase in
popularity, then you are very aware that the vast majority of people who
will use Schema probably haven't seen it yet, and maybe aren't even born
yet. Making Schema as simple as possible and easier to learn for these
people is probably worth it, especially when it's obvious that Google can
adapt its crawler. I say this from my own enjoyable, but difficult,
experience so far in learning Schema.

Anyway, I'm glad this has stimulated thought, and thanks for the discussion.

Anthony

On Fri, Jun 15, 2018 at 10:10 AM Thad Guidry <thadguidry@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Michael !
>
> Michael,  go ahead and please compose a new mail thread, so that we can
> talk about your use cases and come up with helpful advice, suggestions,
> banter :)
>
> I already have my response composed and just waiting on your new thread. :)
>
> Thanks!
> -Thad
>