Re: blog: semantic dissonance in uniprot

On 25 Mar 2009, at 18:41, Matthias Samwald wrote:

>>>> Another predicate is needed that is less "rigourous" -
>>>> owl:kindOfLike  :-)
>>>
>>> What do we gain from non-rigorous statements?
>>
>> "rigorous" is not the right term. "Less strong" is the point
>
> Bijan,
>
> Was the possibility of introducing an owl:kindOfLike - like property  
> discussed in the OWL2 working group?

No.

> If yes, what came out of it? If not, why not?

There was no proposal, no user base, and no implementations.

OWL 2 came out of OWLED. At the first OWLED, the organizers (including  
myself) tried to get people to figure out what they needed and what  
could be done and do as much as we could that was needed.

For years, whenever I diss the mapping use of sameAs I try to get  
people to discuss alternatives. It usually goes badly at that point :)

One obviously difficulty is that we Just Don't Know what's needed.  
There's no real traditional semantics we can just borrow (the way we  
do for most features in OWL; the way we used logical equality for  
sameAs).

Here's a simple issue: Should we have owl:kindOfLike only? How about  
owl:almostCertainlyLikeInMostCircumstances?

What behavior do you want from these? If it's always ad hoc (i.e., you  
are willing to write a program) then just coin some annotation  
properties.

It's notoriously difficult for users to just come up with a feature.  
Generally, when I'm discussing extensions, I have to propose various  
things and spend a lot of time explaining the trade offs to get to a  
reasonable starting point.

If HCLSIG, or some member, is interested in exploring better options,  
I would be happy to contribute my technical expertise and community  
connections.

But I can't just pull something useful out of my ass and expect it to  
come out all rainbows and violets. Believe me, I've *tried*. ;)

Cheers,
Bijan.

Received on Wednesday, 25 March 2009 19:56:18 UTC