Re: owl:sameAs - Is it used in a right way?

On 18 March 2013 08:54, Jim McCusker <mccusj@rpi.edu> wrote:
> If you want to use a common context, use the same URI, but if you don't,
> then don't. I have a paper in submission to ICBO about aggregating facts
> from specializations, I won't go into details but I can send it along if
> anyone's interested.
>

When you make the statement you may know that there are not any
current differences between the contexts, and from all that you can
see you assume that the situation will stay that way, so you reuse the
URI. Then if a change to the status quo (a scientific revolution in
the most extreme case) happens in future you cannot take back the
statement if it was published in a scientific journal as part of your
results, so you would need to rework it. If you only have a common
context to work with you get issues there with not knowing which
statements to accept and which ones to rework.

Even if you have used the prov ontology and have created new URIs for
everything that others may attach some shared meaning to, then you are
still stuck if the predicate you used to relate the URIs needs to
change. For example, it may go from specOf to altOf if it turns out
that it is not exactly a specialisation of the other term.  If you
cannot modify the original statement you could attach meaning to the
context that the statement was made in (possibly using Quads/Graphs)
to resolve the conflict by informing others that the previous
statements have been disproved or are irrelevant now.

Peter

Received on Sunday, 17 March 2013 23:20:29 UTC