RE: Comment on "Meaning and the Semantic Web"

> From: Bijan Parsia
> Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 10:44 AM
> To: John Black
> 
> On Jun 2, 2004, at 9:13 AM, John Black wrote:
> [snip]
> > But my real point is the symmetry between correct 
> publishing behavior
> > and correct interpreting behavior.
> >
> > So lets change the scene a little:
> [snipped silly caricature that not only makes Peter and me out to be 
> Machiavellian morons, but doesn't even vaguely hook up to anything 
> we've said]

It seems similarly unfair to me that you and Peter make out anyone 
who argues that "...the URI ownership system makes statements by 
owners authoritative weight..." would lead the world down the road 
of totalitarianism.  Nothing that Tim or others have proposed 
warrants your repeated accusations that we are proposing to stifle 
free-speech, crush dissent, stultify the semantic web, or otherwise 
prevent disagreements and usher in Orwellian thought control.

These are shock-jock type of arguments using guilt by association. No one 
that I know of who has ever offered a proposal for URI ownership would 
advocate homophobic, racist, fascist totalitarianism.
 
> You might take a little time to edit your posts before sending them. 
> Restating an example you just posted not a full day before, only this 
> time incorporating your interlocutors in a fairly derogatory way and 
> yet not otherwise augmenting or elaborating the example is just a 
> waste.
 
I'll consider that. You too, eh?

> > The point is that there are use cases where it would be critical
> > that an interpreting agent be required to discover and report
> > the actual meaning of a set of published documents.  And this
> > might be aided by giving URI authors facilities to specify what
> > that meaning is.
> 
> We author documents, not URIs.
> 
> I want my documents to be largely under my control. I 
> prepared for some 
> leeway in interpretation (e.g., looking at a document purely as well 
> formed XML rather than as the particular PSVI I intended), 
> but I don't 
> think that every use of a URI in document *content* should give that 
> URIs owner licence to insert whatever into my document. I'm 
> not adverse 
> to that entirely, obviously, since this pretty much is what 
> owl:imports 
> gives me.
> 
> It's like the difference between an <a href=.. and an <img src... You 
> don't always want transclusion.
> 
> None of this has a WHIT to do with some intermediary inserting or 
> altering content "for my own good". Nothing. Nothing at all. 
> Not even a 
> little. Let go, ok?

So drop the accusations of totalitarianism - they don't have a place 
in these discussions either. ok?

> 
> There is an interesting question of what aggregators and other 
> republishers might reasonable want or be expected to do. But 
> that is a 
> separate issue.

I'd much prefer to talk about that.  The fear of totalitarianism 
seems to me to be the mother of all social meaning arguments, which 
is surprising given your position on that topic.

John

> 
> Cheers,
> Bijan Parsia.
> 
>

Received on Wednesday, 2 June 2004 11:26:01 UTC