Re: Self-descriptive assertions

On Mar 22, 2004, at 3:07 PM, Mark Baker wrote:
[snip]
>> You don't really know if it's in jest or serious without poking 
>> around.
>
> Of course.  You'll get no argument from me that this ambiguity isn't
> omnipresent for humans.  But I believe it's problematic for automata.
>
>> Similarly, most RDF data that published in a way that the
>> author expects others to believe enough to act on has
>> dc:creator link or some such.
>
> I don't think "believe enough to act on" has anything to do with the
> issue I'm raising.  Whether some agent wants to run out and buy SUNW
> based on my prediction that it'll reach $200 next month is none of my
> business as an RDF publisher.  I'm just interested in communicating 
> that
> I *made* such a prediction, versus, for example, just stating a
> prediction of somebody else, or serving up random triples.
[snip]
RDF, as currently specified, says nothing about when a graph is 
asserted (by whom). There was some text in Concepts and Abstract Syntax 
that attempted to say something (very weak) about that. It was struck 
(and for, IMHO, good reason). Sneaking in something about it in the 
media type thing seems very bad to me.

(And will this affect, oh, DAWG? I.e., if I want to use an 
application/rdf+xml as a query "by example", I won't be able to because 
it's asserted? I.e., my query wants to be *is* this bit of RDF/XML 
asserted by you.)

>> Er... you somehow want to get a widespread understanding that
>> some RDF is asserted, but you want to short-circuit the process
>> of getting widespread agreement. I don't see how to do that.
>
> I only want to short-cut the mechanism, not the process, by declaring
> that all application/rdf+xml-described documents are asserting their
> graphs.  That leaves the door open for other media types to be used to
> do things differently in the future.

Oh c'mon :) Or, let me rephrase: Your response seems extremely 
non-responsive to Dan's point.

Plus, this totally kills aggregation and lots of other useful uses of 
application/rdf+xml documents.

Cheers,
Bijan Parsia.

Received on Tuesday, 23 March 2004 02:05:37 UTC