Re: [OEP,ALL] Potential topics for OEP notes

Evan,

I had no intention to be inflammatory.  I find the best way to draw people 
in is to take the blame.  We (note that the first person plural INCLUDES 
the speaker) have created an incredible amount of confusion by getting a 
lot of different terms mixed up.  The only "philosophy" here is the one I 
propose we adopt, which is to "admit it" - i.e. admit this is very 
confusing, and do our best to explain it.  Many people won't care - and so 
won't read any such note.  For those that do, I think something like this 
will help them considerably.

Regarding semantic integration, I suspect you will be in the minority.  In 
the business world, everyone is looking to SW as a way to address semantic 
integration.  I think its our job to set the proper expectations, or we 
will go down in flames.  This is very important, in my opinion,more so 
than the specifc pattern notes.

Cheers,
Chris

Dr. Christopher A. Welty, Knowledge Structures Group
IBM Watson Research Center, 19 Skyline Dr., Hawthorne, NY  10532     USA   
 
Voice: +1 914.784.7055,  IBM T/L: 863.7055, Fax: +1 914.784.7455
Email: welty@watson.ibm.com, Web: 
http://www.research.ibm.com/people/w/welty/



ewallace@cme.nist.gov 
10/08/2004 01:52 PM

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public-swbp-wg@w3.org, Christopher Welty/Watson/IBM@IBMUS
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Re: [OEP,ALL] Potential topics for OEP notes







In response to Chris Welty's recent suggestions for OEP notes:

I think that notes on partOf, units and measures, time, and 
fluents (need a friendlier term though) would go a long way 
toward making SW languages more interesting and useful for 
business and technical users.  Accomplishing that is
precisely why I participate in this WG, so I would be very
happy to see us produce these notes!

Chris Welty wrote:

>On the side of "ontology engineering":

Hmm.  I thought that in creating patterns for use, we were 
mining past work in ontological engineering to suggest best
practices for the semantic web.  Thus the development of 
patterns was on the side of "ontological engineering, more so
in fact then philosophical view of existence that are alluded
to in the last paragraph of Chris' email.

>Ontology 101 tutorial specifically for OWL/RDF.

A tutorial is outside the scope of the OEP TF.  The WG has a separate 
Tutorial effort that would seem an appropriate home for that.

>I think a note to help orient people on the role OWL and RDF in semantic 
>integration is critical, I get pinged on that regularly.  I lot of people 

>think OWL is the silver bullet for semantic integration (I suggested at 
>ISWC last year that semantic integration is a mountain, not a werewolf, 
>and OWL is, at best, a small silver chisel). There was just a Dagstuhl 
>symposium on this subject in general (i.e. not specific to OWL), and 
>special issues of AI Magazine and Sigmod record coming out as well.  I 
>hope Natasha and/or MikeU will take the lead on such a note.

Again, while potentially helpful,  this doesn't sound like an OEP task.

>People who know what "ontology" and "semantics" actually mean (in the 
much 
>larger world outside of computer science), often ask why the two have 
>become nearly synonymous on the semantic web.  Personally, I think its a 
>fair question and a short note on why we're so confused would be 
>worthwhile.  Maybe this goes in another task force (wasn't there a clean 
>up the mess we've made task force?).

Can we try to avoid using such inflammatory language in this working
group?  Chris may have missed both the silly "not webby enough" email
exchange and the less silly but still frustrating "reification" discussion
the WG had earlier this year.  Those dialogues showed that the SWBPD WG 
can 
easily fall into unproductive behavior.  We have too much work to do to 
waste 
time arguing like that, so let's try not to avoid saying things in a way 
that
could lead us into more of such bickering.

As for the task described: Anything that helps other communities 
understand 
SW terms and thinking is a good thing IMHO.  As Chris suggested, it 
probably 
would fit best as a WRLD TF task (though this TF is currently moribund due 
to 
lack of resources).

-Evan