[VM] Preparing to put draft on a Wiki...

Dear all,

DC2004 in Shanghai was very stimulating, with several
working-group meetings discussing issues directly related to
Semantic Web.  Eric, Dan, and Charles were there.

If I'm not mistaken, the deadline for drafts to be considered
at the F2F meeting is next Monday, 25 October.  I have read
back through discussion of the VM "scoping draft", drawn
some conclusions (outlined below), am now editing the draft
accordingly, and plan to post the draft to this list on Monday
with a cover note and a proposed timeline for completion.

Basically, I will propose that we then move the draft to a
Wiki for a few weeks so that we can all bang in some rough text
and bibliographic references.  At some point I would then pull
the text out of the Wiki and try to turn it into something more
coherent.  Etcetera.

My suggestion is that we aim at doing the following:

1. Formulate a handful of rough good-practice principles, e.g.:

   -- Identify Terms using URI references.
   -- Articulate and publish policies about the identified 
      terms (e.g., semantic stability, persistence).
   -- Document the terms.
   -- Declare the terms in schemas.
   -- Identify versions of terms (heavy vs light styles).

2. Focus on a limited set of "key" examples representative
   of different styles and purposes, such as:

   FOAF       Light            Descriptive Metadata
   DC         Medium           Descriptive Metadata
   SKOS       Medium           Thesauri
   Wordnet    Heavy            Wordnet

   Each "key" example would be introduced in a paragraph
   or two; then examples from each would provide a set of
   threads running through the principles.  The point is not
   to exclude examples from other vocabularies but to provide
   some focus.

3. Try to agree on a very _small_ set of basic words and try to
   express the other jargons in those words:

   -- Term (notional)
   -- Vocabulary (sometimes called Namespace)
   -- Term/Vocabulary Description (documentary)
   -- Term/Vocabulary Declaration (machine-processable)
   -- Versioning (identification of changes to a Term or Vocabulary)
   -- Vocabulary Owner (controversial though it may be)

   In particular, I am keen to avoid the sorts of confusion
   that arises (in the DC context at any rate) by the word
   "namespace".

The plan of attack would be something like this:

-- Focus first on good-practice principles (#1).
-- Use the "key" examples to elucidate the principles (#2).
-- Capture our very rough agreement on terminology (#3).
-- For areas on which agreement seems particularly remote,
   summarize the range of opinions and practices in a separate
   section or in footnotes.
-- Last of all, write an introduction saying what the note
   is about (various types of vocabularies) and allude to the
   role they play in the Semantic Web.

Comments?

Tom


-- 
Dr. Thomas Baker                        Thomas.Baker@izb.fraunhofer.de
Institutszentrum Schloss Birlinghoven         mobile +49-160-9664-2129
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft                          work +49-30-8109-9027
53754 Sankt Augustin, Germany                    fax +49-2241-144-2352
Personal email: thbaker79@alumni.amherst.edu

Received on Friday, 22 October 2004 15:53:37 UTC