[VM] [rdfweb-dev] proposals for enhancing the descriptions of foaf terms

From: Dan Brickley <danbri@w3.org> · Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 19:48:18 -0400

For the Vocab Management TF, I'm fwd'ing this from the FOAF list.

We're discussing ways to capture the decision record surrounding a
continually evolving and actively deployed RDF vocab.

Tom, could you comment from a DC perspective. How are the DC Usage Board 
decisions represented? Any conventions we could share?

Dan

----- Forwarded message from Benjamin Nowack <bnowack@appmosphere.com> -----

From: Benjamin Nowack <bnowack@appmosphere.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 21:47:35 +0200
To: rdfweb-dev@vapours.rdfweb.org
Subject: [rdfweb-dev] proposals for enhancing the descriptions of foaf terms
Message-ID: <PM-EH.20040922214735.F30B9.1.1D@192.168.27.2>
Organization: appmosphere web applications

[[
17:04:57 <danbri> action: bengee propose some clarifications
re lifecycle/stability vocab to list, goal of having better
machine-readable status for FOAF namespace
]]
(from 2004-09-22's IRC chat [1])

There are actually two proposals we could discuss on this list
(whether they make sense at all, how/if they could be
implemented, etc.):

1) The foaf spec should give more info about a term's lifecycle
   stage than it is currently done via the "unstable"/"testing"/
   "stable" term_status annotations. At the moment, it's not
   possible to see, e.g. *when* a term's status went to "testing".
   Or how long a term has been "unstable" (which could maybe tell
   a tool developer how actively it is maintained/how likely it
   is to move to "stable", etc).

2) the FOAF namespace should distinguish terms which "may be
   removed from spec", from terms whose "usage is discouraged"
   (because there are better idioms to use), but which will
   probably stay in the namespace indefinitely.

some thoughts:
 re 1)
   We could use prose w/ owl:versionInfo, but having some kind
   of machine-readable "lastmodified" annotation would e.g.
   allow auto-generating an RSS feed for updated/added terms.
   This would also be possible if we used an agreed-on date/time
   format and owl:versionInfo. perhaps a DC term could be used.

 re 2)
   owl:Deprecated[Class|Property] could cover at least one of
   the cases. The owl reference doc says "by deprecating a term,
   it means that the term should not be used in new documents
   that commit to the ontology". As "may be removed from the
   spec" somehow includes "usage is discouraged", we possibly
   don't even need to distinguish the cases. A mentioned
   alternative would be the use of recommended term subsets
   (aka profiles ;) for different use cases or application
   areas. A re-worded proposal could then be "the foaf
   terms should have (machine-readable) pointers to application
   areas/use cases/implementing apps" which could allow the
   automatic generation of subsets for given use cases, or
   term sets of widely deployed terms."

ideas, comments, objections?

/action item bengee

[1]
http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/discovery/chatlogs/rdfig/2004-09-22.html#T17-04-57

benjamin

--
Benjamin Nowack

Kruppstr. 100
45145 Essen, Germany
http://www.appmosphere.com/

_______________________________________________
rdfweb-dev mailing list
rdfweb-dev@vapours.rdfweb.org
wiki: http://rdfweb.org/topic/FoafProject
http://rdfweb.org/mailman/listinfo/rdfweb-dev

----- End forwarded message -----