Re: [PORT] SKOS Core English annotations

* Alistair Miles <a.j.miles@rl.ac.uk> [2006-02-03 14:45+0000]
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Following one of Jeremy's suggestions at [1], I'd like to propose we 
> factor all English annotations out of the main RDF description of the 
> SKOS Core Vocabulary and into a separate resource, as is currently the 
> case for all annotations in other languages. Jeremy's reasons:
> 
>    - yes english is the default language in W3C

<flamebait> And the world... </flamebait>

(Especially the technology world)

>    - but also yes the english labels should be accessible using the
> same mechanisms as any other supported language. This will allow tools
> to not have to special case for english.

I 100% agree that the English labels should be accessible by a 
mechanism identical to the other language. But for the time being,
I suggest it would be counter productive to hide the English text 
from tools. I don't know of any RDF or OWL tools that will go chasing
around rdfs:seeAlso links (sadly) when reading a vocabulary description.
I wish they did, ... but they way to achieve that imho is by patches
to opensource tools like Protege, rather than by removing triples and 
hoping that folks notice and write the code to go find where the 
triples are now hiding.

> This change would mean removing all statements matching the triple patterns:
> 
>  - (?x rdfs:label ?y)
>  - (?x rdfs:comment ?y)
>  - (?x skos:definition ?y)
> 
> ... from the main RDF description of the SKOS Core Vocabulary, and into 
> a resource named:
> 
>  http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core_en

+1 on adding the triples to core_en

-1 on removing them from the main description

> This change would also mean adding the following triple to the main RDF 
> description of the SKOS Core Vocabulary:
> 
> {
>   <http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core> rdfs:seeAlso 
> <http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core_en>.
> }

+1 on the rdfs:seeAlso

> Any objections to raising this proposal?

Yup sorry. If this new idiom / deployment style is going to get 
traction, it would need to be adopted by a few major vocabs. I don't 
think going it alone 1st with SKOS is of any great value, and will only
cause annoyance amongst puzzled users.

Here's another argument: the English version of the SKOS definitions 
really *is* privileged, because it is the primary version agreed on by the 
community, and the others are (perhaps lossily, fallibly) derrive from
it. Ideally this could be represented explicitly in RDF, and the 
English language text be managed as you suggest. But for now, nobody 
works that way. 

A vocab created and documented primarily in Japanese might make a
similar choice, but privilege the Japanese translations. I don't mean to 
suggest that the 'default' text should always be English, and I'm 
always delighted to find schemas documented in other languages...

Dan

> Cheers,
> 
> Al.
> 
> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2005Nov/0082.html
> -- 
> Alistair Miles
> Research Associate
> CCLRC - Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
> Building R1 Room 1.60
> Fermi Avenue
> Chilton
> Didcot
> Oxfordshire OX11 0QX
> United Kingdom
> Email: a.j.miles@rl.ac.uk
> Tel: +44 (0)1235 445440

Received on Monday, 6 February 2006 14:01:45 UTC