[SKOS] SKOS-XL & label relations

Hi all,

Considering Antoine's comments at [1], it seems there are three alternate
patterns for representing relations between lexical entities. Here, I call
these three patterns "n-ary literal relations", "binary (XL) label
relations" and "n-ary (XL) label relations". Currently, the SKOS Reference
provides support for the first, my original "XL" sketch [2] supported the
third, and nothing supported the second.

Given the amount of implementation experience, it is difficult to make any
judgments about which of these three patterns is "best". Most likely, each
pattern will be suited to different situations, and there may be a need for
all three. I had a chat with Sean about this this morning, and he felt the
same way. 

So I can see two options open to the WG.

OPTION 1 - Move all support for relations between lexical entitites *out* of
the SKOS Reference. (If time, publish a note illustrating three alternative
patterns with some vocabulary.)

OPTION 2 - Leave the current SKOS Reference features in place. (If time,
publish a note illustrating the two remaining patterns with some
vocabulary.)

I had originally favoured option 2, however I am beginning to see that to
favour any one pattern by placing it in the SKOS Reference does not
accurately reflect the state of standardisation and consensus.

If we chose option 1, we could then consider publishing a note on the three
design patterns. For illustration, I've sketched the outline of such a note
at:

[3] <http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/SKOS/xl/20080414>

Best wishes,

Alistair.

[1] <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swd-wg/2008Apr/0041.html>
[2] <http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/wiki/SkosDesign/SKOS-XL>

--
Alistair Miles
Senior Computing Officer
Image Bioinformatics Research Group
Department of Zoology
The Tinbergen Building
University of Oxford
South Parks Road
Oxford
OX1 3PS
United Kingdom
Web: http://purl.org/net/aliman
Email: alistair.miles@zoo.ox.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1865 281993

Received on Monday, 14 April 2008 16:14:44 UTC