[SKOS] Re: Comments on SKOS Primer

Hi Tom,

Thank you very much for the comments!
> Antoine, Ed,
>
> The draft SKOS Primer [1] is a great start!
>
> A few initial comments:
>
> 1. Serialization of examples
>
> [...]
>
>    Using N3 presupposes that the audience for the Primer is
>    more fluent in RDF than I had assumed.  My preference
>    would be for the Primer to use visual graphs as in the
>    2005 SKOS Core Guide [6].  I am assuming that graphs make
>    it easier for readers who are new to RDF to see how things
>    fit together.  In addition to the graphs, the 2005 guide
>    also uses RDF/XML.  For the new Primer, my preference would
>    be to keep using N3, though I wonder if all of these N3
>    examples could be moved into an Appendix, shortening the
>    body of the Primer (a good thing!).
>   

That was more-or-less the initial plan to have graphs, and I have asked 
Alistair the sources for his graphs. However, due to lack of time I 
decided to drop them for the moment. Also, Ed remarked that this had the 
nice effect of reducing the length of the document (graphs usually takes 
more space), while keeping generally readable.
I would propose to have a small test and do as you propose, but for a 
later version of the draft. What was true during the holidays remains 
true now :-(

> 2. Focus on the anchoring story
>
>    Both the Primer and the Reference summarize the essence of
>    SKOS in four or five lines - this is great!  
Well I just copy-pasted Alistair's sentence, perhaps a bit adapted ;-)
> The Primer also
>    implicitly differentiates between "Basic SKOS" (or "SKOS
>    Essentials") and "Advanced SKOS". I like this distinction
>    and suggest it perhaps be strengthened.  I suggest we focus
>    briefly on synching the anchoring story itself so that it
>    can be used consistently in these documents and elsewhere.
>    How about:
>
>       In Basic SKOS, _conceptual resources_ (_concepts_) can be
>       identified using URIs, _labeled_ with lexical strings in
>       one or more natural languages, _documented_ with various
>       types of note, _semantically related_ to each other
>       in informal _hierarchies_ and _association networks_,
>       and aggregated into distinct _concept schemes_.
>
>       In Advanced SKOS, conceptual resources can be _mapped_
>       to conceptual resources in other schemes and _grouped_
>       into labeled or ordered collections.  _Labels of concepts
>       can be related_ to each other.
>   

I will try to implement it in the version to review these days. But I 
don't guarantee that it will be ideal regarding the second part of your 
text. It does not fit the current structure of the Primer as well as it 
does for the reference :-( Unless we put "Advanced" SKOS in the title of 
both the "Networking" section and the "when KOS are not simple anymore" 
one. But I don't really like it: to me networking KOSs (re-using Concept 
Schemes, mapping, subject indexing) is less advanced and will be more 
common than things like grouping into collections and relationships 
between labels.
It would be really helpful to have reviewer's comments on this. And 
anyway, that's just for the primer. This does not prevent us from using 
it everywhere else, as you suggest ;-)

>    This anchoring story is so short and yet so comprehensive that
>    it could go into the Abstract of both Primer and Reference and 
>    find its way into news items and the like.
>
> 3. De-emphasize the vocabulary per se
>
>    Sub-sections of the Primer currently have headings such as
>    "The Concept Class", "Labelling Properties", etc, which emphasize
>    components of the SKOS _vocabulary_ per se.  Rather, I would find
>    it more useful to give the sections names that clearly relate
>    back to the anchoring story, e.g.:
>     
>     2.1 Concepts                (instead of "The Concept Class")
>     2.2 Labels                  (instead of "Labelling Properties")
>     2.3 Semantic Relationships
>     2.4 Documentation           (instead of "Documentation Properties")
>     2.5 Concept Schemes
>   
That makes sense, and will be done.

Antoine
> Tom
>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/wiki/SKOS/DraftPrimer?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=SKOSPrimer-080108.html
> [2] http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/SKOS/reference/20071223
> [3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swd-wg/2008Jan/0000.html
> [4] http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/track/issues/67
> [5] http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Notation3.html
> [6] http://www.w3.org/TR/swbp-skos-core-guide/
>
>

Received on Thursday, 10 January 2008 19:19:03 UTC