Re: ISSUE 186 - draft response

Hi,

I think this answer properly addresses my concern about Michael's 
specifically being against having broadMatch as a subproperty of broader 
-- which implies that broader statements should be created whenever 
broadMatch statements are asserted.

I'm also ok with the rest (including Alistair's part).

Antoine

> Note: this is a *draft reponse*
>
> Dear Michael,
>
> Thanks again for your comment below (from [1]), which we have filed as 
> ISSUE 186 [2].
>
> [..]
>
>> We also see potential problems in deriving the mapping relations
>> skos:broadMatch and skos:narrowMatch from skos:broader and
>> skos:narrower. In ISO standard and current practices many multilingual
>> thesauri did not use broader or narrower to indicate the mapping
>> relations. SKOS should revisit those standards and follow the current
>> standards' development to make sure SKOS is consistent in representing
>> the indicators used by standards (and the thesauri following those
>> standards) for so many years.  
>
> @@insert text here from Alistair's email
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-esw-thes/2008Oct/0041.html
>
>> In addition, when mapping systems that are structurally heterogeneous
>> (e.g., classification systems and thesauri), the links established
>> through mappings have no hierarchical implications at all.
>>
>> Currently, skos:broader is used both for the hierarchical relationship
>> between classes as well as between concepts. Mapping relations that are
>> subproperties of skos:broader/skos:narrower are not able to sufficiently
>> support interoperability between structurally heterogeneous systems.
>
> We understand your point. SKOS mapping relations cannot solve the 
> heterogeneity of vocabularies and it is not possible to prevent wrong 
> usage of the mapping relations. However, we think that the mapping 
> relations do provide an important mechanism. Also, people can use, 
> next to the broader/narrower, other mapping relations such as 
> closeMatch and relatedMatch, which might be more suitable in 
> heterogeneous cases.
>
> We propose to add a note to the current text to clarify this point.
>
>> In addition, many different indicators of degree of mapping have been
>> used in integrated vocabularies, e.g., major mapping, minor mapping,
>> alternative mapping, and overlapping.  These may make the mapping
>> properties even more complicated. The solution here might again be to
>> extend mapping properties.
>
> Our SKOS design rationale [3] is:
>
> [[
>   "The notion of a Knowledge Organisation System encompasses a
>    wide range of artefacts. There is thus a danger of
>    overcommitment in the SKOS schema, which could preclude the
>    use of SKOS for a particular application. In order to
>    alleviate this, in situations where there is doubt about the
>    inclusion of a formal constraint (for example, see discussion
>    about skos:hasTopConcept), the constraint has not been stated
>    formally. In such cases, usage conventions may be suggested,
>    or specialisations of the SKOS vocabulary may be used in
>    order to enforce constraints (see the SKOS Primer)."
> ]]
>
> So, we agree that extending the mapping properties might very well be 
> a good idea, but we prefer to leave this to developers. See also the 
> section in the SKOS primer on extension mechanisms [4].
>
>
> We hope you live with this response.
>
> Regards,
> Guus Schreiber
>
>
> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swd-wg/2008Oct/0061.html
> [2] http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/track/issues/186
> [3] http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-skos-reference-20080829/#rationale
> [4] http://www.w3.org/TR/skos-primer/#secskosspecialization

Received on Tuesday, 18 November 2008 17:53:09 UTC