Re: SKOS comment: name "broader" confusing

Dan Brickley wrote:
> On 7/4/09 21:22, Barclay, Daniel wrote:
>> The term skos:broader should be named with something less ambiguous 
>> than the
>> single word "broader."
...
>> The name should contain something that indicates the direction of the
>> relationship (the way "subclassOf" uses the word "of," or something like
>> "hasPart" uses the word "has).
> 
> Actually I think this was a regrettable mistake in RDFS. We really 
> should have used the names "superProperty" and "superClass" for those 
> relationships.
> 
> The 1st RDF spec said
> http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-rdf-syntax-19990222/
> 
> Note: The direction of the arrow is important. The arc always starts at 
> the subject and points to the object of the statement. The simple 
> diagram above may also be read "http://www.w3.org/Home/Lassila has 
> creator Ora Lassila", or in general "<subject> HAS <predicate> <object>".
> 
> 
> This pattern is pretty common in RDF. We write "age", not "hasAge" 
> usually. 

Note that "broader" doesn't actually follow that pattern:

That pattern involves nouns, but "broader" is a comparative adjective.
That difference causes it to not fit the pattern: trying to read it as
"<subject> HAS <broader> <object>" doesn't succeed at making sense of
it.

(Arguing for following that pattern (not the only solution) would argue
for renaming "broader" to "broaderTerm":  the phrase "broader term" is a
noun, so "<subject> HAS <broader term> <object>" works perfectly.  That
also matches your preferences for "superProperty" and "superClass.")


The pattern that the adjective "broader" does suggest is the one for
"greater"/"greater than", "older"/"older than", etc.:

Consider "<x> <greater> <y>."  Would you think it meant x > y
("<x> IS <greater than> <y>") or x < y (presumably via taking the
original as "<x> HAS <greater [value]> <y>")?

Presumably your answer is "x > y".

Imagine how confusing it would be if the predicate <greater> were
defined such that "<x> <greater> <y>" mean that x was _less_ _than_
y.  That would cause no end of confusion.

That's how the current definition of skos:broader appears to me.


Also, note how we don't usually say just "x greater y"; we say at
least "x greater than y."  That would argue for the solution of
renaming "broader" to "broaderThan" to be clear (and reversing the
sense, of course).


> But that said, I agree that "broader" takes a bit more thought than 
> other properties. I think this is because it is a property whose range 
> and domain are the same. "parent", "sibling" etc are similar in that 
> regard.

No, it's not because the domain and range are the same--it's because
there's a big difference between nouns and comparative adjectives, in
particular, in how they imply relationships.

Imagine filling out a form about a person or a taxon X.

If you saw a form box (or a data field) labeled simply "parent," you'd
probably think it was asking you for the object of "<X> has parent <O>,"
probably not asking "is person or taxon X a parent?" and surely not
asking for the subject of "<S> has parent <X>."

However, a form box labeled "broader" would likely make one think
"broader than what?" a lot more frequently than suggesting to enter a
broader term.

On the other hand, a label of "broader term" very likely would
accurately make one thing it was asking for term that is broader than
X.




Daniel
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