- From: Antoine Isaac <aisaac@few.vu.nl>
- Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:10:40 +0100
- To: magnus.knuth@imise.uni-leipzig.de
- CC: SWD WG <public-swd-wg@w3.org>
Dear Magnus, Thank you for your feedback in [1], for which we have opened two issues [ISSUE-189, ISSUE-190]: """" * in the SKOS Primer (2008-08-29) Chap. 2.2.1 last sentence should tell "..., it is therefore recommended that no two concepts in the same KOS be given the same preferred lexical label --in any two given languages-- __in any given language__." (might be a typo) Well, we cannot apply this recommendation, since we sometimes have different concepts with identical prefLabel, e.g. ex:football_(sport) and ex:football_(ball) both having skos:prefLabel "football", i.e. we don't want to disambiguate these concept by their prefLabel but by further characteristics as their definition or altLabel. Same would apply, when you collect alternative definitions for a term resulting in different concepts, e.g. the medical term "sepsis" is defined in various variants from "inflammatory infection" over "blood poisoning" to "infection with organ dysfunction", and medics use it in such various manner. So please leave it an informal recommendation. * in the SKOS RDF (2008-05-xx and 2008-08-29) #prefLabel the comment should tell therefore "No two concepts in the same concept scheme --may-- __should__ have the same value for skos:prefLabel in a given language." (according RFC 2119) """" ------------------------------------------------------------------- We understand your concern here. The SKOS Primer has undergone revisions since the 2008-08-29 Working Draft. But we have always kept to having the preferred label unicity as an informal recommendation, since we are aware of use cases where the rules defined for thesauri do not apply. The latest Primer Working Draft [2] indeed reads: [ Following common practice in KOS design, the preferred label of a concept may also be used to unambiguously represent this concept within a KOS and its applications. So even though the SKOS data model does not formally enforce it, it is recommended that no two concepts in the same KOS be given the same preferred lexical label for any given language tag. ] We feel that this suits your recommendation, and propose to *close ISSUE-189* making no change to the existing SKOS documents. Please note that following a previous discussion on what a "language" should be in the context of SKOS and RDF, we have changed the formulation where you suggested that there was a typo. The latter part of your comment suggests that the comment on skos:prefLabel in the SKOS RDF file should follow this informal recommendation. This is a very valueable observation, and we propose to *close ISSUE-190* by having the comment now read: [ It is recommended that no two concepts in the same concept scheme be given the same preferred lexical label for any given language tag. ] We hope these answers satisfy your concerns. Best regards, Antoine [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-esw-thes/2009Feb/0014.html [2] http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/SKOS/primer/primer-20090207.html [ISSUE-189] http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/track/issues/189 [ISSUE-190] http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/track/issues/190
Received on Tuesday, 10 February 2009 17:11:16 UTC