Re: [SKOS] "Mapping" vs "standard" relationships

Hi Tom,

> However it was in fact this enrichment scenario which motivated
> me to propose an alternative formulation in the first place.
> 
> If the point is that "someone other than its owner" is using
> mapping properties to say how concepts within one concept
> scheme relate to each other, then this seems to be at odds
> with the idea that "mapping relationships are only asserted
> between concepts that belong to different concept schemes".

Yes, indeed.

> I proposed the alternative formulation (see below) in order
> to make explicit what I thought the example already implied.
> 
> Basically, I think that if we agree that the enrichment
> scenario above is a good example for using mapping properties,
> we should consider an alternative formulation along the
> lines I propose.  If we are not confident about the enrichment
> scenario, I would be happy with the minimal commitment proposed
> by Alistair.

I would not use SKOS mapping properties to "enrich" a concept scheme
published by someone else. I would use skos:broader, skos:narrower and
skos:related. If you are concerned about whether these extra triples
were asserted by the owner of the concept scheme or by someone else
(e.g. me), you should keep track of where your triples came from.

Hence I am suggesting a minimum commitment approach, because unless
everyone agrees with what I just said, we won't have consensus.

> But in that case, my question would remain: Do we think that
> the convention about choosing between mapping or standard
> semantic relationship properties has _anything_ to do with
> provenance?  Alistair thinks it is a bad idea for properties
> to carry any connotation regarding authority or provenance,
> but in last week's call I thought we were also implicitly
> acknowledging that the "convention" had something to do with
> provenance when Ralph suggested: "note that we recognize a need
> for standard ways to communicate provenance in the Semantic
> Web and when we have such mechanisms, this question of what
> one thesaurus provider says versus what others say about the
> thesaurus will become more explicit" [2] -- in other words,
> to acknowledge that the "convention" has something to do with
> provenance, even if we emphasize that "using the SKOS mapping
> properties is no substitute for the careful management of
> RDF graphs or the use of provenance mechanisms" [3].

The sentence "using the SKOS mapping properties is no substitute for
the ... use of provenance mechanisms" means exactly what it says. SKOS
mapping properties tell you nothing about provenance (who said what).

Cheers,

Alistair

-- 
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 Thursday, 22 January 2009 18:07:47 UTC