Re: Should we adopt SKOS?

I differ and think that there is a need for these 3 at the highest level:

Category - A grouping of Things, or Topics.
Thing - we have it already, and which is sometimes placed in Categories.
Topic - where Concept, Ideas, etc. hold and are rarely placed in Categories.



On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 12:31 PM, Guha <guha@google.com> wrote:

> Category should be a subClassOf Thing.
>
> guha
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 10:28 AM, Jason Douglas <jasondouglas@google.com>wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 10:00 AM, Dan Brickley <danbri@danbri.org> wrote:
>>
>>> +Cc: Jamie
>>>
>>> On 9 January 2013 16:29, Richard Wallis <richard.wallis@oclc.org> wrote:
>>> > Coming from the bibliographic world, specifically chairing  the Schema
>>> Bib
>>> > Extend Group[1] (who are building a consensus around a group of
>>> proposals
>>> > for Schema.org extensions for bibliographic resources, before
>>> submitting
>>> > them to this group), I am identifying situations where being able to
>>> model
>>> > things as SKOS[2] Concepts held in ConceptSchemes would make a great
>>> deal of
>>> > sense.
>>> >
>>> > Working with colleagues we were finding ourselves almost reinventing
>>> the
>>> > SKOS model in [proposed] Schema.org vocabulary.
>>> >
>>> > The introduction of External Enumerations[2] provided the ability to
>>> link to
>>> > lists of things controlled by external authorities.  An approach used
>>> widely
>>> > in the bibliographic and other domains – Library of Congress Subject
>>> > Headings[4] for example.  Many of these authorities are modelled using
>>> SKOS
>>> > (Concepts within ConceptSchemes) which introduces a consistent
>>> structured
>>> > way to describe relationships (broader/narrower), language specific
>>> > preferred labels, etc.
>>> >
>>> > Sub-typing Intangible for Concept and ConceptScheme, it would be
>>> > comparatively easy to introduce SKOS into Schema.  The benefits I
>>> believe
>>> > being to add even more value to External Enumeration; providing a
>>> flexible
>>> > simple-ish yet standard pattern for marking up lists of concepts and
>>> their
>>> > interrelationships; provide a very easy way for already published
>>> > authoritative lists of concepts to adopt Schema.org and provide
>>> valuable
>>> > resources for all to connect with.
>>> >
>>> > For instance VIAF[4] the Virtual International Authority File, a well
>>> used
>>> > source of URIs and authoritative names for people and organisations
>>> > (compiled and managed by the bibliographic community but used widely)
>>> is
>>> > already in SKOS.  SKOS is also used in many other domains.
>>> >
>>> > I could see this adding value without significant impact on the rest of
>>> > Schema.
>>> >
>>> > What do others think?
>>>
>>> I've been thinking in this direction too (and had brief discussion
>>> with Jamie, cc:'d, w.r.t. Freebase's approach).
>>>
>>> SKOS has done well and a great many controlled vocabularies in the
>>> thesauri, subject classification and code list tradition are expressed
>>> using it. SKOS handles various cases where 'class/object/property'
>>> models don't capture things well. I'd like to have a way of reflecting
>>> SKOS-oriented data into schema.org descriptions without going
>>> 'multi-namespace'. There are also already various corners of
>>> schema.org where different loose notions of 'category' are slipping
>>> in.
>>>
>>> My current preference would be to call a new type "Topic" or perhaps
>>> "Category" rather than the more esoteric / vague "Concept", even while
>>> borrowing most structure and terminology from SKOS.
>>>
>>
>> +1 to a top-level, independent peer to Thing for this.  While Category
>> might not be the most precise term for these, it has the advantage of being
>> very clearly distinct from Thing -- and I worry that Topic and Concept
>> aren't.
>>
>>
>>> Do you have a strawman list of what you'd hope to include, from a
>>> bibliographic perspective?
>>>
>>> Dan
>>>
>>> > ~Richard
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> > Richard Wallis
>>> > Technology Evangelist
>>> > OCLC
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > [1] http://www.w3.org/community/schemabibex/
>>> > [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/skos-reference/
>>> > [3] http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas/ExternalEnumerations
>>> > [4] http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects.html
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>
>


-- 
-Thad
http://www.freebase.com/view/en/thad_guidry