Re: Should we adopt SKOS?

I rescind my earlier comment in the sense that we do want everything to
have a name, description, url, etc. so it makes practical sense to have
everything inherit from Thing to get those properties.

-jason



On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 11:23 AM, Thad Guidry <thadguidry@gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>