Re: Should we adopt SKOS? - point of clarification

Is the intention here to allow the markup of taxonomy and concept lists 
that are presented as Web pages? Or is the intention to add 
taxonomies/lists to schema.org that will be used as values? I ask 
because AFAIK schema.org does not yet have defined value lists, so this 
would be a significant change, and from the conversation so far I'm not 
clear about the intention.

kc



On 1/10/13 5:55 AM, Young,Jeff (OR) wrote:
> +1
>
> Jeff
>
> *From:*Bernard Vatant [mailto:bernard.vatant@mondeca.com]
> *Sent:* Thursday, January 10, 2013 3:30 AM
> *To:* public-vocabs@w3.org
> *Subject:* Re: Should we adopt SKOS?
>
> Hello all
>
> Already too many cooks around this pot, but here goes ...
>
> Whatever the choice made by schema.org <http://schema.org> on this, it
> will be controversial and likely to be misinterpreted, because two many
> communities have forged subtle terminology variants for this elusive ...
> err ... category/type/class.
> If the aim is to "adopt" SKOS, as Richard puts it, the default option
> should be to adopt also SKOS terminology : Concept, ConceptScheme etc.
> At least we have there a standard terminology and reference vocabulary,
> widely adopted, and of which semantics have been discussed at length by
> a bunch of experts in those things.
>
> Bernard
>
> 2013/1/9 Dan Brickley <danbri@danbri.org <mailto:danbri@danbri.org>>
>
>
> On 9 Jan 2013 20:26, "Jason Douglas" <jasondouglas@google.com
> <mailto:jasondouglas@google.com>> wrote:
>  >
>  > 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.
>
> Yes, let's keep Thing as the class of *all* things.
>
> I am a little wary of Category as a name since it is more likely to be
> mixed with Type; eg. Thad's description below seems also to describe our
> existing typing notion.
>
> A category/topic in this SKOSlike sense is an identified entity
> typically used to characterise the subject / topical coverage of a
> CreativeWork, but could also be used to indicate skills and abilities eg
> in CV/resume, JobPosting; or descriptions of learning resources.
> Recipies, Software Apps, Geospatial entitied and TV shows (amongst
> countless others) often get coded using domain specific, simple
> hierarchical lists.
>
> We want to encourage the use of such coding in schema.org
> <http://schema.org> markup, and it would probably be good to show some
> examples of these 'externally enumerated' topic/category schemes being
> published as Rdfa Lite so they can be presented using both skos and
> schema.org <http://schema.org> vocab.
>
> Many SKOS schemes encode Thesauri; it is hard to see these items as
> categories. Even as topics is a stretch. Also 'topic' has specific
> meaning in Freebase, perhaps halfway between Skos 'Concept' and Rdf/rdfs
> 'Class'?
>
> Sometimes the hardest thing with schemas is finding the right word....
>
> Dan
>
>  >
>  > -jason
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  > On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 11:23 AM, Thad Guidry <thadguidry@gmail.com
> <mailto: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
> <mailto: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 <mailto:jasondouglas@google.com>> wrote:
>  >>>>
>  >>>>
>  >>>>
>  >>>>
>  >>>> On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 10:00 AM, Dan Brickley <danbri@danbri.org
> <mailto:danbri@danbri.org>> wrote:
>  >>>>>
>  >>>>> +Cc: Jamie
>  >>>>>
>  >>>>> On 9 January 2013 16:29, Richard Wallis <richard.wallis@oclc.org
> <mailto: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 <http://schema.org>
> descriptions without going
>  >>>>> 'multi-namespace'. There are also already various corners of
>  >>>>> schema.org <http://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
>  >
>  >
>
>
>
>
> --
> *Bernard Vatant*
>
> Vocabularies & Data Engineering
>
> Tel :  + 33 (0)9 71 48 84 59
>
> Skype :bernard.vatant
> Blog : the wheel and the hub <http://blog.hubjects.com/>
>
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>
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-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet

Received on Thursday, 10 January 2013 16:01:36 UTC