Re: strange identifiers in schema.org

Hmm.

Aaron might be able to answer why http://schema.org/Abdomen was chosen as the 
identifier for a medical physical examination of the abdomen.

However, my question is really about how the identifiers in schema.org are 
supposed to be formed.  Right now, it appears that there is little or no 
guidance beyond camelcase with types and enumerated values starting with a 
capital letter and properties not.

Different parts of schema.org appear to be using different conventions (e.g., 
under Actions vs under MedicalEntity).   Some parts of schema.org appear to be 
using several different conventions (e.g., CollectionPage vs ImageGallery 
under CreativeWork).

I feel that the lack of guidance will only lead to confusion on the part of 
content generators, particularly when identifiers that do not match the 
intended meaning of their item are chosen (e.g., Abdomen).

Peter F. Patel-Schneider



On 11/07/2013 07:22 AM, Guha wrote:
> Peter,
>
>  Thank you for the feedback. Adding Aaron Brown, who worked on the medical 
> vocabulary to the thread.
>
> Guha
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 4:24 AM, Peter F. Patel-Schneider 
> <pfpschneider@gmail.com <mailto:pfpschneider@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Well, my immediate goal here is to understand a part of schema.org
>     <http://schema.org>.   Without such understanding any suggestions I make
>     aren't going to be particularly worthwhile.
>
>     Consider, for example, a suggestion that the way to proceed here is to
>     use identifiers like http://schema.org/Medical/PhysicalExam/Abdominal.  
>     Is this a reasonable identifier to use in schema.org <http://schema.org>
>     instead of Abdomen?  I don't know.   Is this even an acceptable
>     identifier to use in schema.org <http://schema.org> at all?  I don't
>     know that either.  (Well, it does appear that this might be an
>     acceptable identifier because it sort of fits the extension mechanism
>     described in http://schema.org/docs/extension.html but it doesn't fit
>     precisely.)
>
>     So I asked a question, and backed it up with an example that I think
>     shows that an answer is needed.
>
>     Peter F. Patel-Schneider
>
>
>     On 11/06/2013 08:51 PM, Dan Scott wrote:
>
>
>
>         On Nov 6, 2013 10:36 PM, "Peter F. Patel-Schneider"
>         <pfpschneider@gmail.com <mailto:pfpschneider@gmail.com>
>         <mailto:pfpschneider@gmail.com <mailto:pfpschneider@gmail.com>>> wrote:
>         >
>         > Are there any guidelines for the construction of identifiers in
>         schema.org <http://schema.org> <http://schema.org>?
>
>         >
>         > The reason that I ask is that there are some rather strange
>         identifers, or at least some rather strange uses of identifiers.
>         >
>         >
>         > Consider, for example, the identifier Abdomen
>         (http://schema.org/Abdomen).  One might think that this refers to a
>         part of the bodies of some animals.   However, Abdomen is instead an
>         instance of PhysicalExam, along with Appearance, CardiovascularExam,
>         Eye, Neuro, and VitalSign.
>         >
>         > It seems to me that this is very bad design, particularly if
>         schema.org <http://schema.org> <http://schema.org> identifiers are
>         supposed to be used by people who might not have a background in the
>         representation of knowledge.
>
>         If your goal is to help improve schema.org <http://schema.org>
>         <http://schema.org>, constructive criticism would be much better
>         than just a stream of criticism. As one of my colleagues was fond of
>         saying, "You found the problem, so you get to solve the problem".
>
>
>         So please lend your intellect towards helping solve the problem.
>         Given a vocabulary with high rates of adoption, and the realization
>         that some less than optimal design decisions have been made, what
>         action can you take or recommend to address these problems?
>
>
>
>

Received on Thursday, 7 November 2013 17:22:32 UTC