Re: MiniSKOS update

Hi Dan,


On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 2:48 PM, Dan Brickley <danbri@google.com> wrote:

> On 20 November 2013 19:20, Stéphane Corlosquet <scorlosquet@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > I'm having trouble to understand how things like "Wimbledon Tennis
> > Tournament", "Roger Federer", "Tennis" are ConceptCodes, in particular,
> not
> > sure where "code" comes from here, or help. This won't make as much
> sense as Topic for webmasters.
>
> On the other hand, looking at http://schema.org/JobPosting 's
> http://schema.org/occupationalCategory which cites
> http://www.onetcenter.org/taxonomy.html whose values look like this:
>
> 11-9013.00 Farmers, Ranchers, and Other Agricultural Managers
> Plan, direct, or coordinate the management or operation of farms,
> ranches, greenhouses, aquacultural operations, nurseries, timber
> tracts, or other agricultural establishments. May hire, train, and
> supervise farm workers or contract for services to carry out the
> day-to-day activities of the managed operation. May engage in or
> supervise planting, cultivating, harvesting, and financial and
> marketing activities.
>
> 11-9013.01 Nursery and Greenhouse Managers
> Plan, organize, direct, control, and coordinate activities of workers
> engaged in propagating, cultivating, and harvesting horticultural
> specialties, such as trees, shrubs, flowers, mushrooms, and other
> plants.
>
> 11-9013.02 Farm and Ranch Managers
> Plan, direct, or coordinate the management or operation of farms,
> ranches, greenhouses, aquacultural operations, nurseries, timber
> tracts, or other agricultural establishments. May hire, train, or
> supervise farm workers or contract for services to carry out the
> day-to-day activities of the managed operation. May engage in or
> supervise planting, cultivating, harvesting, financial, or marketing
> activities.
>
> These are much more like controlled (enumerated) codes for areas of
> human activity. I can live with "Topic" since you could imagine a book
> being catalogued as being 'about' Farm & Ranch Managers, ... but
> that's not the general intended use of this coding scheme nor it's
> actual use in a job posting.
>
> The 'code' aspect comes from the fact that these are typically
> explicit enumerated lists managed as part of a system. It's not "Farm
> and Ranch Managers" in general, but the onetcentre's taxonomy's
> explicitly coded '11-9013.02: Farm and Ranch Managers' notion.
>
> That said, Peter Mika just raised a similar concern, suggesting that
> e.g. "Arts & Entertainment" isn't really a code. My counter-view is
> that ""Arts & Entertainment"" in some specific news taxonomy
> identified by a standard URI *is* reasonably thought of as a code.
>
> By this point, it's clear that we won't find a name that everyone is
> comfortable with.
>
> > What is the difference between the 'name' and the 'codeValue' of a
> ConceptCode. Maybe some examples would help?
>
> That is a reasonable question. It would also have been a reasonable
> question to ask about the http://schema.org/codeValue of a
> http://schema.org/MedicalCode, but that was hidden away in the medical
> vocabulary where people didn't notice. In many cases it might be the
> same. In some, e.g. numeric subject vocabularies like UDC and DDC, you
> could have a human-oriented 'name' and a numeric 'codeValue'. There is
> also http://schema.org/alternateName to play with now, for alternate
> strings.
>
> For example in UDC, http://udcdata.info/064347
>
> http://udcdata.info/064347
> Notation: 693
> Caption: Masonry and related building crafts
> Including: Plasterer's trade. Finishing work. Tiling. Paving. Asphalt
> work. Composite constructions
> See also: 666.9Gypsum, lime and cement industries. Hard-setting
> materials. Plasters and compositions. Mortar and concrete
> Broader class:  69  Building (construction) trade. Building materials.
> Building practice and procedure
>
> The '693' could be the codeValue, and the caption "Masonry and related
> building craft" it's name. In UDC's SKOS these are skos:notation and
> skos:prefLabel currently.
>

So far, all the examples presented in this thread refer to an authoritative
controlled lists of values, thesauri (e.g. UDC, Dewey). I understand they
use codes to identitfy each term, because that's how they were designed,
but aren't codes becoming archaic now in favor of URIs? (see the thread on
ISNI for an example). Sure, you might use a code to mint your URIs, but in
the end, it's the URI that matters.

I'm starting to wonder if the audience you're targeting with ConceptCode is
different than what I have in mind. What kind of consumers/sites would you
expect to see using this? ExternalCode was mentioned next to ConceptCode
earlier. Is it the case where a site wants to refer to an authoritative
taxonomy? What about the scenario where one would want to build an
authoritative taxonomy from scratch, which type would their terms be? Would
they uses SKOS instead?

What about a free tagging system where tags are created on the fly and not
mapped to any authoritative external list? No "code" associated with them,
just a URI on the site they were created, which lists the other content
tagged with the same term. To be honest I can't imagine ConceptCode make
sense to map our taxonomy terms in Drupal, which are organic and local to
each site by design. Maybe this is a case where skos:Concept itself would
be a better fit?

Am I the only one to be confused by ConceptCode and waiting for the aha
moment? So far we've mostly got feedback from librarian and ontologists on
this thread, but very few web developers and webmasters. What do they think?

-- 
Steph.