Re: MiniSKOS update

Well, I'm still an ontologist, but I've worked on search engine
applications (not for any of the shema.org partners) and particular on
trying to correctly extract (identify) entities in web content and in query
strings, so that the most relevant information can be returned. URIs might
be where we are headed, but a great deal of heavily used information is
still contained in systems in which the essential identifier for a thing is
a code in a controlled code system, where those codes are exposed but may
not have URIs. Knowing that a concept, however else you may be able to
recognize it (labels, explicit tagging, whatever) has a particular code in
a particular codesystem (CheBI, NAICS, DUN, whatever!) is great info from
that search perspective. Just from that, you can tell quite a bit of
high-value info about what sort of thing you are dealing with, what info
about it might be most relevant, and where & how more info about it might
be found. Up the consumer (search engine or otherwise) whether to leave it
at that, or to add follow-up capabilities, so that you also serve up some
of the info that may be exposed by that codesystems providers, by querying
or scraping those exposures. If they actually provide URIs, great, but
there is a great deal of exposed and useful information, best accessed via
Codes, that isn't there yet.

Best,
Amanda


On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 10:19 PM, Stéphane Corlosquet <scorlosquet@gmail.com
> wrote:

> 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.
>