Re: SKOS for schema.org proposal for discussion

On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 10:41 AM, Karen Coyle <kcoyle@kcoyle.net> wrote:

> I actually read the discussion differently. It's not so much that people
> want to express topics in the KOS sense, but that they want to refer to
> controlled lists within their data, and SKOS covers that. SKOS gives you a
> way to define a finite list with a few useful relationships. I think it's
> the mechanism of SKOS that people are looking for, more than the KOS value.
>

I had the same interpretation.

I know that controlled vocabularies are sometimes seen as a nuisance
outside of the library realm, but they are useful in the cases where
programmers want an enumeration. SKOS is even better than a flat
enumeration, because the vocabulary can have a hierarchy, allowing for
inheritance.

As an example, we have been working through a proposal to support civic
services in schema.org. One of the properties of a service is
"serviceType". It would be nice to be able to encourage people to use
something like openelegibility.org's taxonomy so that we have some hope of
sorting out the services automatically.

- Vicki


Vicki Tardif Holland | Ontologist | vtardif@google.com