Re: SKOS for schema.org proposal for discussion

On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 7:28 PM, Guha <guha@google.com> wrote:
> Come on folks ... let's continue the discussion ... we are well on our way
> to the first schema.org centi-thread.
>
> Just joking. After all this, can everyone live with EnumConcept?

As they stand I'm -0 on both the name EnumConcept and the proposal to
add SKOS to schema.org [1]. EnumConcept doesn't exactly roll off the
tongue or conjure up a useful image for me. Maybe I missed it, but the
original request from Jean Delahousse [2] doesn't quite explain why
they didn't want to use SKOS directly in their HTML using RDFa or
Microdata.

I don't disagree that it would be good to be able to use URLs to name
terms using properties like schema:occupationalCategory [3], but I'm
still not understanding what this has to do with importing SKOS into
schema.org. Why make it harder for people to decide which vocabulary
to use? If they have a controlled vocabulary or thesaurus, and want to
put it on the Web, they have a good solution in SKOS + RDFa. Why do we
want to make it more complicated for them to decide by adding SKOS
like functionality to schema.org? If you need to be able to name
things with URLs using terms like schema:occupationalCategory I'd like
to see a proposal for that instead of loading up schema.org with SKOS.

In general I support the idea of schema.org importing things from
other vocabularies that Google, Microsoft and Yahoo would like to
implement in their search products. It provides documentation and
shared semantics for what these applications are doing, and gives Web
publishers strong incentives to use it. But as it stands, very little
of schema.org seems to actually be used by these companies, at least
in public facing applications. I would like to see schema.org be what
it says it is,

"""
... a collection of schemas, i.e., html tags, that webmasters can use
to markup their pages in ways recognized by major search providers.
"""

I voted -0 because I don't want my negative opinion to get in the way
of you and the other schema.org partners (Microsoft, Yahoo) doing
actual work if you have something in mind. In fact, I'd be curious to
hear them weigh in on it, since it's their opinion and willingness to
implement that actually matters.

//Ed

[1] http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas/SKOS
[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-vocabs/2013Jan/0062.html
[3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-vocabs/2013Oct/0039.html

Received on Wednesday, 9 October 2013 10:49:49 UTC