RE: The Vocabulary, Schema.org governance, etc.

The nice thing about the software underlying these examples is that the content is pushed into Jena with a SPARQL endpoint available. Registration is the only way to push stuff in, and the versioning and lifecycle information is captured in the registration process.

From: Melvin Carvalho [mailto:melvincarvalho@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, 25 September 2014 2:23 PM
To: Cox, Simon (L&W, Highett)
Cc: Renato Iannella; public-vocabs@w3.org Vocabularies
Subject: Re: The Vocabulary, Schema.org governance, etc.



On 25 September 2014 03:31, <Simon.Cox@csiro.au<mailto:Simon.Cox@csiro.au>> wrote:
Yes, W3C are doing some vocabularies now, though mostly much smaller than schema.org<http://schema.org>. The maintenance cycle seems to be the main issue.

For things that need to be updated fairly regularly, you probably want to look at a ‘registration’ approach, which can be used down to quite a fine level of granularity. Better still if the lifecycle information is available on demand, which can be arranged as a side effect, so a record of changes and previous state of the set can be recovered easily. See for example what the WMO is doing here:

http://codes.wmo.int/


And UK DEFRA here:

http://environment.data.gov.uk/registry/


Putting the political aspects on one side, my experience of W3C community groups is that the maintenance cycle need not be an issue.  I have often updated vocabularies on a daily basis, when required.  But it can go through cycles of inactivity.

In fact I tentatively agreed with danbri once to help update FOAF to include a Web of Trust, but just didnt free up enough cycles.  One aspect is that we dont have well oiled processes in place, but I think lack of dedicated man power is perhaps a more significant driver.


From: Renato Iannella [mailto:ri@semanticidentity.com<mailto:ri@semanticidentity.com>]
Sent: Thursday, 25 September 2014 11:02 AM
To: W3C Vocabularies
Subject: Re: The Vocabulary, Schema.org governance, etc.


On 24 Sep 2014, at 20:09, trond.huso@ntb.no<mailto:trond.huso@ntb.no> wrote:

Is there a problem why not w3c (or any other organization, although w3c seems most natural) could govern the vocabulary being displayed on schema.org<http://schema.org/>?

No, there is nothing wrong with a W3C (etc) taking on "a" Common Web Ontology (COW).
I do acknowledge Dan's comments about the "traditional" W3C Process - which has a focus on specs, that once complete,  change infrequently.
But W3C has be doing more work on vocabs in the past years (PROV, SKOS, ORG, DCAT, ADMS...)

Since the work being done is as open as possible, what steps has to be made to make it even more open?
As it looks now, it feels as the work begin done is for an open, transparent and a non-profit organization.

I would say that a possible best scenario would to start by forming a W3C Community Group (that way, all the governance is "covered") and there is a clearer path to W3C full REC track work in the future.

Being a CG, would mean the process to publish specs is completely up to the group - so weekly updates can be published etc (to meet Dan's concerns).

It would also give the CG time to work on a wider vocab development process (and model) that would benefit W3C-wide in the longer term - so that there is a common framework to all vocab work across w3c developments. This point is something that we - as the Vocab Task Force - should be considering more seriously.

Cheers...
Renato Iannella
Semantic Identity
http://semanticidentity.com

Mobile: +61 4 1313 2206