Re: assertions about private information

On 26/5/09 17:35, Ronald P. Reck wrote:
> It is only through questions we reveal how little we actually know about
> something but here goes:
>
> If I am making an assertion about some attribute of myself, can I ever
> hope to stay in "control" of the information without an inherent "time
> to life" for the information assertion? I am wondering if "time to life"
> is a necessary primitive.
>
> For example, my name and gender are unlikely to change (ever), my
> address might change on occasion, and my preferences can change with the
> wind.
>
> Clearly, someone can change or alter that "time to life" but in effect
> they are telling lies about me. If information about me comes only from
> me, I can inherently be the source for information about me, AND I can
> make those assertions categorically (they are known absolutely) for the
> "time to life".
>
> Comments please.

Somewhat related, but I always wanted a mechanism to use in documenting 
the FOAF schema to indicate the "volatility" of information. In FOAF we 
say informally that foaf:mbox for example is a "static inverse 
functional property". This sense of static means that I've fixed the 
definition so that if at time t, any mailbox is someone's foaf:mbox, 
then at all times later than t, it is theirs. Or at least it isn't 
someone else's. The English text defining foaf:mbox talks of "first 
owner of the mailbox" for this reason.

I'd like to explore similar constructs for saying which properties 
change occasionally (name), rarely (gender), regularly (age) etc. This 
could help aggregators figure out when information from different 
sources conflict, whether it is due to out-of-date issues or other factors.

cheers,

Dan

Received on Wednesday, 27 May 2009 07:30:07 UTC