Re: Semantic Web Statement Contexts (was: Can there be a URI for the concepts "I", "you",...)

> > I'm not saying this wouldn't work -- I haven't tried to think it through
> > carefully -- but it just seems like an awkward approach, like it's more
> > complex than necessary.  When you have a technology in search of a
> > problem to solve, in fairness you should probably compare it to other
> > approaches to solving that problem.  (I can't really tell what user
> > problem you might be trying to solve here.)
> 
> This is not a case of "technology in search of a problem to
> solve". Tracing back through the steps that led me here, one major
> user problem I am trying to solve is to avoid programming my
> web server to return different http responses based on how I
> classify the referent of my URI names. To me, the above
> means of  disambiguating an indexical with the context of its
> use is far less awkward than returning a 303 redirect code.
> 
> I agree with Pat Hayes, the editor of RDF Semantics [1],
>  who said of  the http-range-14 solution in his
> presentation at IRW2006 [2], "In Defense of Ambiguity":
> "WebArch http-range-14 seems to presume that if a
> URI accesses something directly (not via an http redirect), then
> the URI must refer to what it accesses. This decision is so bad
> that it is hard to list all the mistakes in it, but here are a few.
> [...snip...]
> It uses a distinction in how a text is delivered (an http code) to
> disambiguate the text itself; a category mistake analogous to
> requiring the postman dance a jig when delivering an official
> letter. Since the text bears no trace of its delivery, no
> disambiguation is achieved by this." [3]
> 
> As I was thinking about my motivation for focusing on context as
> a better way to deal with URI-ambiguity than WebArch
> http-range-14, I came up with the following suggestions that I
> hope further illustrate Pat's point about this being a category
> mistake.
> 
> 1. For distinguishing URI that refer to things that do not actually
> exist, dead presidents, extinct species, and unicorns, for example,
> first return a "404 Not Found" code, then if the client requests the
> same URI within 0.5 seconds, return a document describing the
> non-existent thing.
> 
> 2. For URI that refer to things that are bad for you, such as
> cigarettes and high fat foods, return a "403 Forbidden" code and
> then if they repeat the request, a document about that thing.
> 
> 1. http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-mt/
> 2. http://www.ibiblio.org/hhalpin/irw2006/
> 3. http://www.ibiblio.org/hhalpin/irw2006/presentations/HayesSlides.pdf

So, you're suggesting that using contexts in this way is the best way to
solve the URI-overloading problem around RDF.  Maybe....  I don't really
see the connection.

Pat's "dance a jig" comment is a little off.  It's a lot more like
having the postman tell you when something is an official letter (and
maybe getting you to pick it up at the post office).  Maybe it's more
convenient to have it printed on the envelope, but if you can't stop
people from printing whatever they want on the envelope, then that
doesn't help very much.  (I haven't actually heard Pat's argument here,
though -- I'm just responding to you.)

On the larger question, FWIW, for 2001-2003 I was campaigning hard to
solve the problem of ambiguity of URIs in RDF [4] [5], and found the
problems were essentially political/social not technical, due to a sense
of the installed base and direction people wanted to go.  My proposal to
use "303 See Other" [6] was an inspired bit of hackery which managed to
navigate the political waters (without my help) -- but it's not at all
the technical solution I would have wanted.

       -- Sandro

[4] http://www.w3.org/2002/12/rdf-identifiers/
[5] http://esw.w3.org/topic/SocialMeaning
[6] http://esw.w3.org/topic/SlashRedirection

Received on Thursday, 28 December 2006 14:30:42 UTC