(unknown charset) Re: Semantic content negotiation (was Re: expectations of vocabulary)

On Wed, 26 Jul 2006, Henry Story wrote:

>> I am still not sure if I understand you.  What is the relationship between
>> :CategoryList and :McDonaldCategoryList?  Are they under the same 
>> namespace?
>> If so, how are they related to each other?  And why would someone build 
>> two
>> set of vocabularies to describe the same thing?
>
> Good questions. My fault in not being careful with the example. I intended 
> them to be
> under different namespaces. So the examples should be
>
> <> a :CategoryList;
>   :category [ :scheme <http://eg.com/cats/>;
>               :term "dog" ];
>   :category [ :scheme <http://eg.com/cats/>;
>               :term "house" ].
>
> but I receive this
>
> <> a mcdo:CategoryList;
>   mcdo:category [ mcdo:scheme <http://eg.com/cats/>;
>               mcdo:term "dog" ];
>   mcdo:category [ mcdo:scheme <http://eg.com/cats/>;
>               mcdo:term "house" ].
>
>
> I was just looking to see if there was a way to specify the content of rdf 
> documents, because otherwise the flexibility of rdf could also be its doom.

I don't follow how this is so, especially if there is no ambiguity in the 
interpretation of either scenario (since owl:sameAs makes it *crystal* 
clear that they are equivalent terms).

> If there were no way to expect that I would receive the first document rather 
> than the second, since they both make the same statements about the world, 
> then there would be no way to tell if I could ever seriously follow rdf links 
> over the web.

I still don't understand the motivation (or value) in micromanaging 
which vocabulary terms are used when the interpretations are unambigious 
(thanks in large part to ontology terms that were designed precisely 
with this sort of thing in mind).

> But given that it is not impossible, if schemerama2 [1] type proposals can be 
> formalised, then it looks like one can specify documents, not just by their 
> format, but also by their content.  This can then solve the problem I put 
> forward above: since a document that contained the sentence "<> a 
> mcdo:CategoryList ." but not the sentence "<> a :CategoryList ." would just 
> simply be lying, even though
>
> mcdo:CategoryList owl:sameAs :CategoryList .

Now I'm really confused.  So who is the final arbiter of validity: the 
owl:sameAs statements expressed by the author of the vocabulary or the 
consumer who demands that only a specific set of vocabulary terms be used. 
It seems counter intuitive to expect to *both* rely on vocabulary terms to 
express unambigious relationships between terms and their interpretations 
as well as a transport mechanism to control which terms you want used in 
response to a request.

> As such if I find a link on the web saying that some resource is a 
> :CategoryList, I would be in my right to expect certain types of vocabularies 
> to be used there.

That pretty much renders the authority of terms such as owl:sameAs, 
owl:equivalentClass, etc.. useless.

Chimezie Ogbuji
Lead Systems Analyst
Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery
Cleveland Clinic Foundation
9500 Euclid Avenue/ W26
Cleveland, Ohio 44195
Office: (216)444-8593
ogbujic@ccf.org

Received on Wednesday, 26 July 2006 14:47:00 UTC