RE: [Linking-open-data] How to name what you get back? was: Terminology Question concerning Web Architecture and Linked Data

Hi Mike,

I'm not actually disagreeing with you about the challenge of
communicating these ideas to wider audiences (or as Frank points out,
this audience, i.e. us!), but lets be clear about the scope of the
tutorial.

The aim of the document is to convey (with recipes) current Linked Data
publishing best practices based on the relevant specs and the
experiences of the Linking Open Data project. It's a technical document,
which we hope provides sufficient detail for people to go away and
implement the best practices. Inevitably it comes with a terminology
overhead, but that's just life isn't it?

The challenge for all of us is to go away and communicate Linked Data
ideas to new audiences, probably using distinctions such as "things on
the Web" vs "real-world things, like dogs and cars and places", rather
than information vs non-information resource. Ultimately though, people
who publish linked data will need to adopt some terms with which they
can communicate with others doing the same thing; web developers were
not born with an innate sense of what e.g. "server-side scripting"
means.

This is a new area, and it will inevitably need some new language. Sadly
conveying the meaning of some new term often requires long-winded
phrases like "The term XXX refers to the description of a
non-information resource that a client obtains by derereferencing a
specific URI that identifies this non-information resource."

Exactly what these terms are doesn't matter so much as long as everyone
agrees on what they mean (hell, look at the confusion around the term
"ontology"). Does there not come a point when it's worth just accepting
what we've got and getting on with the job in hand?

Cheers,

Tom.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: linking-open-data-bounces@simile.mit.edu 
> [mailto:linking-open-data-bounces@simile.mit.edu] On Behalf 
> Of Michael K. Bergman
> Sent: 26 July 2007 17:04
> To: Linking Open Data
> Cc: www-tag@w3.org; Tim Berners-Lee; semantic-web@w3.org; Frank Manola
> Subject: Re: [Linking-open-data] How to name what you get 
> back? was: Terminology Question concerning Web Architecture 
> and Linked Data
> 
> 
> Chris Bizer wrote:
> > Hi Frank, Pat and Bernard,
> > 
> > thanks a lot for all your ideas and comments.
> > 
> > So what we are having on the table right now is a definition:
> > 
> > "The term XXX refers to the description of a 
> non-information resource
> > that a client obtains by dereferencing a specific URI that 
> identifies 
> > this non-information resource."
> 
> Stand back and read this sentence to yourself three times.
> 
> > 
> > and various proposals for the term:
> > 
> > Pat Hayes:
> > - represented description
> > - redirected description
> > - redescription
> > - transmit
> > - infon
> > 
> > Frank Manola
> > - associated representation
> > 
> > Bernard Vatant:
> > - description
> 
> Can't we just kill the term "non-information resource" once 
> and for all? 
>   All it does is obfuscate understanding and resolution.
> 
> Mercy be upon us when we try to actually communicate with the public 
> outside these forums.
> 
> Mike
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> Linking-open-data@simile.mit.edu 
> http://simile.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/linking-open-data
>

Received on Thursday, 26 July 2007 19:50:54 UTC