Re: How to name what you get back? was: Terminology Question concerning Web Architecture and Linked Data

Hi Chris,

Before I propose a term, I have to remark that the notion, to which we 
want to give a name, changed. Now it is "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". Initially, it was that the term (let's denote it TTT) 
referred to "information provided by a specific URI owner about a 
non-information resource". I am not sure that XXX and TTT denote the 
same notion, therefore, I am talking for now about TTT.

The URI owner *presents*  the non-information resource to the agents and 
humans (by making a description). The result is "presentation". That it 
is descriptive or confusing it is a property of TTT - what the URI owner 
provides is a *presentation*.  So, I would say TTT is *presentation*

*Presentation*, *presence* and *existence* - all three terms are from 
Ontology as a philosophic discipline:
- Presence is existence correlated with time and space. Something is 
present in a place and for a period of time - in our case, the place is 
Web, and time is the period while the TTT is on the Web
- Presentation is bringing something onto a place and a time by an agent 
(human agent or web agent) - in our case, this is the URI owner.

Now, let us see what XXX is. What can we get back if not information, 
which is data+interpretation, which is (meta-data, digits) which is 
"representation"!? I agree with Frank Manola that this is "representation".

So, it looks to me, that what the URI owner provides is *presentation* 
and what "we get"  is *re-presentation*.

Ioachim
www.semanticsoft.net

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."
>
> and various proposals for the term:
>
> Pat Hayes:
> - represented description
> - redirected description
> - redescription
> - transmit
> - infon
>
> Frank Manola
> - associated representation
>
> Bernard Vatant:
> - description
>
> Some (of course subjective) comments: Like Bernard already stated, 
> "redescription" sounds temporal. You describe something, then you 
> redescribe it afterwards. Transmit and infon sound like Sci-Fi to me. 
> Redirected description is a good explanation of what is happening, but 
> maybe a bit to technical, process-oriented.
> I think Frank's term "representation" does not work from the technical 
> side, as you get redirected to an information resource, which has a 
> representation and this representation contains the data we are 
> talking about. But the representation of this information resource 
> might also contain lots of data about other resources. For instance, 
> when you think about a vocabulary definition as in the "Best Practices 
> for Publishing RDF Vocabularies" guide 
> http://www.w3.org/TR/swbp-vocab-pub/. I like Frank's idea of using the 
> word "associated" as this term in also used throughout the TAG 
> "Dereferencing HTTP URIs" document 
> http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/httpRange-14/2007-05-31/HttpRange-14.
>
> So, when I try to merge all these ideas and thoughts, I end up with 
> "associated description".
>
> What do you think about this term?
> Anybody strongly disagreeing?
>
> A problem that remains with this term is that it is rather technical 
> and therefore does not work well as a replacement for data item in the 
> introduction of our tutorial.
>
> For instance: The sentence "A basic tenet of Linked Data is to use RDF 
> links to interlink data items from different data sources." would 
> become "A basic tenet of Linked Data is to use RDF links to interlink 
> associated descriptions from different data sources." Cough, cough :-)
>
> But anyhow, the term "associated description" will work in the 
> remaining technical chapters of the tutorial and we can save ourselves 
> in the introduction by saying "A basic tenet of Linked Data is to use 
> RDF links to interlink data from different data sources".
>
> Cheers
>
> Chris
>
>
> -- 
> Chris Bizer
> Freie Universität Berlin
> Phone: +49 30 838 54057
> Mail: chris@bizer.de
> Web: www.bizer.de
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Frank Manola" <fmanola@acm.org>
> To: "Chris Bizer" <chris@bizer.de>
> Cc: "Tim Berners-Lee" <timbl@w3.org>; <www-tag@w3.org>; 
> <semantic-web@w3.org>; "Linking Open Data" 
> <linking-open-data@simile.mit.edu>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 10:44 PM
> Subject: Re: Terminology Question concerning Web Architecture and 
> Linked Data
>
>
>
> Chris--
>
> This probably indicates that I haven't gone back far enough in the
> prior discussion (or still don't understand various details of the
> Web architecture), but what's wrong with "representation"?  That is,
> you're asking for "a term for "the information which you get about
> the thing identified by it when you look up a URI".  I thought what
> you got back when you dereferenced a URI was a "representation".  And
> I thought that the difference between dereferencing the URI of an
> information resource vs. that of a non-information resource is that:
>
> (a) for a non-information resource there's supposed to be some
> indirection messaging that goes on between the original dereferencing
> and you getting a representation back, and
>
> (b) the representation you get back doesn't contain all the
> "essential characteristics" of the identified resource.
>
> But you still get a representation back.  That is in fact what your
> tutorial says. Under the heading "Dereferencing HTTP URIs", the last
> sentence of the bullet that describes what happens for non-
> information resources says "In a second step, the client dereferences
> this new URI and *gets a representation* describing the original non-
> information resource" [my emphasis].
>
> I think I understand the sort of distinction you're getting at,
> something like, as Pat suggests, the difference between getting a
> copy (of sorts) of the thing itself vs. getting a "description" (in
> some sense) of it, but if that's it, I'm not sure an entirely new
> piece of terminology is what's needed.  Operationally the only way we
> have of knowing whether a URI names an information resource or a non-
> information resource is (at least in the tutorial) whether
> redirection happens when we dereference it.  In the scenarios we're
> talking about, the redirection is (as I understand it) ultimately to
> the URI of an *information resource* (with its own URI) that
> describes (in some sense) the original non-information resource.  The
> draft TAG finding a http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/
> httpRange-14/2007-05-31/HttpRange-14 refers to this redirected-to
> information resource as an "associated information resource" (without
> necessarily intending to introduce that as a defined term).
> Following those lines though, how about calling what you're after an
> "associated representation"?  That is, when you dereference the URI
> of a non-information resource, what you get back (after redirection)
> is an "associated representation" (the details of the association
> being determined by the details of the redirection).
>
> -Frank
>
> On Jul 25, 2007, at 12:44 PM, Chris Bizer wrote:
>
>> Hi Frank,
>>
>>> I'd seriously suggest you look for some alternative  to "data item" 
>>> for the concept in question.
>>
>> OK, but this leads to a question which I accutally wanted to try to 
>> avoid asking on this list.
>>
>> Hmm, I will do it anyway and see what happens ;-)
>>
>> Question 4: What term should we use instead?
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Chris
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Chris Bizer
>> Freie Universität Berlin
>> Phone: +49 30 838 54057
>> Mail: chris@bizer.de
>> Web: www.bizer.de
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Frank Manola" <fmanola@acm.org>
>> To: "Chris Bizer" <chris@bizer.de>
>> Cc: "Tim Berners-Lee" <timbl@w3.org>; <www-tag@w3.org>; <semantic- 
>> web@w3.org>; "Linking Open Data" <linking-open-data@simile.mit.edu>
>> Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 6:07 PM
>> Subject: Re: Terminology Question concerning Web Architecture and 
>> Linked Data
>>
>>
>>> Chris--
>>>
>>> I appreciate that we run into terminology conflicts all the time 
>>> around here, but I'd seriously suggest you look for some alternative 
>>> to "data item" for the concept in question.  An awful lot of people 
>>> (particularly those involved with databases) are used to seeing 
>>> "data  item" refer to something like a property or attribute (like 
>>> "name" or  "age").  More specifically, they're used to seeing 
>>> records as  containing multiple data items (or their values).  From 
>>> that point of  view, the sentence "When you interpret the Web of 
>>> Data as a set of  interlinked databases, a data item would equal a 
>>> record in a specific  database." looks particularly strange.  As I 
>>> say, I understand the  inevitability of terminology conflicts, but ...?
>>>
>>> Cheers!
>>>
>>> --Frank
>>>
>>> On Jul 25, 2007, at 10:12 AM, Chris Bizer wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hi Tim,
>>>>
>>>>> I can't think of a term for "the information which you get about 
>>>>> the thing identified by it  when you look up a URI" which works 
>>>>> for me.
>>>>
>>>>> It has of course the term "Representation" which connects an 
>>>>> Information Resource and the (metadata, bits) pair which you get 
>>>>> back, which is different.
>>>>
>>>> As we did not want to repeat the definition all over the tutorial, 
>>>> we ended up with a term called "data item".
>>>>
>>>> Within section 2.1 of the tutorial, we define the term as: "The 
>>>> term data items refers to the description of a non-information 
>>>> resource that a client obtains by dereferencing a specific URI that 
>>>> identifies this non-information resource." (http:// 
>>>> sites.wiwiss.fu- berlin.de/suhl/bizer/pub/LinkedDataTutorial/ 
>>>> #aliases)
>>>>
>>>> Note that the definition is a bit more specific than your sentence 
>>>> above, as it is restricted to non-information resources and not 
>>>> things in general (assuming that your term "thing" refers to non- 
>>>> information resources as well as information resources).
>>>>
>>>> We were also struggling to find a good word that matches the 
>>>> concept and have chosen "data item" in the end as it somehow 
>>>> relates to the overall term "Linked Data" and as we hope that 
>>>> people from the database community will understand the second 
>>>> informal definition of the term: "When you interpret the Web of 
>>>> Data as a set of interlinked databases, a data item would equal a 
>>>> record in a specific database."
>>>>
>>>> Cheers
>>>>
>>>> Chris
>>>>
>>
>
>
>

Received on Saturday, 28 July 2007 07:31:04 UTC