Re: 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."
>
> and various proposals for the term:
>
> Pat Hayes:
> - represented description
> - redirected description
> - redescription
> - transmit
> - infon
>
> Frank Manola
> - associated representation
>
> Bernard Vatant:
> - description

If you want to maintain the idea of "identifying" a resource, then I would 
suggest the term "Definite Description", 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definite_description, 
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prop-attitude-reports/des.html that means 
something like this: a set of logical statements about a universe of 
discourse such that there is one individual or one set of individuals, and 
only one individual or set of individuals, about which all those statements 
are true.

I once began to compile a list of all the ideas I came across for what you 
should name what you get back, 
http://kashori.com/wikiPim/BoundedDescriptions: Among the terms I thought 
were interesting were "Discriminant Description", "Concise Bounded 
Description", "Rdf Neighbor", "Ctx Meaning", "Wordnet Synset", "Web Proper 
Name".

John
www.kashori.com


> 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 Monday, 30 July 2007 11:22:01 UTC