Re: How To Do Deal with the Subjective Issue of Data Quality?

On 4/7/11 8:59 PM, Michael F Uschold wrote:
> > I subscribe to the doctrine that "data quality" is like "beauty" it 
> lies strictly in the eyes of the beholder
>
> Interesting position.  Seems a bit post-modernesque...  I think there 
> is some truth here, just like beauty in a program, or an building 
> architecture, or an ontology -- people defninitely have different 
> opinions.   However, IMHO, it would be dangerous to conclude that all 
> or even the significant majority of issues of data quality are just 
> matters of opinion.  This would prevent doing the hard work of 
> identifying some core principles that most people can agree on most of 
> the time.
> I bet there are many many cases where you could ask people of  diverse 
> opinions and get clear agreement  by asking the simple question: is 
> this data high or low quality?   So maybe its like porn, you can't 
> define it, but most people agree when it is or isn't.


We all have individual opinions, achieving broader group acceptance is 
where the "group mind" aspect comes into play. Thus, the group/community 
ultimately establishes the quality metrics for its particular context. I 
think it's a generally accepted opinion that there are no absolute 
truths i.e., at best we have claims. The Web and its emerging Linked 
Data dimension simply reflect this reality (IMHO) :-)


Kingsley
>
> Michael
>
> On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 11:06 AM, Kingsley Idehen 
> <kidehen@openlinksw.com <mailto:kidehen@openlinksw.com>> wrote:
>
>     All,
>
>     Apologies for cross posting this repeatedly. I think I have a typo
>     free heading for this topic.
>
>     Increasingly, the issue of data quality pops up as an impediment
>     to Linked Data value proposition comprehension and eventual
>     exploitation. The same issue even appears to emerge in
>     conversations that relate to "sense making" endeavors that benefit
>     from things such as OWL reasoning e.g., when resolving the
>     multiple Identifiers with a common Referent via owl:sameAs or
>     exploitation of fuzzy rules based on InverseFunctionProperty
>     relations.
>
>     Personally, I subscribe to the doctrine that "data quality" is
>     like "beauty" it lies strictly in the eyes of the beholder i.e., a
>     function of said beholders "context lenses".
>
>     I am posting primarily to open up a discussion thread for this
>     important topic.
>
>     -- 
>
>     Regards,
>
>     Kingsley Idehen
>     President&  CEO
>     OpenLink Software
>     Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
>     Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
>     <http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen>
>     Twitter/Identi.ca: kidehen
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Michael Uschold, PhD
>    Senior Ontology Consultant, Semantic Arts
>    LinkedIn: http://tr.im/limfu
>    Skype, Twitter: UscholdM
>


-- 

Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	
President&  CEO
OpenLink Software
Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
Twitter/Identi.ca: kidehen