Re: Replace outdated social models in OWL2 primer

Harsh,

I agree with your conclusions; just some comments on the details.

> On 24 Mar 2025, at 11:49, Harshvardhan J. Pandit <me@harshp.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi All.
> Thank you for all your responses. I'm touched and delighted that the community 'cares' and that this isn't a topic that is simply brushed aside. I am replying to the original email so as to summarise the discussions so far, and identify a path forward.
> 
> tldr; let's create a CG, make a document with updated examples, ask W3C to adopt it -- preferably with RDF or other relevant WGs, publish a new dated version and point the TR/REC link to this.
> 

As I said, I agree with the summary.

Note that there is a general agreement among everyone involved that if all the changes are considered as editorial, and if the W3C Team feels comfortable working with that, then (as noted elsewhere in the thread) the W3C Team is allowed to do the republication of a new version without involving a WG.  As I noted in [1] I personally remain uncomfortable with that approach but that may be only me. We should postpone that issue until the CG publishes its report. 

[1] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/semantic-web/2025Mar/0092.html

> 1) I think there is a general consensus that the examples should be updated.
> 
> 2) There is some disagreement on the nature of this update and its classification in W3C process e.g. is this merely editorial? Here we acknowledge that the examples are in a 'REC' document, and that this also determines the process for any change/update.
> 
> 3) Options suggested so far include:
> 
> a. directly change the document -- easiest, but not a good option because it is a published REC document and it should be maintained
> 

As I said in [2], this is hardly an option. W3C documents, once published, are not edited in place, except in very exceptional circumstances.

[2] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/semantic-web/2025Mar/0077.html

> b. publish a new version -- most cumbersome, but probably the best option as the history is preserved, we follow w3c best practices re. publishing with a different dated version
> 
> c. create another separate webpage for examples and link to it -- not ideal, the existing examples will still be present and 'canonical' and we'll be saying this is REC but don't use it which is not good practice
> 
> 4) From the above, I think option (b) is the most logical choice. The discussion after this reflected the process by which this new version can be published -- whether we can classify this as a minor change (less redtape, quicker) or this classifies as a significant change (has to go through CG/WG and approval process).
> 
> 5) So from the above, I suggest we create the CG, then within it create a mirror document of the OWL primer with updated examples, and suggest it back to the W3C for incorporation. It will need to go through a WG (AFAIK) -- and I hope one of the existing ones picks this up to push it ahead (e.g. RDF-star WG would be closest?).
> 

Yes, this is the best way forward in my opinion, too. Except for your parenthetical remark: for better or worse, the "down-to-Earth" RDF groups and the OWL groups were always running a bit separately in the past. I doubt whether the RDF-star WG would accept to work on OWL. 

I would think this will require a fully separate Working Group, with its own charter. Unless, as I referred to above, it turns out that no WG is necessary.

> 6) The CG is also a good option, because we can also see if there are other documents with similar issues - and if so, what are they and what should be the fix. At the same time, we can recommend some inclusivity principles / codes of decency to be added to existing W3C guidelines for how to create examples. We don't want everyone to read them before creating every single example, but they should be helpful if such an issue arises again elsewhere.
> 

Yep…

> 7) The CG is also again a good option as the W3C is currently exploring how to promote CGs outputs and how to smooth the process of uptaking CG work within W3C (WG, etc.). So this will also be helpful for other CGs and communities by providing a path to test the work done here so far.
> 
> 8) Why CG and not a WG: With the CG, anyone can participate, we get a github repo to track this work (formally), and its all in w3c. A WG is also a good option, but I am not sure whether updating a single document with examples should be a new WG.
> 

Exactly. Note that a WG also has a bunch of extra admin due to patent policy issues, even if they hardly apply in this case.

Thanks

Ivan


> Regards, Harsh
> 
> On 15/03/2025 18:32, Harshvardhan J. Pandit wrote:
>> Hi All.
>> While revisiting the OWL2 primer recently at https://www.w3.org/TR/owl2- primer/, I found several examples for showing how OWL2 works that try to model social constructs like man/woman, parent/child, father/mother in a way that I consider increasingly out of touch with today. I propose that these be changed to something that has no issues or over which no social, ethical, or political discussions are necessary for the adopter as the goal here is to show how OWL2 works.
>> ---
>> E.g. Sec 4.2 Suppose we also want to state that all mothers are women: SubClassOf( :Mother :Woman )
>> Here, it represents that mother is a strict subset of woman i.e. only women can be mothers. However, "Woman" here is referring to "woman as a human of female sex" and not "woman as gender". Rather than get into what these definitions should be, or what kind of sets exist and their intersections (e.g. woman, trans-woman, trans-man, intersex, and so on) - my point is that these are not good examples to start modelling with even if they might have been seen as "intuitive" some decades ago.
>> ---
>> E.g. Sec 4.3 For example, if we consider the classes Man and Woman, we know that no individual can be an instance of both classes (for the sake of the example, we disregard biological borderline cases)... DisjointClasses( :Woman :Man )
>> Again, we should not exclude anyone here just because they are 'on the fringes' and also because there are ways people can change their sex and their gender -- so this example is not a good example to use here.
>> ---
>> E.g. Sec 4.6 For instance, the statement that B is the wife of A obviously implies that B is a woman while A is a man. ObjectPropertyDomain( :hasWife :Man ) ObjectPropertyRange( :hasWife :Woman ) ... Having these two axioms in place and given e.g. the information that Sasha is related to Hillary via the property hasWife, a reasoner would be able to infer that Sasha is a man and Hillary a woman.
>> While I don't know what is the canonical name for people who are not married (partner?) or who are in a same-sex/gender relationship -- this is again a good point to note that the example has implications beyond OWL and shouldn't be used here.
>> ---
>> E.g. Sec 5.1 The following example states that the class Mother consists of exactly those objects which are instances of both Woman and Parent EquivalentClasses(
>>    :Mother
>>    ObjectIntersectionOf( :Woman :Parent )
>>  )
>> Again, this has more implications to consider such as transgender mothers and also motherhood following sex-change. Therefore, this is not a good example to learn about how OWL.
>> We also have in Sec 10
>> SubClassOf(
>>    :Father
>>    ObjectIntersectionOf( :Man :Parent )
>>  )
>> ---
>> E.g. Sec 5.1 we could characterize the class of all parents as the union of the classes Mother and Father
>> EquivalentClasses(
>>    :Parent
>>    ObjectUnionOf( :Mother :Father )
>>  )
>> Parents are not exclusive to mothers and fathers e.g. stepmother or grandparent, or even non-biological parents (though they would be called the same). Further, it might be seen as saying parents are always a combination of a mother and a father - though this is not in the text or the rule. (I'll note that in Sec.9 the concept "SocialRole" is stated as a metaclass of Father, but isn't defined or explained)
>> ---
>> Is this change urgent? No. Is this outright offending anyone? I don't think so. But should we change this? Yes, I think so. Each year there will be many more new people and newer generations learning OWL, and many of us relearning it. So we shouldn't wait for this to be an issue either for being out of touch or for not being considerate before we change it.
>> So what do we change this with? I think examples with animals (cats, dogs), shapes, etc. are universal, and aren't at risk of not conforming to society or for not being empathic. Or if we still want to model people, let's do friendships and work relationships that have no personal characteristics. For OWL specifically, I think the Pizza ontology used as a tutorial in Protege is also a good option as everybody likes pizza! (well, I hope).
> 
> -- 
> ---
> Harshvardhan J. Pandit, Ph.D
> Assistant Professor
> ADAPT Centre, Dublin City University
> https://harshp.com/
> 
> 


----
Ivan Herman, W3C 
Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
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