Re: Social Meaning Boston 6 March

>At 05:17 PM 2/18/03 +0000, Brian McBride wrote:
>>At 11:16 18/02/2003 +0000, Graham Klyne wrote:
>>>At 10:43 PM 2/13/03 +0000, Brian McBride wrote:
>>>
>>>>At 21:32 13/02/2003 +0100, Jeremy Carroll wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>I am posting this message to three lists, sorry for duplicate copies.
>>>>>
>>>>>There has been a significant discussion on the social meaning
>>>>>parts of the RDF Concepts Last Call.
>>>>
>>>>Really!  Where?
>>>
>>>There's been some discussion on WebOnt, starting here:
>>>   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-webont-wg/2003Jan/0280.html
>>>
>>>Also, it doesn't count as discussion, but I indicated a position here:
>>>   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-rdfcore-wg/2003Jan/0228.html
>>>
>>>But I'll agree with you that there's not yet been sufficient 
>>>discussion to see where this is going.
>>
>>Thanks Graham, the pointers were very useful.
>>
>>Jeremy is suggesting - lets see if we can find a form of words that 
>>satisfies everyone.  I'm hoping that doesn't mean fudging the 
>>issue.  I'm also very concerned that you won't be present if there 
>>is a f2f discussion at the tech plenary.  Maybe we should be 
>>thinking about dialing you in?
>>
>>I'm also wondering about laying some of the groundwork.  I'm seeing 
>>a lot of very unstructured discussion, and I fear there is great 
>>risk of confusion clouding the discussion.
>>
>>Do you and Jeremy have any ideas on how we might best 
>>prepare/clarify the question.
>
>I don't think we need to compromise anything here -- I think most of 
>the concerns expressed have been concerns of the WG, and the problem 
>has been in the explanation.  In hindsight, I think the example we 
>used has not been helpful, and I'd like to drop it.

As originator of the example, I agree. It was invented for use in a 
talk, where its shock value had some rhetorical purpose. As part of a 
spec document it probably raises way too many dangerous-seeming 
issues. We can make the essential point with a much blander (and 
simpler) example if necessary, eg A defines a class name and says 
something informal but significant about it (such as : Frobs; we can 
deliver these in one working day) , B uses it to assign a type, 
(#g000345 rdf:type A#Frob) then if the informal meaning applies to 
the class name (we assume A is telling the truth) then it has to be 
understood as applying to the instance name (A said he could deliver 
#g000345 in one working day). In other words, doing a formal 
inference doesn't break any social meaning. Kind of obvious, right?

Pat

>
>Here are some thoughts I have:
>
>[[
>I think the issue of social meaning is poorly handled, and needs to 
>be improved.  I think the main point we need to convey here is that 
>there may be social meaning associated with some RDF that is opaque 
>to automated reasoning processes.  The secondary point is that such 
>meaning may be embodied in some collection of RDF statements, and 
>those statements may be obtained by application of a logically valid 
>reasoning process.  But there is no intent that RDF agents somehow 
>need to be aware of the social meaning.
>]]
>
>There is a separate issue of how a URI gains its meaning, which I 
>think should be handled separately.
>
>#g
>
>
>-------------------
>Graham Klyne
><GK@NineByNine.org>


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Received on Friday, 21 February 2003 15:43:37 UTC