Comments for WD-rdf-mt-20030123

These are minor comments for your "RDF Semantics" Last Call Working
Draft [1].

The images are beautiful, maybe the best I have ever seen at W3C.

Words in the headings and TOC can be capitalized, and the Introduction
can start with section 1 like the other RDF drafts, for example "1.1
Specifying a Formal Semantics: Scope and Limitations." TOC number 4.1
and 4.2 each need a space.

The RFC 2119 key words can be marked up like this:
http://www.w3.org/2001/06/manual/#RFCs

Please avoid we (see http://www.w3.org/2001/06/manual/#ref-PRONOUNS).

minor typos, some global:
s/licence/license/
s/emphasise/emphasize/
s/heirachies/hierarchies/
s/heirarchies/hierarchies/
s/wellformedness/well-formedness/
s/constitutents/constituents/
s/intepretations/interpretations/
s/Semantics/semantics/
s/N-triples/N-Triples/
s/Ntriples/N-Triples/
s/unicode/Unicode/
s/graph.(We/graph. (We/
s/irrelevant.(In/irrelevant. (In/
s/syntax.( If/syntax. (If/
s/vocabulary.We/vocabulary. We/
s/Class Extension/class extension/
s/other.We/other. We/
s/web-based/Web-based/
s/Lemma.If/Lemma. If/
s/of G ,/of G,/
s/sk(E).Clearly/sk(E). Clearly/
s/establishes that the 'if' part/establishes that the 'if' is part/
s/e.g.between/e.g. between/
s/entailment(n.)/entailment (n.)/
s/eg/e.g./
s/hse/he or she/
s/(with a:)(ii)/(with a:) (ii)/
s/M.,Connolly, D.,van Harmelen, F., Hendler, J.,Horrocks, I., 
McGuinness, D., Patel-Schneider, P.,Stein, L./M., Connolly, D., van 
Harmelen, F., Hendler, J., Horrocks, I., McGuinness, D., 
Patel-Schneider, P., Stein, L./
s/Masinter,L./Masinter, L./
s/R..circulated/R. Circulated/
s/Saarela, J../Saarela, J./
s/McGuinness,D. L./McGuinness, D. L./

Also, s/Qname/QName/ and Namespaces in XML can be a normative reference.

In the Abstract (or wherever they appear first), spell these out: RDF
and RDFS, "Resource Description Framework (RDF) and RDF Schema (RDFS)."

RDFS and RDF/S are mentioned in the introduction. Nowhere is RDF/S
defined. It appears again once in the glossary. I think it means RDF
Schema. You could say "RDF Schema (RDFS)" in the first occurrence, and
RDFS after that.

Later, RDFS is referred to as being in the future, for example "will be
central in interpretations of RDFS." Do you mean that the reader is
going to read RDFS after the present document? (That can't be assumed.)

     We believe that both of these descriptions, and also the closure
     rules described in section 4, are all in exact correspondence, but
     only the directly described model theory in sections 1- 3 should be
     taken as normative.
If section 4 isn't normative, maybe you could omit it.

This sentence is too long:
     Notice that one does not, in general, obtain the merge of a set of
     graphs by concatenating their corresponding N-triples documents and
     constructing the graph described by the merged document, since if
     some of the documents use the same node identifiers, the merged
     document will describe a graph in which some of the blank nodes
     have been 'accidentally' merged.
It could read:
     Notice that one does not, in general, obtain the merge of a set of
     graphs by concatenating their corresponding N-triples documents and
     constructing the graph described by the merged document. If
     some of the documents use the same node identifiers, the merged
     document will describe a graph in which some of the blank nodes
     have been 'accidentally' merged.

Re:
     (In this and subsequent examples we use the greater-than and
     less-than symbols in several ways: following mathematical usage to
     indicate abstract pairs and n-tuples; following Ntriples syntax to
     enclose urirefs, and also as arrowheads when indicating mappings.
     We apologize for any confusion.)
You could use emphasis (strong, em), weight, color and italic to make
distinctions. As a last resort "<", "<<", and "<<<" would work.

At the end of 3.1:
     The RDF vocabulary contains several other items. Some of these are
     omitted because they have no formal semantic meaning, or have a
     meaning which can only be described using the RDFS vocabulary.
Can this appear earlier, say in 3?

Does this belong in the beginning of the spec rather then at the end of
a 3.2 paragraph?
     We will refer to the complete set of all rdf urirefs, consisting of
     the RDF vocabulary and all of the reification, container and
     collection vocabularies and the uriref rdf:value , as the RDF
     vocabulary, rdfV.

     The reason for first is clear, since the reification only asserts
     that the triple token exists, not that it is true.
is an incomplete sentence. It could read:
     The reason for the first is clear. The reification only asserts
     that the triple token exists, not that it is true.

This sentence is too long:
     Semantic extensions MAY place extra syntactic well-formedness
     restrictions on the use of this vocabulary in order to rule out
     such graphs, and MAY exclude interpretations of the collection
     vocabulary which violate the convention that the subject of a
     'linked' collection of three-triple items of the form described
     above, ending with an item ending with rdf:nil, denotes a totally
     ordered sequence whose members are the denotations of the rdf:first
     values of the items, in the order got by tracing the rdf:rest
     properties from the subject to rdf:nil.
it could read something like:
     Semantic extensions MAY place extra syntactic well-formedness
     restrictions on the use of this vocabulary in order to rule out
     such graphs. They MAY exclude interpretations in which the subject
     of a 'linked' collection of three-triple items ending with an item
     ending with rdf:nil denotes a totally ordered sequence whose
     members are the denotations of the rdf:first values of the items,
     in the order got by tracing the rdf:rest properties from the
     subject to rdf:nil.

In 4.3 "Semantic extensions MAY", the MAY has no special meaning and can
be lowercase I think. This is an informative section.

In the RDFS Closure Lemma proof, "A full proof would be long but
tedious" I think means long and tedious.

References should link to dated versions. Some guidelines in progress:
http://www.w3.org/2001/06/manual/#References

External links within the prose should be links to references:
http://www.w3.org/2001/06/manual/#linking-within

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-rdf-mt-20030123/

Best wishes for your project,
-- 
Susan Lesch           http://www.w3.org/People/Lesch/
mailto:lesch@w3.org               tel:+1.858.483.4819
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)    http://www.w3.org/

Received on Monday, 24 February 2003 00:50:37 UTC