- From: Ken Laskey <KENNETH.J.LASKEY@saic.com>
- Date: Fri, 19 May 2000 19:20:00 -0400
- To: Jeff Heflin <heflin@cs.umd.edu>, Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org>
- Cc: Sean Luke <seanl@cs.umd.edu>, www-rdf-interest@w3.org
Without going through the details of the give and take over the past week, I was struck by a couple points. - I think there is agreement that someone should not be able to change someone else's schema. However, someone else can make a parallel schema and assert a correspondence. The intent may be malicious or it just may be an attempt to add capability or a different perspective. Thus, if maliciousness is not an issue, then the issue is not trust but competency and opinion. - This brings me to the question of data represented by a schema. What inferences can be drawn if the data is contradictory. Take for example this discussion. Imagine representing the assertions about the correspondence between RDF and SHOE. Again, the issue is not one of trust but of opinion that in some cases has direct contradictions. Can more be inferred than a conversation is taking place? - The concept of trust needs to be extended to a measure of authority on who is making an assertion. Certainly Jeff Heflin's statements should probably carry more weight on SHOE and Dan Connolly's more weight on RDF, but how do you factor in a new opinion from left field that brings insight by asking basic questions that the experts were all sure were already answered? Is there a question of trust? How do you assess validity? It appears that we're trying to draw conclusions from information we have yet to determine how to accurately represent. Moreover, we are trying to provide a means to represent information without controlling what that information is. From a Web perspective, this is how it needs to be. While keeping an eye on a greater goal, might it not be helpful to make sure we can assert things in a Web environment and unambiguously know what has been asserted before we draw conclusions. Ken
Received on Friday, 19 May 2000 19:20:05 UTC