- From: John Black <JohnBlack@deltek.com>
- Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 07:30:54 -0400
- To: "Charles McCathieNevile" <charles@w3.org>
- Cc: "Graham Klyne" <GK@ninebynine.org>, "Damian Steer" <damian.steer@hp.com>, <www-rdf-interest@w3.org>
> From: Charles McCathieNevile > Sent: Monday, August 02, 2004 10:49 PM > > On Mon, 2 Aug 2004, John Black wrote: > > >> From: Graham Klyne > >> At 22:26 29/07/04 +0100, Damian Steer wrote: > >> >"You can always solve a problem by introducing another layer > >> of indirection." > >> > > >> >So true :-) > >> > >> I remember Guha saying something similar when presenting the > >> Reference-by-Description ideas as used in TAP, and then > >> adding that in the > >> case of TAP this reduced the number of URIs that must be > >> globally agreed > >> (for effective exchange of information in an open-ended > community of > >> interested parties) by some orders of magnitude, thus could > >> be regarded as > >> a valuable deployment of that old panacea. > > > >Reducing by orders of magnitude the number of URIs needed to identify > >objects is a good thing. But it intensifies the problem of > establishing > >global agreement on the references of the URIs of classes > and properties. > >How is this done? or can it be done at all? Is it any easier > to come to a > >global agreement on the extension of a class than on the identity of > >an object? > > Essentially this is the same problem as agreeing on what any > new term means - > what is "identity" and "meaning" and for that matter "the > semantic web"? For > the last few thousand years of doing this people have muddled towards > solutions where they get rough agreement and some discussion > that goes along > until it breaks down over terms, and then they look at what > broke and try to > produce a new indirection that solves the problem for a bit longer. > > The same thing happens with URIs - they can mean whatever you > want, but it is > better if you manage to build systems that don't entail > contradictions, nor > things that you know are not true. So we try to figure out > what other people > mean by them. > > Our software can tell us when it has a contradiction in mind, > and we can read > the results of what it says and compare it to things we know. > > Up to a point, the more we document vocabularies in real > human-readable ways > (meaningful comments, not just a URI fragment that might look > a bit like a > word) the easier it is for third parties to understand how > something is meant > to be used. But as Jose Ramon Aguëra points out, you need to > actually check > how the thing is being used, and be prepared to adapt in an > evolutionary > feedback cycle - replace things that don't work and try to > explain how to > migrate data to the replacement... (foaf:lastname) Do you have any on-line references for Jose Ramon Aguëra's work that points this out? > There is a criticism of the Semantic Web that this process > can never be > finished. This is true, but irrelevant. I believe it is true *and* relevant. But I would agree that the semantic web will thrive in spite of it. It is a problem that can be addressed. I am looking for references of people who are working on solutions. I think I have found the right topic to search with, "Meaning Negotiation and Coordination". There is a workshop to be held at 3rd International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC-2004) http://dit.unitn.it/~bouquet/ISWC-04-MCN/ > The criticism itself, > and pretty > much all human communication, needs to be revised from time > to time if it is > going to be valid and comprehensible information. > > There are some things in OWL that help automate this process - ways of > versioning things that can be handled semi-automagically. > Understanding the > provenance of a property definition and being able to deal > with it in a > trust-aware web will help more. As people use URIs more in a > single, global > framework we are getting to understand the consequences, and > modifying our > usage. But it's a slow process to get consensus around the > world - even the > fraction of the world who use the Web to produce semantically enriched > information in RDF. And it isn't an exact science. Still, it > only has to be > better than what we have now to be better... > > Cheers > > Chaals >
Received on Tuesday, 3 August 2004 07:31:08 UTC