RE: What do the ontologists want?

pat hayes wrote:
>
> Can you (or anyone) say why the ability to quote is considered a
> practical necessity? From where I am standing it seems an arcane and
> exotic ability, not one that is of central practical importance. What
> is the practical utility of being able to refer to a predicate,
> rather than use it?

In reading a particularly apropos and curious email discussion  regarding
the history of XML
http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200105/msg00375.html, it occurred to
me that representing email exchanges (http://www.openhealth.org/xmtp# )is
another practical example of how representation of quoting is generally
useful.

Indeed it is considered good ettiquite to start one's response with an
attribution. Thankfully most archiving packages do provide a thread level
view. (e.g.
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-logic/2001May/thread.html#31)

And of course I second, or third, the absolute need for this in healthcare
documentation.

Jonathan Borden
The Open Healthcare Group
http://www.openhealth.org