Re: Terminology Question concerning Web Architecture and Linked Data

Hello Mark,

Mark Baker wrote:
> Hey Stuart,
>
> On 8/13/07, Stuart Williams <skw@hp.com> wrote:
>   
>> Mark,
>>
>> Could you elaborate a little more on the distinction that you are making
>> between 'direct' and 'indirect' reference.
>>     
>
> I just mean what the TAG described here;
>
> http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/#indirect-identification
>   
Ok... good.
>> An example of each would be
>> helpful... and particularly one where the 'direct' references refer to
>> the same thing, but where the corresponding 'indirect' references refer
>> to different things.
>>     
>
> Hmm, I don't see how such an example would shed any light on my issue,
> but hopefully expanding on the example from AWWW might ...
>
> Suppose Nadia had two email addresses, nadia-work@example.com and
> nadia-personal@example.com.  She might use each to *directly*
> identify, respectively, her work and personal email inboxes.  However
> the organizers of a conference might be free to use either to
> *indirectly* identify her person.  But I don't believe it would be
> correct for those organizers to state that those two URIs were
> owl:sameAs because they don't know what either of them directly
> identify.  Even if the conference organizers minted their own URI for
> Nadia - say, http://example.org/~nadia - and so knew exactly
> (directly) what it identified, it still, IMO, would not be correct for
> them to state that their URI was owl:sameAs either of Nadia's mailto
> URIs, again because they don't know what her URI directly identifies.
>   

Actually that was helpful (at least to me). In my post-vacation catch-up 
mode, I had (miss-)read you as speaking of a situation where two URIs 
were being used to 'directly' refer to the same thing whilst being used 
'indirectly' to refer to different things.

I thought you had been arguing against the use of owl:sameAs on the 
grounds that 'indirect' references made using URIs whose 'direct' 
referents are claimed owl:sameAs could be 'indirect' references to 
different things. However, your example describes the 'opposite' situation.

<snip/>
> Mark.
>   
Thanks,

Stuart
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Received on Monday, 13 August 2007 15:09:21 UTC