Re: Proposed response to Golbeck regarding imports issue

At 4:25 PM -0400 5/21/03, Jeff Heflin wrote:
>Jim,
>
>I'll take your word that the ontology can't be divided into components
>that aren't tightly intertwined. However, I did say in my proposed
>response:
>
>"Even if this is not the case, and in effect, all files had to import
>all
>of the others, this should not matter for many tools. Imports only
>really matters to reasoners, and even then only those that are concerned
>with completeness. For example, an editor does not have to follow
>imports links. Additionally, an incomplete reasoner (and many reasoners
>may be incomplete in various ways, but still be valuable) might choose
>not follow these links either."
>

<Chair hat ON>

Where in the documents are you proposing we put this?  What of the 
documents are you quoting -- I remind you what Dan keeps pounding 
into us -- we're not just sending people answers, we're making sure 
our documents will address their comments.

>Maybe I should have led off with that and simply suggested she divide
>the ontology along subject area (e.g., Anantomy, Disease, Drugs, etc.)
>even though these areas still import each other.

again, she will figure out how to do her work - our response needs to 
say what she needs to read, or better, what we will put in so other 
people with her concerns will know what to do about it as well.

>
>As far as the suggested rewordings go, you are right, my current wording
>for Guide is still misleading. I had merely focused on the specific
>problems Jennifer mentioned when discussing that passage. I didn't
>consider how the rest of it related to her other issues. How about
>changing
>
>"Importing another ontology brings the entire set of assertions provided
>by that ontology into the current ontology."
>
>to:
>
>"If an ontology imports another ontology then it virtually includes the
>meaning of the imported ontology."

I doubt that wording change would satisfy her - what is "virtually" 
(and the meaning concern you have below).  My suggestion is that 
something like what you wrote above (about the tools) needs to go 
somewhere in our documents (probably ref) to make this point clear. 
I would consider that likely to be an appropriate response.
>
>Hopefully our formalists like Peter and Pat won't have a fit with my use
>of "meaning" here, or will suggest a better option. However, I don't
>think we should throw around words like entailment, interpretation and
>satisfaction in the Guide.
>
>Jeff
>
>p.s. I have a draft comment to Dave Becket too, but I am waiting for a
>response from Peter on an apparent omission from S&AS before I complete
>and post it.
>

Again, remember that our goal is to make our documents better when we 
answer people, not just to address the particular concern of a 
particular issue raiser on a one-to-one basis

  -JH
-- 
Professor James Hendler				  hendler@cs.umd.edu
Director, Semantic Web and Agent Technologies	  301-405-2696
Maryland Information and Network Dynamics Lab.	  301-405-6707 (Fax)
Univ of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742	  240-731-3822 (Cell)
http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/hendler

Received on Thursday, 22 May 2003 03:25:51 UTC