On 9 Jul 2008, at 12:27, Dan Brickley wrote:
Harry Halpin wrote:
Hugh Glaser wrote:
Thanks guys, a really interesting and important discussion.
However, after the last couple of postings I have the feeling I
may agree
with both of you.
Is that possible?
Bijan et. al. are right about the semantics of owl:sameAs, but as
I've said before, I think that something weaker needs to be coined
("lod:equivalentTo") that states that two URIs refer to the same
thing but that any semantic entailments *may* not hold (i.e. user
beware). That's a dangerous thing, I agree, but it seems to be
what the Linked Data community needs and what's happening
organically in the wild with the (ab)use of owl:sameAs.
Never mind the 'semantic entailments' bit for now. If your new
property is designed for saying that the two URIs refer to the same
thing, then it simply means (at the prose level) what owl:sameAs
says more formally. That's too strong to be a useful addition. You
can't simply say in the English prose "lod:equivalentTo is for when
two descriptions are of the same thing (but please don't tell the
machines that it means this!)". Well you can but I advise against
it...
I suggest instead a property "thingMap".
label "thingMap"
comment "a thing; either another very similar thing, or the exact
self-same thing."
notes: this property can be used to indicate either the close
similarity of two things being described, as well as in situations
where owl:sameAs is applicable, ie. when there is only one thing.
The notion of 'similarity' is left broad, but the expectation is
that it will find use for making mapping claims when an owl:sameAs
claim might not be easily justifiable.
Plausible?
I don't know :) I presume people want some guidance on what thingMap
*does*, i.e., how it changes the answers they get.
Here's my harebrained thought: Let's start with "seeAlso". "seeAlso"
suggests that you might look at this other thing for some reason or
other. Some tools follow and pull in seeAlsos, and some don't.
One could try to refine seeAlso in a variety of ways.
"seeAlsoThisTermWhichWhileSpeltDifferentlyReallyIsTheSameAsMyTerm".
"seeAlsoThisVariantDefinitionAndSpellingOfMyTerm".
"seeAlsoAndAdmireGreatly". Etc. "seeAlsoAndBlindlyMerge".
Personally, I'd like to see, er, seeAlso turn into a non-logical
operator that would give import like directives.
Cheers,
Bijan.
