I think I see the issue now. You seem to view an article called "Presidency of Ronald Reagan" as basically a subset of facts about Ronald Reagan - the ones that were true during the time when he was president. This is basically Wikipedia's approach, but it's not the SMW approach. A presidency is not a person, and the two can't be substituted for one another. If the goal of this hypothetical wiki is to hold biographical, encyclopedia-style information, probably the best approach is not to have a "presidency" article at all, and just put everything in "Ronald Reagan"; using n-ary relations when necessary. On the other hand, if you want the wiki to store, say, information on presidential decrees and bills signed, it might make a lot more sense to include that in a "presidency" article.
-Yaron On 5/14/07, Raving <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Yaron Koren" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > On the issues you've presented here, I think a big part of the > > confusion comes from trying to view all content as potential semantic > > data. Obviously an article about Reagan's presidency could mention his > > friendship with Thatcher, and other things that happened during those > > years. But given that they're not properties of the presidency itself, > > they wouldn't be semantic fields in that article; and maybe they > > shouldn't be semantic fields at all. As with many other things in > > information architecture, there's a certain art to figuring out the > > best place to put things, and phrase them; and a lot depends on what > > the wiki is intended for. > > True. But let's say I want to preserve the semantic relations that were in > the section before it was broken out into its own article. They were valid > when they were still part of the Ronald Reagan article, after all, so they > should still have value even after a section of the article is broken out > into its own article. > > As it currently stands, the best way to preserve the relations is to include > them (as empty piped links) in the original article. But the problem I > foresee is that it violates, in a sense, the principle of least astonishment > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Guide_to_writing_better_articles#Pri > nciple_of_least_astonishment). A user who browses through the semantic > system and clicks a link to "Ronald Reagan," based on relations concealed > within that article but actually described textually in the subarticle > "Presidency of Ronald Reagan," would find no information relative to the > relation that brought him there (save in the article's factbox). Ideally > the user should be redirected through the semantic relation to "Presidency > of Ronald Reagan" while keeping the subject of the relation "Ronald Reagan." > > > For the presidency's end date, though, I think the solution is easier: > > replace "left office on date" with "ended on date". > > Yes, but let's presume I want to maintain the old relation names. Perhaps I > want to keep them consistent with other articles that don't have the same > sections broken out into independent articles and still use the former > relation names. That way I can still process, for instance, all of my > articles about presidents of the United States using the same scheme of > relations. > > > -Yaron > > > > > > On 5/14/07, Raving <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > > > > A new question occurred to me today, based on a peripheral comment at > > > http://ontoworld.org/wiki/Talk:N-ary_relations . (I post > > > there as Stormraven.) > > > > > > Let's say I have a lengthy article about a prominent person; the talk > page > > > uses Ronald Reagan for various examples. And within that article there > is a > > > section that's lengthy enough to break out into its own article, such as > > > "Presidency of Ronald Reagan." Now, within that article there might be > > > several relations that properly take Ronald Reagan as the subject, but > now > > > that they're in the new article, they take Presidency of Ronald Reagan > as > > > the subject, like "friend of" --> Margaret Thatcher or "left office on > date" > > > --> January 20, 1989. > > > > > > These relations are now misplaced. To solve the problem, I could use > > > common, non-annotated links in the "Presidency of Ronald Reagan" article > and > > > put the relations back into the Ronald Reagan article, but they'd be > > > empty-piped links (such as [[friend of::Margaret Thatcher| ]] ) because > they > > > don't relate to any links or other text remaining in the article. And > > > there'd probably be a lot of them, a whole cluster of empty-piped links > > > related to information no longer contained in the article. Or I can > leave > > > them in the new article, leading to the semantic interpretation that the > > > presidency of Ronald Reagan left office in 1989 (which almost makes > sense) > > > and that Lady Thatcher was a friend of the presidency of Ronald Reagan > > > (which really doesn't make much sense at all). > > > > > > Is there a way to redirect relations to their proper subjects in such a > > > situation? > > > > > > Wes > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express > > > Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take > > > control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. > > > http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Semediawiki-user mailing list > > > Semediawiki-user@lists.sourceforge.net > > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/semediawiki-user > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express > Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take > control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. > http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ > _______________________________________________ > Semediawiki-user mailing list > Semediawiki-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/semediawiki-user > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. 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