Re: [tm-pubsubj] Subject identification and ontological commitment : a real-world example

[Lars Marius Garshol <larsga@garshol.priv.no>]

* Bernard Vatant
| 
| This question was at the core of my former proposal to use OWL for
| PSIs.  But when I made that proposal, certainly I pushed too quickly
| the answer before setting clearly the question - certainly at the
| time it was not completely clarified in my mind. Moreover the
| proposal had too much political context to be popular.

Frankly, I still haven't understood what the point of that proposal
is. Maybe I'd understand if I studied it more carefully.

| So let's forget about any language, technical or process solution
| for the moment, and focus on the following questions.

That's probably a good idea anyway.
 
| Q1: Is subject identification independent from ontological
| commitment?

I think it's clear that it is not, but that it's not at all clear,
even after reading your email (sorry!), how this applies to published
subjects.

| Q2: If the answer to Q1 is "no", how can we articulate the two
| concepts in our recommendations?

Dunno. How do *you* think this affects the contents and use of PSIs?
 
| We have addressed in Del 1 the question of subject identifiers and
| subject indicators, but we have not really addressed the question of
| *subject identification*.

Well, is that really for us to address at all? We are working on
helping people assign URIs that identify subjects, and to create
resources that document these assignments. 

How these URIs are used for identification we've left for those who
define other models to decide. So in topic maps there is one way to do
this, in RDF another, in XML no standardized method, but several
ad-hoc ones, and so on.

In my opinion the very furthest we could possibly go in this area is
to provide short, simple guidelines on how to apply PSIs in these
different areas. I'm not sure we should, but maybe that would be good.
It would probably help RDF users, for example.

| Hope that helps to understand what I am about now.

Not really. You've gone through lots of stuff, all of which was clear
and fine, but what issues it raises for the PubSubj TC I don't really
understand. Was it only Q1 and Q2? Or was it Q1, Q2, and the issue of
guidelines for those using PSIs? Or all of those, plus yet more?

-- 
Lars Marius Garshol, Ontopian         <URL: http://www.ontopia.net >
GSM: +47 98 21 55 50                  <URL: http://www.garshol.priv.no >