[xtm-wg] Re : Topic Naming Constraint (again)

["Bernard Vatant" <universimmedia@wanadoo.fr>]

My previous answer was written before reading Steves' and Michel's
interventions.

I am somehow forced to reinder to all these arguments about strength of
scope, and benefit for authors to clearly define names they give to Topics.
As a "pedagogue" I *have* to agree on the benefit of forcing somehow people
to find proper name for things. Unless we throw away ontologies. But it
does not change my opinion that merging based on names alone, even scoped
ones, is at high risks of inconsistencies.
But I'm afraid the examples given in the debate are only taken in "first
floor" topics, that is simple topics which would be given plain names in
natural language. I think we have to imagine the full strength of the
paradigm will show when managing Topics of upper conceptual level, like
statements on Topics, statements on statements, topics of which subjects
are associations, and so on.

Let's take an imaginary - but non that much farfetched - example :

In 2003, famous Dr K. writes a best-seller after his son, a serial killer,
has been sentenced to death and executed in Texas. In this book, he fully
arguments against the death penalty. A raging debate is following the
release of this book.

"Opinion of Dr K. about death penalty, as expressed in its famous
best-seller" makes quite a good non-adressable subject for a widely
documented Topic, with many occurrences in local, national and
international media. And suppose this Topic could be included in some
Amnesty International Topic Map, playing some role in some "argumenting"
association.

Will such a subject be identified/searched/retrieved through its full
name(s) - scoped or not ? Or is it doomed to be split in "namable" subjects
and so many Topics : Dr K. ; Texas ; death penalty etc ?

I imagine too that as soon as "little" Topic Maps will be released on-line,
many authors will prefer to use these Maps - as a whole - as addressable
subjects, leading to a sort of fractal structure, maybe more manageable,
than merging Topics until they grow out of human readibility. And will they
need - and will they be able - to put "meaningful names" on them ?

Only questions ... Maybe these examples are too far away from present
applications. But I guess we try to build something which is here to stay,
so we've better try and imagine a little what questions will raise next and
what users will do of it, and if the tool is forged to tackle them or not.

Good night

---------------------------------------
Bernard Vatant
bernard@universimmedia.com
www.universimmedia.com
"Building Knowledge"
---------------------------------------



To Post a message, send it to:   xtm-wg@eGroups.com

To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: xtm-wg-unsubscribe@eGroups.com