Re: [xtm-wg] Topic Naming Constraint question

[Steve Pepper <pepper@ontopia.net>]

At 10:39 22/02/01 +0100, Lars Marius Garshol wrote:

>As I've posted earlier I have a topic map of free XML tools in XTM
>format, and when processing this I discovered a problem with these two
>topics:
>
>...
>
>They represent two different standards, with different acronyms, and
>yet they share a common base name (the expansion of the acronym).
>According to the topic naming constraint, these two topics should be
>merged, which is NOT what I want.
>
>The question is: what is an appropriate scope to use on these two base
>names to avoid having the topics forcibly merged?

This is an interesting question. <plug>In fact, it's one of the
issues Kal and I will be discussing in our tutorial on topic map
design in Austin.</plug>

Briefly, our advice is that the following strategy seems to work
under most circumstances:

(1) If the name-conflicting topics are of different types,
     scope by type (e.g. "Madama Butterfly" the opera and "Madama
     Butterfly" the play)

(2) If the name-conflicting topics are of the same type, and topics
     of that type tend to participate in associations of a certain,
     what-might-be-termed "primary" association type, scope by the
     topic associated in that particular way. For example, one of the
     primary characteristics of an opera is the composer who wrote it.
     Thus, the name conflict between Puccini's "La Bohème" and
     Leoncavallo's "La Bohème" could be resolved by scoping by composer.

(3) If there is no association type that qualifies as being "primary",
     consider scoping the conflicting names by the topics themselves.

Option (3) is probably the one I would recommend in your case, Lars
Marius:

   <topic id="S_XMLQL">
     <instanceOf>
       <topicRef xlink:href="#TMTT_Standard"></topicRef>
       </instanceOf>
     <baseName>
       <baseNameString>XML-QL</baseNameString>
       </baseName>
     <baseName>
==>   <scope><topicRef xlink:href="#S_XMLQL"/></scope>
       <baseNameString>XML Query Language</baseNameString>
       </baseName>
     </topic>

   <topic id="S_XQL">
     <instanceOf>
       <topicRef xlink:href="#TMTT_Standard"></topicRef>
       </instanceOf>
     <baseName>
       <baseNameString>XQL</baseNameString>
       </baseName>
     <baseName>
==>   <scope><topicRef xlink:href="#S_XQL"/></scope>
       <baseNameString>XML Query Language</baseNameString>
       </baseName>
     </topic>

Note that if you really want to have (something resembling) the
conflicting names in the unconstrained scope, you can qualify the
strings themselves (e.g. "XML Query Language (XQL)" and
"XML Query Language (XMLQL)").

If anyone has other ideas, I for one would be interested to
hear them.

Steve

--
Steve Pepper, Chief Technology Officer <pepper@ontopia.net>
Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34/WG3  Editor, XTM (XML Topic Maps)
Ontopia AS, Maridalsveien 99B, N-0461 Oslo, Norway.
http://www.ontopia.net/  phone: +47-22805465  GSM: +47-90827246


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