RE: [topicmaps-comment] Challenge Part 1 - Part 2

[Bernard Vatant <bernard.vatant@mondeca.com>]

Thanks to all who have answered the challenge. 

I won't comment in details on all the propositions. So many people, 
so many opinions ... but I must say the last one by Thomas I feel 
the closest in spirit (a few details differ) to what we did apply in 
Mondeca.

I really do feel more and more that Topic Maps must clearly target 
their field of applications, and that the "fundamentalist" position 
that everything has to be turned into a topic, and every relationship 
into an association, is unsustainable. For example, I maintain that 
it is silly to make a topic out of "30%", even if it is possible in 
theory to do so. 

So what kind of subjects need really to be turned into topics, and 
why other ones should stay as attributes/occurrences/metadata, 
like in Thomas' solution ? 

A pragmatic position is to ask if it makes sense for the user to put 
the subject at the center of the knowledge representation, focus on 
it and see the world (represented in the topic map) from this 
viewpoint. If it makes sense as a center, make it a topic. If it does 
not, forget it.

In the proposed example, it makes sense for example to have a 
view of the world centered on "France Telecom", or "Sweden", or 
"phone market" or "telecommunications" ... but I don't see what 
sense it could make to view the world from "30%" or "possible". 

Bernard



Bernard Vatant - Consultant
bernard.vatant@mondeca.com
Mondeca - "Making Sense of Content"
www.mondeca.com