[tdwg-content] Ontology

[Peter DeVries]

One of the goals of my work is to create data structures that allow me to do
useful queries.

For example:

1) I would like to be able to query for occurrences of a species, not simply
occurrences of a particular name string.
2) I would like to be able to query for a list of possible candidate species
based on a particular latitude and longitude.
3) I would like to make related, but not identical entities, "findable" by
linking to them using skos:closeMatch or some future non-entailing version
of owl:sameAs
4) The data structure should leverage existing, widely used LOD
vocabularies, to take advantage of those systems and tools that understand
them.
5) To minimize ambiguity and increase triple store efficiency, controlled
vocabularies should be represented using URI's rather than literals

It is these kinds of goals and use cases that determine the best way to
organize and structure the data.

What I still don't understand is why some think that we can arrive at a
standard that can be all things to all people without a set of use cases and
example data sets.

I would also like examples of why using things like SKOS will result in an
unusable standard.

There are issues with SKOS and FOAF which are being worked out on the
public-lod list.

There are also a number of ways to work around some of the potential
problems with SKOS and FOAF.

In my experience it seems as if the TDWG standards process is broken.

At various times I have tried to help, but at the end of the day I need
something that works.

Respectfully,

- Pete



On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 7:29 AM, Roger Hyam <rogerhyam at mac.com> wrote:

> Hi Lee,
>
> Harmonizing TDWG standards is a technical intervention but what is it a
> solution to? We must do this in order to . . . . . .
>
> All the best,
>
> Roger
>
>
>
>
>
> On 13 Nov 2010, at 23:47, Lee Belbin <leebelbin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Re (0) - fair point Roger, but as I said (implied maybe) in my last post,
> surely
> > the most significant use case is the harmonization of old and new TDWG
> > standards?! Your 'stool' analogy is currently missing at least one leg.
> >
> > Lee
> >
> > Lee Belbin
> > Geospatial Team Leader
> > Atlas of Living Australia
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > tdwg-content mailing list
> > tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org
> > http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content
> _______________________________________________
> tdwg-content mailing list
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>



-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------
Pete DeVries
Department of Entomology
University of Wisconsin - Madison
445 Russell Laboratories
1630 Linden Drive
Madison, WI 53706
TaxonConcept Knowledge Base <http://www.taxonconcept.org/> / GeoSpecies
Knowledge Base <http://lod.geospecies.org/>
About the GeoSpecies Knowledge Base <http://about.geospecies.org/>
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