[Tdwg-tag] Ontology Fever medicines: (was: Primary Objects as XML Structures or OWL Classes)

[Ricardo Scachetti Pereira]

  Excellent post, Steve! Many thanks.

Recently, I've came across a good recipe against Ontology Fever 
condition (which, by the way, has a cousin strain in the XML Schema 
world, too). It's on the last slide of the presentation named Ontology 
Engineering by Dr. Jeremy Rogers from the University of Manchester 
(http://www.co-ode.org/resources/tutorials/intro/slides/OntologyEngineering.ppt). 
It was part of the GUID-1 workshop homework. I copy it here:

- Ontologies are conceptualisation of domains for use on computers TO DO 
SOME TASK(S): Always ask “What’s it for?”
- Perfection and completeness will seduce you. Only build what’s useful.

Sorry, I don't want to disturb the original discussion thread. Carry on.

Cheers,

Ricardo


Steven Perry wrote:

 >Additionally there is the temptation with RDF to catch what I call
 >Ontology Fever. In terminal cases, this disease results in an obsession
 >with using OWL Full to model the entire universe reductively at the
 >level of the laws of physics. Any distributed data network afflicted by
 >this disease is destined to die.
 >