It is interesting that <meta charset="utf-8">Jonathan Reese sees the semantic web and the LOD cloud in a different way that Tim Berners-Lee.<div><br></div><div>The issue with LOD semantics is being worked out on the public-lod list.</div>
<div><br></div><div>With the exception of some of the LOD services that do inferencing on cloud data, all inferencing is currently done on one machine with all the relevant data loaded.</div><div><br></div><div>If you don't like SKOS or some other problematic ontology entailment you can simply:</div>
<div><br></div><div>1) Use a modified version of SKOS for your own inferencing.</div><div><br></div><div>Also it would be interesting to see some real world inferencing using a data set markup in the current DarwinCore that demonstrates:</div>
<div><br></div><div>1) That it works</div><div>2) That it works in a useful way</div><div><br></div><div>So in addition to failing to work within the standards of the larger informatics community TDWG*, is failing to demonstrate that it has a working, useful standard.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Pointing out potential problems with SKOS etc. does not demonstrate that you have anything better.</div><div><br></div><div>If the opinions of the real experts in the semantic web community matter then you might want to consider what they think of my work.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Respectfully,</div><div><br></div><div>- Pete</div><div><br></div><div>* It is welcome news to me that TDWG is now going to follow the advice of the semantic web community<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">
On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 11:29 AM, Bob Morris <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:morris.bob@gmail.com">morris.bob@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
Jonathan Reese, an employee of the Science Commons and TDWG member<br>
(and who knows way more about semantic web than I do) recently sent me<br>
this. I copy it here with his permission. Each of the paragraphs seems<br>
to me to be germane in different ways to the discussions about what<br>
should be an Individual. For those not deep into RDF, for the word<br>
"axiom", you could loosely understand "rule", although that term also<br>
has technical meaning that is sometimes a little different. Jonathan<br>
raises an important use case in the second paragraph, which is data<br>
quality control. That's a topic of interest to many, but especially<br>
those following the new Annotation Interest Group. Originally, this<br>
was part of a discussion we had about my favorite hobby horse,<br>
rdfs:domain. He is not on my side. When people who know more than I<br>
do about something are skeptical of my arguments about it, I usually<br>
suspend disbelief and temporarily adopt their position.<br>
<br>
Jonathan's first point is pretty much what Paul Murray observed<br>
yesterday in response to a question of Kevin Richards.<br>
<br>
<br>
"(a) subclassing is the way in RDFS or OWL you would connect the more<br>
specific to the less specific, so that you can apply general theorems<br>
to a more specific entity. That is, a well-documented data set would<br>
be rendered using classes and properties that were very specific so as<br>
to not lose information, and then could be merged with a<br>
badly-documented data set by relaxing to more general classes and<br>
properties using subclass and subproperty knowledge.<br>
<br>
(b) axioms (i.e. specificity) are valuable not only for expressing<br>
operational and inferential semantics, but also for "sanity checking"<br>
e.g. consistency, satisfiability, Clark/Parsia integrity checks (<br>
<a href="http://clarkparsia.com/pellet/icv/" target="_blank">http://clarkparsia.com/pellet/icv/</a> ), and similar. Being able to<br>
detect ill-formed inputs is incredibly valuable.<br>
<br>
People talk past one another because there are many distinct use cases<br>
for RDF and assumptions are rarely surfaced. For L(O)D, you're<br>
interested in making lots of links with little effort. Semantics is<br>
the enemy because it drives up costs. For semantic web, on the other<br>
hand, you're interested in semantics, i.e. understanding and<br>
documenting the import of what's asserted and making a best effort to<br>
only assert things that are true, even in the presence of open world<br>
assumption and data set extensibility. Semantics is expensive because<br>
it requires real thought and often a lot of reverse engineering.<br>
People coming from these two places will never be able to get along."<br>
---Jonathan Rees in email to Bob Morris<br>
================<br>
<br>
<br>
Bob Morris<br>
<br>
--<br>
Robert A. Morris<br>
Emeritus Professor of Computer Science<br>
UMASS-Boston<br>
100 Morrissey Blvd<br>
Boston, MA 02125-3390<br>
Associate, Harvard University Herbaria<br>
email: <a href="mailto:morris.bob@gmail.com">morris.bob@gmail.com</a><br>
web: <a href="http://bdei.cs.umb.edu/" target="_blank">http://bdei.cs.umb.edu/</a><br>
web: <a href="http://etaxonomy.org/mw/FilteredPush" target="_blank">http://etaxonomy.org/mw/FilteredPush</a><br>
<a href="http://www.cs.umb.edu/~ram" target="_blank">http://www.cs.umb.edu/~ram</a><br>
phone (+1) 857 222 7992 (mobile)<br>
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</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>---------------------------------------------------------------<br>Pete DeVries<br>Department of Entomology<br>University of Wisconsin - Madison<br>445 Russell Laboratories<br>
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