2011/4/28 Steve Baskauf steve.baskauf@vanderbilt.edu:
As a point of clarification, the class dsw:IndividualOrganism as we have defined it in DSW does not specify that an instance of the class must actually be an individual organism [...] At one point we considered using the name TaxonomicallyHomogeneousEntity, but that seemed unwieldy.
If that's what it is, then that's what it should be called, in my opinion. To have the term InvidualOrganism not actually mean "individual organism" is asking for trouble. Call it what it is, then try to think of a better term. But don't use the wrong term just because it's less unwieldy.
That's how I name things, as a programmer (not an ontology-creator). In general, if I find that a thing is hard to name, then I don't really understand what it represents. Some concepts are simply unwieldy, though, but the name should still be accurate.
My two cents - no doubt worth less. :)
///ark Web Applications Developer Center for Applied Biodiversity Informatics California Academy of Sciences