Re: Temporal validitity of subject indicators?

Hi Robert,

Unsure if this fits to Andrew's original question, but you mentioned
"glue maps", so let me express my unqualified opinion. ;)

[...]
> a. hold only topics
> b. every topic must have at least two subject identifiers
[...]
> b. every topic must have at least two subject identifiers and no other characteristics

Glue topic maps just delay the problem. They are nice if you think
"one topic map per doc"-centric and you have complete control over
your environment and you can ensure that nobody writes an evil glue
map which merges your complete topic map into one topic.

I think Patrick is right that "merging" is the problem, or the lack of
unmerge.

What's nice about RDF: They don't merge. :) You can still get a
subject-centric view from RDF (collect all statements where X is the
subject or object).

They solve the "sameness" problem with an ontology. I find that very
nice and it avoids irreversible merges.

TMRM suffers less from the merging problem since it keeps the original
information (it creates a merged *view*) than TMDM where distinct
topics are collapsed into one.

Best regards,
Lars
-- 
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