Re: Temporal validitity of subject indicators?

Robert,

On 5/10/2011 12:23 PM, Robert Cerny wrote:
<snip>
> No, not at all. That is not the problem that i am talking about. The 
> problem i am talking about is of a semiotic nature and does not lie in 
> the realm of technology or semantics. It applies to any reuse of 
> identifiers, but in particular to the current case of reusing URL in 
> linked data or Topic Maps.
> The error that i am talking about happens when a person (the only entity who can assign subject identifiers) mistakenly uses subject identifier A to make statements about subject B. If the "identity distance" between subjects is close. They are hard to distinguish (which the topic map author might not be aware of).
>
> Let me illustrate it with an example: topic map author A1 has a person P1 in mind. He discovers a subject identifier SI1 and thinks "Great, that is P1". But actually it is P2. He creates a topic map an uses SI1 but makes statements about P1. This "act of polluting the subject identifier SI1" in the Topic Maps ecosystem is not a problem of merging, it is a problem of reusing foreign identifiers.
>
OK, it took a while but the "hidden" issue is that you are presuming the 
author of SI1 would always use it "correctly."

I put "correctly" in quotes because the fact of its use is also a 
subject and neither correct no incorrect.

Have you ever forgotten a file name? Or better yet, forget a class name 
that you declared?

How is that different from an author who created an SI and then thinking 
they have it right, use it "incorrectly?"

>> 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).
> Let me repeat: it has nothing to do with the semantic technology. The same problem applies to RDF if identifiers are reused.
>
> The problem i am talking about *can* be solved by the approach i sketched. That there is other subsequent problems which arise when aggregated statements are redistributed in the eco system is a different story.
>
No, see above. The author of an SI can use it incorrectly.

Moreover, to have merging with foreign SIs at all, someone has to make a 
judgment that involves foreign SIs. Your second map.

How is that different from an author using foreign SIs in the first map?

Hope you are having a great day!

Patrick


-- 

Patrick Durusau
patrick-Q/[email protected]
Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)

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