ISSUE-160

Last Call Comment: Allowing collections in semantic relationships

State:
CLOSED
Product:
SKOS
Raised by:
Antoine Isaac
Opened on:
2008-10-04
Description:
Raised by Doug Tudhope in [1]

While SKOS collections represents best practice in thesaurus construction, many
prominent existing thesauri (and related KOS) do not follow the SKOS collections
semantics. Instead, they model guide terms, facet indicators etc as part of a
hierarchy using standard Broader/Narrower relationships. This creates a problem
in converting such existing KOS into SKOS. From discussions it appears other
people have come to a similar judgment in converting such cases to SKOS – being
reluctant to change the existing structure of a KOS designed by a third party.
The pragmatic decision is often to create a (nonSKOS) property of a concept, to
say essentially, ‘NOT_FOR_INDEXING’. This allows a basic distinction to be made
between a facet indicator (or guide term) and a concept available for indexing.

Can we consider if something like this could be introduced into SKOS to
facilitate conversion of many legacy KOS? The primer can always encourage the
full collections approach as best practice.

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swd-wg/2008Oct/0062.html
Related emails:
  1. ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from dean+cgi@w3.org on 2008-10-04)
  2. Re: Last Call: SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Reference; SKOS Primer updated -- SKOS comment (from aisaac@few.vu.nl on 2008-10-04)
  3. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from alistair.miles@zoo.ox.ac.uk on 2008-10-23)
  4. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from aisaac@few.vu.nl on 2008-10-23)
  5. proposal to resolve remaining no change and editorial comments (from alistair.miles@zoo.ox.ac.uk on 2008-10-23)
  6. Re: proposal to resolve remaining no change and editorial comments (from sean.bechhofer@manchester.ac.uk on 2008-10-23)
  7. ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from alistair.miles@zoo.ox.ac.uk on 2008-11-06)
  8. RE: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from dstudhope@glam.ac.uk on 2008-11-16)
  9. [All] Agenda - Nov 18 2008 SWD telecon - 1600 UTC (from baker@sub.uni-goettingen.de on 2008-11-17)
  10. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from alistair.miles@zoo.ox.ac.uk on 2008-11-22)
  11. [SKOS] Update on Last Call Comments (from alistair.miles@zoo.ox.ac.uk on 2008-12-02)
  12. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from aisaac@few.vu.nl on 2008-12-02)
  13. RE: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from dstudhope@glam.ac.uk on 2008-12-03)
  14. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from alistair.miles@zoo.ox.ac.uk on 2008-12-04)
  15. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from alistair.miles@zoo.ox.ac.uk on 2008-12-04)
  16. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from alistair.miles@zoo.ox.ac.uk on 2008-12-04)
  17. RE: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from dstudhope@glam.ac.uk on 2008-12-04)
  18. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from aisaac@few.vu.nl on 2008-12-04)
  19. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from L.Will@willpowerinfo.co.uk on 2008-12-04)
  20. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from agray@dcs.gla.ac.uk on 2008-12-04)
  21. RE: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from Johan.De-smedt@tenforce.com on 2008-12-05)
  22. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from aisaac@few.vu.nl on 2008-12-15)
  23. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from L.Will@willpowerinfo.co.uk on 2008-12-15)
  24. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from aisaac@few.vu.nl on 2008-12-16)
  25. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from aisaac@few.vu.nl on 2008-12-16)
  26. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from aisaac@few.vu.nl on 2008-12-16)
  27. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from christophe_dupriez@yahoo.fr on 2008-12-16)
  28. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from baker@sub.uni-goettingen.de on 2008-12-16)
  29. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from aida@acorweb.net on 2008-12-16)
  30. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from christophe_dupriez@yahoo.fr on 2008-12-16)
  31. RE: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from Johan.De-smedt@tenforce.com on 2008-12-16)
  32. RE: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from christophe_dupriez@yahoo.fr on 2008-12-16)
  33. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from aisaac@few.vu.nl on 2008-12-16)
  34. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from aisaac@few.vu.nl on 2008-12-16)
  35. RE: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from Johan.De-smedt@tenforce.com on 2008-12-16)
  36. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from L.Will@willpowerinfo.co.uk on 2008-12-16)
  37. RE: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from rob.tice@k-int.com on 2008-12-16)
  38. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from christophe_dupriez@yahoo.fr on 2008-12-16)
  39. Why RDF? was: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from ehs@pobox.com on 2008-12-16)
  40. Re: Why RDF? was: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from aisaac@few.vu.nl on 2008-12-16)
  41. Re: Why RDF? was: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from L.Will@willpowerinfo.co.uk on 2008-12-16)
  42. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from aisaac@few.vu.nl on 2008-12-16)
  43. Re: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships/best practice role of SKOS (from aida@acorweb.net on 2008-12-16)
  44. Re: Why RDF? was: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from alistair.miles@zoo.ox.ac.uk on 2008-12-17)
  45. Re: Why RDF? was: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from danbri@danbri.org on 2008-12-22)
  46. Re: Why RDF? was: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from L.Will@willpowerinfo.co.uk on 2008-12-22)
  47. Re: Why RDF? was: ISSUE-160: Allowing collections in semantic relationships (from danbri@danbri.org on 2008-12-22)

Related notes:

2008-11-10: ACTION: Accept

2008-11-10: CHANGE-TYPE: None

2008-12-02: RESOLUTION: The requirement to indicate that some concepts are not intended for use in indexing was raised in the SKOS Use Cases and Requirements document. Meeting this requirement was then discussed as ISSUE-46. The working group resolved to close this requirement because all matters related to indexing were deemed out of scope for SKOS, and better treated by vocabularies such as Dublin Core [3] or other third party vocabularies. We propose to make no change to the SKOS Reference.

2008-12-02: COMMENTER-RESPONSE: Accept

2008-12-02: The commenter has not asked for changes to the SKOS reference, but has requested guidance be added to the SKOS Primer regarding conversion of existing vocabularies to SKOS where those vocabularies use "guide terms" or "facet indicators". Because only changes to the SKOS Primer are requested, the editors deem this issue closed with respect to the SKOS Reference.