Re: adding PlainLiteral to the document at http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns

I think the recent "self-describing web" finding and the TAG's recent
action to update the XHTML namespace document to account for RDFa both
reflect the current mood of the TAG, which is (not coincidentally)
consistent with the LOD philosophy. If the TAG were to be consistent I
would expect it to also advocate for discoverability of the RDF spec
from the URIs it defines, requiring a change to every term definition
in the RDF and RDFS (and indeed all W3C) namespace documents. Since
this is out of scope for this group I will confer with Sandro and if
necessary take it up with the TAG.

Jonathan

On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 8:50 PM, Peter F.Patel-Schneider
<pfps@research.bell-labs.com> wrote:
> From: Alan Ruttenberg <alanruttenberg@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: adding PlainLiteral to the document at http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns
> Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 17:34:07 -0500
>
>> On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 6:26 PM, Peter F.Patel-Schneider
>> <pfps@research.bell-labs.com> wrote:
>>> From: Alan Ruttenberg <alanruttenberg@gmail.com>
>>> Subject: Re: adding PlainLiteral to the document at http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns
>>> Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 17:23:44 -0500
>>>
>>>> On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 5:46 PM, Peter F.Patel-Schneider
>>>> <pfps@research.bell-labs.com> wrote:
>>>>> <rdfs:Datatype
>>>>> rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#PlainLiteral">
>>>>>  <rdfs:subClassOf
>>>>>  rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#Literal"/>
>>>>>  <rdfs:isDefinedBy rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"/>
>>>>>  <rdfs:label>Plain Literal</rdfs:label>
>>>>>  <rdfs:comment>The class of RDF plain literal values.</rdfs:comment>
>>>>> </rdfs:Datatype>
>>>>>
>>>>> *********************************
>>>>>
>>>>> Why is the rdfs:isDefinedBy bit above insufficient to satisfy
>>>>
>>>> Because there is no link to the specification. If I encountered this
>>>> piece of rdf, I wouldn't know where to find something a human could
>>>> read to understand what it's about. Speaking as a linked data
>>>> consumer.
>>>>
>>>> -Alan
>>>
>>> So you want to do something *more* for rdf:PlainLiteral than is done for
>>> any of the rest of the RDF vocabulary at
>>> http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns.
>>
>> Yes. I would do it for the other terms too, but that's out of scope.
>> Also all the other terms are defined in the RDF documentation, which
>> is a common starting point. This term is not.
>
> Yes, but they aren't pointed to from the
> http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns
> so why should this new term have special treatment?
>
>>> Of course, I know how to find out something a human can read to
>>> understand what a piece of W3C stuff is about.  It's called Googling.
>>
>> The LOD movement sees a use for browsing rdf documents and presenting
>> useful information to what they browse. While that isn't *my* primary
>> use case, I try to support their need since it costs so little.
>
> Well, here it certainly costs uniformity, unless the other terms are
> similarly treated.
>
> I also don't want to second-guess the original authors of the page, who
> could easily have used the rdfs:seeAlso property if they choose to do
> so.
>
>> Usually.
>>
>> -Alan
>
> peter
>
>
>

Received on Thursday, 4 June 2009 01:53:16 UTC