W3C

– DRAFT –
RDF & SPARQL WG biweekly meeting

04 September 2025

Attendees

Present
AndyS, doerthe, Dominik_T, Enrico, gtw, lisp, niklasl, olaf, ora, pchampin, pfps, Souri, TallTed
Regrets
fsasaki, gkellogg, ktk
Chair
ora
Scribe
pfps

Meeting minutes

Approval of last week’s minutes: 1

ora: any concerns with minutes?

<ora> PROPOSAL: Approve last week's minutes

<ora> +1

<olaf> +1

<gtw> +1

<lisp> +1

<pfps> +1

<AndyS> +1

<tl> +1

<TallTed> +1

<Enrico> +1

<Dominik_T> +1

<pchampin> +1

<niklasl> +1

<Souri> +1

RESOLUTION: Approve last week's minutes

Identifying issues to solve before CR 2

ora: line item 1 - what are we going to do?

<TallTed> w3c/rdf-star-wg#169

<gb> Issue 169 definition of reifiers is non-normative and seems vague (by rat10) [needs discussion] [propose closing] [ms:CR]

w3c/rdf-star-wg#169

tl: there is a PR by Enrico that I haven't seen completely read yet

<pchampin> Enrico's PR: w3c/rdf-semantics#156

<gb> Pull Request 156 Better text in Section 5.3 with the purpose of relating triple terms and asserted triples. (by franconi)

enrico: I created a PR after a conversation with James

enrico: I added some clarification in the text, but no substantive changes

enrico: we could add a class for reifiers

pchampin: I'm -1 on defining a class for reifier because it is syntacti

<niklasl> +1 on "reifier is syntactic"

pchampin: I'm not sure about providing a domain for rdf:reifies

<TallTed> rdf-semantics/pull/156 appears not to have connection to rdf-star-wg/issues/169, at least in github... that is, there is no mention of one in the other

<Enrico> I understand the argument by pchampin, and I agree with him

pchampin: That would be just as vague as reificagtion

pfps: I think we are again in the situation of providing text for others when we are not sure what is wanted

nicklasl: I agree that reifier is syntactic, and vague

niklasl: we don't have a class for the domain of rdfs:label, for example

niklasl: I think that the issue is mostly wording at this point

james: enrico and I had a conversation about the text

pfps: I just find it very frustrating to go on and on without knowing what is wanted

<gb> Pull Request 220 Annotations on assserted triples are based on operational semantics (by rat10) [ms:CR]

<TallTed> and ... w3c/rdf-concepts#220

tl: I posted a comment in w3c/rdf-concepts#220 with my feelings

enrico: I see agreement on PR 156

<AndyS> w3c/rdf-concepts#220 (comment)

enrico: as far as Semantics is concerned rdf:reifies is not special

enrico: all that is there is that its range is rdfs:Proposition

<niklasl> +1 to explain purpose

<tl> pfps: and my comment w3c/rdf-concepts#220 (comment) which tries to concisely describe what I think is needed, was added after your last comment (as of now)

ora: let's try to finish off these issues

ora: what about other issues?

Issue 129 Distinguish the RDF Data Model from the Abstract Syntax (by gkellogg) [ms:CR] [needs discussion] [spec:substantive]

<AndyS> and w3c/rdf-concepts#232

<gb> Pull Request 232 revise to use "abstract data model" to unify "abstract syntax" and "data model" (by lisp)

james: What about w3c/rdf-concepts#129

james: I adopted some changes

james: Peter has already approved the PR

AndyS: james, if this PR is merged can the issue be closed

TallTed: I had an editorial comment

james: I accepted that comment

AndyS: I'll merge the PR

ora: How about moving the datatype definitions?

pchampin: We can close issue

ora: OK

AndyS: The PR needs some work before it can be merged

james: I'll accept the suggested change

Issue 169 Relative IRI Reference should bind to the irelative-ref production (by gkellogg) [ms:CR] [spec:editorial]

ora: what about w3c/rdf-concepts#169

Issue 89 Different parsing of the same absolute IRI with or without base IRI (by Tpt) [ErratumRaised] [ms:CR] [needs discussion]

AndyS: That one is editorial, so I don't see why that is marked as for CR

AndyS: RFC 3986 has some vagueness - there are legal IRIs that don't make much sense for RDF

AndyS: Some of these are treated differently in N-Triples and Turtle because of base issues

<Souri> typo in title of https://github.com/w3c/rdf-concepts/issues/169: irelative-ref -> relative-ref

AndyS: I suggest that we add wording about treating IRI schemas correctly if possible

AndyS: So IRIs that are good will be treated the same, but iffy/unwise/ugly IRIs may be treated differently by different systems

ora: There are parts of the IRI spec that allow divergence

AndyS: This requires definining good IRIs

AndyS: There are also issues related to . and .. path components

<TallTed> Souri -- typo now noted on the issue.

pchampin: We already have some wording related to this

pchampin: Better definitions in this area seem indicated

ora: What is required?

AndyS: I haven't checked the state of the PRs so I'm not sure exactly what is still needed.

<pchampin> "RDF safe IRIs" ?

ora: can we resolve this with some small amount of effort

<pchampin> +1

AndyS: Can we remove the CR label on w3c/rdf-concepts#169

<gb> https://github.com/w3c/rdf-concepts/issues/169

ora: We are relying on other standards and we can't fix all their problems

ora: What do we need to say in our spec ti insulate us from their problems

AndyS: In some sense we are using the RFC for something that it wasn't quite intended to be used for

<TallTed> Souri -- `irelative-ref` is actually correct, there.

ora: An explanation on how we use the RFC would be useful

<niklasl> Relying on formal precision (science) based on a technical environment (engineering) is ... challenging.

AndyS: Pierre-Antoine and I will work on this

ora: Please report back next time

w3c/rdf-concepts#143

<doerthe> w3c/rdf-concepts#236

<gb> Pull Request 236 Issue #143 (Skolemization) (by doerthe)

doerthe: I have something to do on this, and I would like Enrico's comments

ora: What else?

tl: five lines all relate to one issue

pchampin: I looked at RDF Concepts. I didn't find anything about vagueness of rdf:reifies

pchampin: there was progress on requesting horizontal review

pchampin: we are OK with some because nothing involves their area

ora: Pat Hayes said it is OK to forward his email to the mailing list

ora: I will do this after our meeting

enrico: I committed a change to the semantics PR

ora: is there a SPARQL meeting tomorrow

AndyS: yes

ora: adjourn

<pchampin> s/ora: What else?/Topic: AOB

Summary of resolutions

  1. Approve last week's minutes
Minutes manually created (not a transcript), formatted by scribe.perl version 244 (Thu Feb 27 01:23:09 2025 UTC).

Diagnostics

Succeeded: s/nicklasl/niklasl

Succeeded: s/Ithink/I think/

Succeeded: s/finish of /finish off /

Succeeded: s|https://github.com/w3c/rdf-concepts/issues/129|-> Issue 129 Distinguish the RDF Data Model from the Abstract Syntax (by gkellogg) [ms:CR] [needs discussion] [spec:substantive] https://github.com/w3c/rdf-concepts/issues/129

Succeeded: s|https://github.com/w3c/rdf-concepts/issues/169|-> Issue 169 Relative IRI Reference should bind to the irelative-ref production (by gkellogg) [ms:CR] [spec:editorial] https://github.com/w3c/rdf-concepts/issues/169

Succeeded: s|https://github.com/w3c/rdf-turtle/issues/89|-> Issue 89 Different parsing of the same absolute IRI with or without base IRI (by Tpt) [ErratumRaised] [ms:CR] [needs discussion] https://github.com/w3c/rdf-turtle/issues/89

Succeeded: s|AndyS: What about https://github.com/w3c/rdf-concepts/issues/143|

Succeeded: s|https://github.com/w3c/rdf-concepts/issues/143 -> Issue 143 "3.7 Replacing Blank Nodes with IRIs" very misleading (by franconi) [ms:CR] [spec:bug]|

Failed: s/ora: What else?/Topic: AOB

Maybe present: james, nicklasl, tl

All speakers: AndyS, doerthe, enrico, james, nicklasl, niklasl, ora, pchampin, pfps, TallTed, tl

Active on IRC: AndyS, doerthe, Dominik_T, Enrico, gtw, lisp, niklasl, olaf, ora, pchampin, pfps, Souri, TallTed, tl