Matthew, Pat:
Very valuable points. (01)
To conclude, for me at least, I think my point about "authority" and
"governance" should not be misinterpreted: I am definitely *not* an
advocate for a single, top-down "authoritative" view of the world. It
just won't work, is not desirable and is a fool's errand. I'm happy to
see a thousand ontologies bloom, but the question of "who says this is
so?" is still valid, even if the ontology is built by a community of
one: my concern is that there are methods of discovering, negotiating
and arbitrating between differing definitions and views of the world (or
"your" part-view of the world) in a way that any user of someone else's
ontology has some grasp of: how authoritative is the source/ who else
shares this view/definition and how can I refer unambiguously to your
definition? For example, the primitive RDF way of planting a flag in the
ground - using a URL - and claiming that for your own, works up to a
point (apart from its fundamental failing of not distinguishing between
a resource and a pointer to or description of the resource - but that's
another debate), as does giving unique identifiers to every term on
WordNet, Wikipedia (even with its disambiguation pages, a neat touch
AFAIC). The bottom-up approaches of Flickr, etc serve a value but there
are so many "close encounters" of different terms that mean the same, or
vice versa, it seems that a lot of potential network effect is lost. The
Web succeeded by deploying three simple protocols together with very
fault tolerant parsers, browsers handling poorly formed HTML. What I
guess I'm looking for is an equally simple set of protocols that can
give more lay users a sense of "OK, I get it more or less - these are
the basic ground rules and off I go...". Idealistic, maybe; Necessary,
surely. (02)
Regards, (03)
Peter (04)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx
Sent: 20 March 2007 09:36
To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology and methodology (05)
Dear Peter, (06)
Let me start to try to answer your questions: (07)
> who should be involved in ontology development? (08)
MW: Domain experts - to give a lay description of requirements (09)
MW: philosophical ontology experts - to perform ontological analysis
of the requirements (010)
MW: Logic experts - to make sure that the axioms say what they are
supposed to and are well written (011)
MW: Project managers - to keep the show moving along and manage
issues and their resolution (in my experience it take a special
kind of project manager to be helpful with ontology projects) (012)
> What qualifies them? and how can you judge? (013)
MW: Probably peer recognition. (014)
> How do you start to develop an ontology? (015)
MW: Find someone with a problem that needs an ontology to solve
it and is prepared to pay for having the solution. (016)
MW: After that, look round for some starting points that are
better than a blank piece of paper. (017)
> Should you? (018)
MW: Yes. The potential savings from applying ontologies to
appropriate problems are significant. (019)
> How do you introduce quality control? (020)
MW: It is just a matter of ordinary quality management. Users
and other interested parties are invited to identify issues.
An issue identifies a defect (something that prevents the
ontology from fulfilling its purpose - of course that means
your ontology has to have a purpose). Not liking an
ontological choice is not an issue unless you can show there
is something that choice means cannot be supported. (021)
> Who decides? (022)
MW: I think Pat is right about Mavens. I think you need 3 or
4 of these to build an ontology. There should be little change
in the make up over time. These guys get to decide how to meet the
requirements and how to respond to the issues that are raised. (023)
> Where's the process when you need one? (024)
MW: Well there are lots of processes you need, and agree rules.
One of ours is that one counter-example is enough. We also
(for ISO 15926) have the ISO process for exposing the ontology
and managing issues, and recognising progress and status.
>
> Any answers on *these* questions? ;-)
>
> Regards,
>
> Peter
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Pat Hayes
> Sent: 19 March 2007 21:04
> To: Cassidy, Patrick J.
> Cc: [ontolog-forum]
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology and methodology
>
> >My advice is to boldly go and do what makes sense in your domain....
> >It is unlikely you will run into
> >logical contradictions, and in engineering the information
> >infrastructure, aesthetics should take a second place to
> >comprehensibility and efficiency.
>
> +1. Should be written in pokerwork and hung over the entry door of
> every Ontology Engineering Laboratory :-)
>
> Pat Hayes
> --
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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>
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