I have two core concerns about many of the dialogues on this list and which might be worthy of discussion in the Summit:
Firstly,
What strikes me about many of these dialogues is the missed and mixed messages between ‘ontologists’ who don’t clearly understand certain subject matter; and subject-matter experts who don’t understand aspects of formal modelling, and both with varying degree of professionalism or amateurism.
I do not think it is the role of an ‘ontologist’, however defined, to substitute their (sometimes) limited experience of a subject domain for that of someone who knows the domain; but should rather be to offer approaches, methods, and tools to help everyone model that domain.
Likewise, I do not think it is the role of a subject matter expert (again, however defined) to substitute their often limited modelling skills for that of someone who knows what ontology modelling is about and how to do it well.
Secondly,
I remain baffled by the terms (and the presumed concepts behind them – which are *not* clear at all) of ‘ontology engineer’ and ‘ontology engineering’. I do not think that one can ‘engineer’ an ontology any more than one can engineer a meeting: one can bring skills, methods and tools to the meeting (as Chair of a meeting for example) and can make sometimes significant progress even in ignorance of the subject of the meeting – if the purpose of the role of Chair is to help the meeting to come to some conclusion. However, once a Chair starts to pronounce on matters and get involved in the substance of a meeting, those skills and methods become overshadowed by their ignorance or partisanship.
I fear that similar processes abound in many discussions on this list – initial helpful hands in modelling questions degenerate into generalised and often not very informed discussions around particular concepts.
I look primarily to this list and forum, for discussions around modelling theory, ideas, methods and tools; sometimes for enlightenment about edge cases in definition of core terms or new thinking around the core subject of ontology; With all the respect for the professionals on the list, I am not likely to ask here for advice about which are the ‘correct’ concepts to use in my business or whether I have defined them ‘correctly’, any more than I would ask a librarian whether I will like a particular book!
Best regards, and a Happy New Year to all,
Peter
Peter F Brown
Independent Consultant
Transforming our Relationships with Information Technologies
Web www.peterfbrown.com
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