Re: [ontology-summit] Official Communique Feedback Thread

[Gail Hodge <ghodge@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Peter, I'm sorry I missed the meeting yesterday. I ended up with the flu. I wasn't able to join today since I'm on my way to California. I think the Communique is looking good and I applaud the attempt to define ontologies as somewhat distinct from semantic web technologies. That causes a lot of issues between practitioners, senior managers and vendors. Gail Hodge

On Apr 17, 2011 10:51 AM, "Peter Yim" <peter.yim@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Lead Editors & All,
>
> I've just moved an updated snapshot (take 4 / snapshot as at:
> 2011.04.17-07:00 PDT) of the Communique draft over to the wiki ...
> at: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OntologySummit2011_Communique/Draft
>
> Again, the evolving Communique draft (google-doc) is (still)
> at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z1oyuFxRfhJrzaEcORPT5hWfQqP36uzz7mn8GG-sxDM/edit?hl=en&authkey=CO-n3oEN
>
> Regards. =ppy
> --
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Michael F Uschold <uschold@xxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 4:57 PM
> Subject: [ontology-summit-org] Communique: Take 4 (revised draft)
> To: John Bateman <bateman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "John F. Sowa"
> <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Mills Davis <mdavis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Ontology Summit <ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Ontology
> Summit 2011 Organizing Committee
> <ontology-summit-org@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
>
> Communique: Take 4
> I took into account all the suggestions that I received that I am
> aware of. If I missed any important ones, please let me know.
> The main differences between this one and the last:
>
> tidied up all the loose ends, overall much more polished (i hope).
> i changed the tone from being chatty to a bit more formal and authoritative
> added editorial remarks like last years communique
> re-arranged the structure of the document a bit with new titles
> significantly enhanced with new material, mostly elaborating on things
> already mentinoed.
>
> added something about inference
> added something about broader semantic technology and knowledge technology
> did not talk about tracks per se, but rather focus areas
> added a summary at the front
> i greatly expanded the four themes into a whole section with many more quotes.
> i re- wrote the conclusion
>
> Took out all the junk
> I removed names of individual summit participants, per conventions
> from prior years
> it is just over 7 pages now, but there are wide margins and large
> fonts. It could easily be shrunk to 5 or 6 if we want. I can also
> remove material,if it is not tight enough.
>
> FEEDBACK is specifically requested in these areas:
>
> Typos and style
> Did I mess up anything in terms of flow?
> Is it too long now? If so, what should I chop? Better to whet their
> appetite and have them wanting more than giving them too much. E.g. I
> could easily remove a number of the quotes.
> How should we list the authors? (for organizing committee only?)
>
> Michael
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 7:08 PM, Michael F Uschold <uschold@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Nicola,
>> Thanks for thoughtful comments. I can easily remove some of those sound
>> bites, if they are confusing. Better to leave in just those that are easy to
>> agree with.
>> BTW< there is a new version now - in the same google doc as before. IT is
>> called "... take 4" now.  You can see a separate message on that.
>> I took your first round of comments into account, I added the contact fine
>> print quote.
>> I have adobe 10.0.1 and it is quite slow and painful to process comments.
>>  Should not be this way - sigh.
>> Michael
>
>
>> On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 7:54 AM, Nicola Guarino <nicolguar@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Folks,
>>>
>>>        please find some more comments attached, produced during my
>>> flight... (I hope the annotated pdf file is readable - produced with Preview
>>> on a Mac)
>>>
>>> Besides minor things, my most relevant comments concern some of the "sound
>>> bites":
>>>
>>> 1. Ontology as a new paradigm -
>>> "Ontology does for machines what the World Wide Web did for people." Steve
>>> Ray
>>>
>>> This is interesting, but I suspect it is very ambiguous...
>>> I see there is a sense according to which this statement might be true (I
>>> don't know if this is what you have in mind, Steve):
>>>
>>> - the Web allows people to access to (almost) all the data they need,
>>> which however need still to be interpreted by people to become useful
>>> information.
>>> - Ontologies help machines, so to speak, to get the data they need,
>>> extracting them from the Web...
>>>
>>> But I am not conviced, altogether. In my opinion, the message should be
>>> that, first of all, ontologies are for people (and indeed we do convey such
>>> message in the rest of the communiqué). From the machines point of view,
>>> ontologies ultimately rely on primitives which make no sense as such (unless
>>> machines are able to ground them on perception, but this is a research
>>> issue). To me, ontologies are there to help people (who are using machines)
>>> to understand each other, by making explicit (to people) the hidden
>>> assumptions made by the programmers of such machines .
>>>
>>> Maybe the viceversa holds: ontology does for people what the world wide
>>> does for machines:
>>>
>>> - through shared Web services, machines are able to use each other's data;
>>> - through shared ontologies, people are able to use each other's data
>>> (possibly with the mediation of machines)...
>>>
>>> 2. Ontology as a way of clarifying meaning -
>>> “The secret to making a good movie is getting everyone to make the same
>>> movie." So it is with enterprises and that's what ontologies do.'  Jack Ring
>>>
>>> Again, this risks to be interpreted in a dangerous way, as people may come
>>> to the conclusion that ontologists want to force "everyone to make the same
>>> movie". Sure, adopting the same ontology is like playing in the same movie,
>>> but ontologies can do more, namely letting people understand whether or not
>>> they are playing the same movie, and if not, why not... Moreover, they can
>>> help establish comparisons and mapping across multiple movies...
>>>
>>> Perhaps the following sound bite can help understanding the role of
>>> ontologies to clarify meaning (I think Peter put it on the wiki somewhere):
>>>
>>> An ontology is like a contract's fine print, one of those things which
>>> require a very precise technical jargon, which you might ignore in many
>>> cases, but which can save your business in critical situations...
>>>
>>> 3. Ontology as a way to improve agility and flexibility -
>>> “There are three main things that ontologies are good for: flexibility,
>>> flexibility and flexibility” Michael Uschold
>>>
>>> I think this flexibility point should be expanded, as clearly flexibility
>>>  might be intended in many different ways. In which sense does ontology
>>> increase flexibility? To me, the answers are: 1) it detaches signs from
>>> their meanings; 2) it helps recognizing each aspect of the domain as a
>>> "first class citizen", to which you can attach information independently of
>>> the rest....
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Nicola
>
>
>>> On 15 Apr 2011, at 16:25, Michael F Uschold wrote:
>>>
>>> > Everyone,
>>> >
>>> > Please use this email thread for all feedback on the communique.
>>> >  Anything submitted elsewhere risks not being addressed.  If you have
>>> > already submitted feedback, I will greatly appreciate if you can take a
>>> > moment and re-send it on this thread using the subject.
>>> >
>>> > Many thanks.
>>> >
>>> > DETAILS:
>>> >
>>> > There is now a snapshot of the draft Communique on the wiki for public
>>> > review and comment.
>>> >
>>> > See:
>>> > http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OntologySummit2011_Communique/Draft
>>> >
>>> > The evolving draft Communique is
>>> > at:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z1oyuFxRfhJrzaEcORPT5hWfQqP36uzz7mn8GG-sxDM/edit?hl=en&authkey=CO-n3oEN
>>> >
>>> > Please refer to the process described in:
>>> > http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontology-summit/2011-04/msg00092.html to
>>> > progress this document to its final release.
>>> >
>>> > Michael
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> > Michael Uschold, PhD
>>> >  Senior Ontology Consultant, Semantic Arts
>>> >  LinkedIn: http://tr.im/limfu
>>> >  Skype, Twitter: UscholdM
>
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