[topicmapmail] what I mean by "context" and "bottom-up"

[Bernard VATANT]

Martin

There is pretty much to consider in your last post, showing that the
problem is much less straightforward than I thought to begin with.

It leaves me with new questions about the human aspect of the cooReso
project, let alone the technical viewpoint. Assuming there is no clear
coincidence between a context and a community, however we define both of
them - and I surrender under your strong arguments on that point - then who
is to be responsible and competent enough for setting ontology in a
definite context ? And BTW who is bound to define contexts and give
responsibilities or validate competences to begin with ?
The answers to these questions if any, are not technical, but juridical,
not to say political.
Don't forget the aim is to build a cooperative, wide-range, public
web-index.

The only reference for that matter, as far as I know, is dmoz. And it's
quite clear that dmoz  has not given
satisfactory answers to these questions : dmoz editors are more or less
"auto-declared experts". They volunteer to edit a category, and are
accepted or not on the basis of a short CV,
capacity to add two or three relevant URLs to the database, and write for
them a relevant description respecting spelling and typographic rules. The
range of their activity can quickly extend to wider categories when they
have proven able to follow guidelines. I became myself, after barely a
month of editing in
World/Français/Sciences/Astronomie, editor in World/Français/Sciences and
in Science/Astronomy, then in World/Français, meaning I could add resources
and create new categories in fields in which I barely knew anything. For
all these "promotions", I had to justify of no more competence than to
begin with.
Just asked, and was accorded the privilege, never knew on what ground nor
by whom anyway,
filled a form and two days after my login field was extended  ...

In dmoz, I heard often "we've done this" or "we should do that" ... but
never could figure who were "we", given all the previous considerations.
You have as I understand a long-standing experience in building and
implementing ontologies in quite different contexts. So when you say  "we
have to ..." "we need to ..." you know what you mean, I suppose, by "we"
...

Honestly, who do you design by "we" ? What community ;-) ?

Bernard VATANT
b.vatant@wanadoo.fr
www.universimmedia.com