[topicmapmail] Regarding Facets

[Murray Altheim]

Thomas B. Passin wrote:
> [Murray Altheim]
[...]
>>While an interesting approach, this is really overloading the idea
>>of topic occurrences, since in your suggestion the facets aren't
>>really occurrences of the given topic but facets (properties) of
>>it. But since this kind of hack is simple and likely a proprietary
>>usage, I don't doubt for a minute people haven't or wouldn't do it.
>>
>>As Steve Pepper added, the more semantically correct way is to do
>>this is to treat the information resource as a topic (not using the
>>original topic) and associating it to the original as a facet, i.e,.
>>asserting it as an instance of a facet. 
> 
> Steve says (is this what you were referring to?)
> 
> "The reason to eliminate facets was, as I said before, because they were
> deemed to be superfluous. They were for attaching metadata to information
> resources. That can now be done by regarding the information resource as
> an (addressable) subject in its own right, creating a topic for it, and
> assigning various kinds of characteristics to that topic."
> 
> "Attaching metadata to information resources"... hmm, that sounds very much
> like assigning property values to topics (a topic that represents an
> information resource, that is) , at least to me.  ALso, the XTM Spec says
> 
> " An occurrence is any information that is specified as being relevant to a
> given subject "
> 
> I understand that sentence as sanctioning the use of occurrences to hold
> property values.  How do you understand it that is much different?

He is explicitly sanctioning the idea of "regarding the information
resource" (the property value) as a topic in its own right, then
associating *that* with the original topic. Perhaps I was unclear
in trying to state that one wouldn't put the facet value within
the originating topic, but in a topic of its own, then associating
that "faceting topic" with the original.

I hope that is clearer.

Murray

......................................................................
Murray Altheim                  <http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/>
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK

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