[topicmapmail] PSIs - alternatives

[Conal Tuohy]

Simon Grant wrote:

> Thirdly, there is the question of how does one *in practice* 
> distinguish between individuals. Of course we have to use properties 
> related to the individual. But I'm happy to admit (though repeating 
> myself) that no set of those properties is guaranteed to be effective 
> for identification. Surely it's more fluid than that. If someone 
> questions the validity of one set, we can move on to something else, 
> until they are satisfied (or give up).

I agree (I think) - it is important to have a range of data available on
any individual, to provide some degree of error-correction.

For practical purposes, if you're talking about individual humans and
organisations, there's considerable relevant literature in library
science on "Authority Work". See for instance the International Council
on Archives standard: http://www.ica.org/biblio/ISAAR2EN.pdf

Following up on your earlier email with your birthdate etc, and the idea
of "bare" PSIs (which I took to mean empty identifiers) - I don't think
I understand. I think it's crucial that a descriptive resource contain
SOME information. What does a "bare" PSI resolve to? What does the
indicating resource look like? If it were empty, then what would I have
gained by publishing such a PSI? At best it serves as a persistent
identifier, but it fails to indicate what it identifies. Why would
anyone use a "bare" PSI - only because they'd seen it used in context,
inside some topic map or other. But which topic map uses it correctly?
How could you tell? You'd need to browse those maps and verify the
assertions they make, etc, hence using "bare" PSIs has only put the
problem off, not avoided it.

What information is necessary to individuate the subject will depend on
the context in which the subject is situated. Taking you as an example,
there must be many more people called "Simon Grant" out there, so your
name isn't sufficient to identify you globally. Dates of birth are not
usually controversial, but they aren't normally very public features
(you don't have it tattooed on your forehead, at least not according to
the photo on your website), and if different parties don't know your
date of birth or get your date of birth wrong then yes, they may make
the mistake of thinking you are multiple individuals. Better to rely on
some identifying information which is more germane to people's interest
in you. What I mean is, if your birthdate was actually of interest in
itself (as it would be in an astrological community), then one would
expect that the community would take more care to get the date right. In
this community, by contrast, it would be more useful for a PRD to
identify you with respect to www.simongrant.org or with respect to your
employment, publications, etc. 

Cheers

Con