Re: SUO: RE: SUO E-mail Ballot -- Please Acknowledge receipt
Chris,
Ian has tried several times to explain, as best he can, what the his
development process is. How would you describe writing a novel? Or
producing a UML design? There is no cookbook procedure to developing a
large ontology. We're doing our best to create (as well as explain)
something that to our knowledge has only been done once before on this
large a scale. It should not be a mystery that it is difficult to
explain. The best explanation should be in reviewing the different
versions of the SUMO, and comparing them with the sources that have been
cited in the comments on each version. A new version has been posted
publicly at least every two months, and often at an interval of a
week. Ian has also cited on many occasions changes that he's made between
versions, as well as alerting the list to areas he plans to work on. If
you don't like the product, that's one thing, but please don't impugn the
openness or intent of the process employed.
Adam
At 09:46 AM 7/20/2001 +0200, Chris Partridge wrote:
>Jim,
>
>1) You asked for acknowledgement - so here it is.
>
>2)I am a little confused by the question.
>
>Ian Niles wrote - "I'd like to repropose the SUMO as a starter document for
>the SUO
>Working Group."
>
>I read the 'a' as suggesting that this is one of potentially many
>documents - in the process that has been agreed a number of times.
>
>Admittedly he then later wrote - "First, I am proposing version 1.15 (the
>latest version) of the SUMO as the starter document." And here the 'the'
>could be interpreted as suggesting that this excludes all other proposals.
>
>I am not clear from the wording of the question whether we are excluding
>other proposals. It would help me to understand this if it was made clearer.
>
>A further point.
>You submitted a mail saying that we were in a discussion period on 17/7 (3
>days ago) and now we are being asked to vote. Is there a rule saying that
>only three days are allowed for discussion - I could have easily missed it.
>The reason I raise this is that Lee raised a useful question on the
>methodology of progressing. The merging process seems to be shrouded in
>mystery - and as far as I (and others) can divine done at a coding level
>deliberately avoiding the kind of issues Lee raised. This seems to me
>unsatisfactory - and maybe relevant to whether we should accept Ian's SUMO -
>in that in doing so we condone this kind of approach. Surely there needs to
>be time to discuss the point Lee raised before we vote.
>
>I do realise that it is important to make progress - but progress is not
>necessarily measured just in terms of voting to accept documents - their
>contents and how they produced is also relevant.
>
>Regards
>Chris
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: James.Schoening@mail1.monmouth.army.mil
>[mailto:James.Schoening@mail1.monmouth.army.mil]
>Sent: 20 July 2001 05:31
>To: 'matthew.r.west@is.shell.com '; 'shams@pnu.ac.ir ';
>'michael.f.uschold@boeing.com '; 'mcdavid@us.ibm.com ';
>'rekent@ontologos.org '; 'phil.jackson@computer.org ';
>'cassidy@micra.com '; 'zarri@ivry.cnrs.fr '; 'phayes@ai.uwf.edu ';
>Schoening, James R CECOM DCSC4I; 'Graham.Horn@aihw.gov.au ';
>'fgm@fla.fujitsu.com '; 'martin_king@uk.ibm.com '; 'sofia@gia.ist.utl.pt
>'; 'fnc@mitre.org '; 'chris.angus@kalido.com '; 'tmk@lsc.co.uk ';
>'john.r.velman@boeing.com '; 'iniles@teknowledge.com ';
>'tinwisle@bloomington.in.us '; 'piph@erols.com '; 'jawbrey@oakland.edu
>'; 'kath@umod.kiev.ua '; 'jdickert@dtic.mil '; 'jtonkel@earthlink.net ';
>'chris_partridge@csi.com '; 'frank@farance.com '; 'bordogna@tin.it ';
>'stborgo@indiana.edu '; 'jhalcomb@teknowledge.com ';
>'miz@ei.sanken.osaka-u.ac.jp '; 'werner@landc.be ';
>'gangemi@itbm.rm.cnr.it '; 'skydog@pacbell.net '; 'lee@textwise.com ';
>'apease@teknowledge.com '; 'Nicola.Guarino@ladseb.pd.cnr.it ';
>'wburkett@pdit.com '
>Subject: SUO E-mail Ballot -- Please Acknowledge receipt
>
>
>ATTN Voting Members of SUO WG,
>
>1. Please immediately acknowledge receipt of this email letter ballot. If I
>do not receive within 3-days, I will contact you again. We want to make
>sure all voting members receive this ballot. The wording of this ballot was
>developed and reviewed by the SUO Policies & Procedures Subgroup.
>
>2. This message is to Ballot the question :
>
> "Should the IEEE P1600.1 Standard Upper Ontology Working Group
>commence work on the Suggested Upper Merged Ontology (SUMO) version 1.15
>[June 22, 2001] posted at http://suo.ieee.org/Merge.txt, with the intent of
>developing it into the final SUO document?
> Note 1: See background information below for more details.
> Note 2: This may be one of several candidate documents to be
>combined and aligned into the final SUO document via the consensus building
>process."
>
>3. By 15 Aug '01, please vote YES (comments optional), NO (comments
>required), or ABSTAIN (comments optional). Please send your votes and
>comments directly to me, but you are also free to post to the SUO list and
>openly discuss this topic.
>
>4. This vote will pass if it receives a majority of YES vs. NO votes.
>ABSTAINS and non-votes are not counted in determining majority. The Chair
>may vote to make or break a tie. As all voting members will have received
>and acknowledge receipt of this ballot and will therefore have an
>opportunity to vote, there will be no quorum of votes required for this
>motion to be determined.
>
>5. Non-voting participants are welcome to express opinions and submit
>comments.
>
>6. Background:
>
> a. The purpose of this vote is to determine the level of consensus
>we have for focusing work on this document. In other words, we need to
>decide if we are going to go down this path or not. A working group may
>decide to work on more than one document.
>
> b. The primary purpose of this vote is NOT to propose improvements
>to the document, unless they are major enough for you to vote against
>focusing work on this document. However, such general improvement comments
>are welcome and will be resolved (but not unless and until the vote passes,
>since there would be no sense resolving comments if the group does not want
>to proceed
>with this document.
>
> c. If this vote passes, this document will change from being the
>work (and under the control) of a group of individuals to being the work
>(and under the control) of the SUO WG. A Technical Editor will be appointed
>or elected, who will incorporate WG-approved changes into the document.
>This does not require frequent formal votes for every change. A better
>approach
>for daily or weekly updates is to develop consensus by resolving objections,
>as we did
>when revising the Scope and Purpose. In other words, (1) the Technical
>Editor leads the discussion by processing the issues and suggestions; (2)the
>issues/suggestions identify proposed additions, changes, or deletions to the
>wording in the document; (3) the Technical Editor asks the WG for any
>objections. Items that do not have clear consensus would be accumulated for
>later, more formal processing, i.e., the proposer of the issue/suggestion is
>responsible for making a formal proposal (with a WG vote) for the proposed
>change.
>
>Jim Schoening
>Chair, SUO WG
Adam Pease
Teknowledge
(650) 424-0500 x571