SUO: Re: Inquiry Driven Ontology Development
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Schoening, James R CECOM DCSC4I wrote:
>
> Jon,
>
> The mission and charter of this group and this list is not education, ...
I tried to say this in a nice way -- that's what I get for being subtle --
many of the active members in this group, the SUMO champions especially,
are simply not qualified even to comment on many of the content domains
that they vaunt to axiomatize, much less to dictate ontology to content
experts -- they are making all of the worst mistakes of the older work
in "expert systems", with no recognition of the lessons learned in the
earlier efforts. The most that we can hope to achieve is to furnish
ontology building tools to experts that are easy enough to use that
they can build, analyze, and rebuild their own ontologies. Aside
from that it would require a considerable educational effort for
this working group to gain an even passing acquaintance with
the fields that they would seek to serve. But we cannot do
that if we continue to exile anybody who actually knows
anything. The opinion was expressed once that if I
would just go away then expert contributions would
rush to fill the vacuum, so I did the experiment,
and I'm afraid that the hypothesis was deflated.
> not professional development, not research, ...
Several other "respectable" members of this working group have expressed
the opinion that a moderate amount of research effort will be necessary
to achieve its goals. I believe that this is obvious to anybody who
is not in rush to get their Grammy this year.
> and not general ontology analysis. This group is attempting to work
> on two specific documents, plus we have adminstrative work to do.
I think that many members of the group would be astounded to hear that
they are only allowed to comment on the IFF and the SUMO documents,
which I am guessing is why you only seem to make this assertion
in off-list remarks to me, hardly expecting to enforce it as
a general rule. Since I consider this working group to be
carrying on public and scientific business, neither of
which can work except in the open and completely above
board, I consider this group to be operating under the
moral equivalent of an "open meetings act", and I will
have to continue responding on-list. Furthermore,
my personal sense of the situation is that one
of the reasons why the SUMO document received
such weak and ambivalent support is just this
impression that people have that its champions
would use any additional status to limit further
debate to within the baffles of their own agenda.
> Unless your postings directly relate to the work of this
> group, you are being asked to not post it to this list.
>
> Let's take some specific examples, I'll respond
> to the other message you posted, asking you to
> explain how it relates to SUO work.
I am happy that you have finally decided
to start reading first and shooting later.
Jon Awbrey
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